How to Become a MASTER Closer with Cole Gordon: An EOFire Classic from 2022

0:02John Lee Dumas:Who's ready to rock today, Fire Nation? JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire, brought to you by High Level, the all-in-one sales and marketing platform. On today's classic episode, we'll be breaking down how to become a master closer. To drop these via bonsai, I brought to Cole Gordon and EO Fire Studios. Cole is the founder of closers.io, an eight-figure sales trainer who scaled his own team to$2.5 million a month in two years and now helps others achieve similar results. And today we talk about the seven reasons a prospect will buy. It's pain, it's doubt, cost, desire, money, support, and trust, and how high-ticket closing is lucrative because it solves problems where money exchanges hands and oh, so much more.

0:42John Lee Dumas:And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Cole and our sponsors. Stop duct taping your business together. High Level runs your website, your funnels, email, automation, scheduling, payments, and memberships all in one place. And when you sign up at highlevelfire.com. You get a 30-day free trial plus my exclusive bonus stack that includes weekly office hours with me and much more. Visit highlevelfire.com, highlevelfire.com. Fire Nation, are you ready to build something special in the next 50 days? Check out my free YouTube series, 50 Days to Something, short and strategic step-by-step videos by me, JLD.

1:21John Lee Dumas:On day 50, you'll have a valuable asset. And the best part is it's completely free. Visit eofire.com slash YouTube and start day one today. Cole, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with. What is going on? Well, I would say one of the things that I think you should do to become successful that most people disagree with, number one, get a job first. Okay. And let me explain. So find an industry that you're really passionate about, find a company that you can look up to in that industry or a company that's really kind of on a rocket ship level growth curve in that industry, but get in right sort of during the startup to post startup phase, but before the company's at maturation and find a way to provide massive value and build really a lucrative skill as you're with that company.

2:16Right. So for me, and this may be what we're going to go into, but for me, I found a company in the alternative education industry that was helping coaches grow their business. And I came in at a good level and really developed the skill of sales, developed the skill of building outbound teams, building sales teams, which is really what created my entire business today. But I would have never really had that opportunity to go as deep as I could with that skill if I had not really punted the whole become a business owner thing and took three or four years to work as a full-time employee developing that skill.

2:49But when I left, because I had that skill, I was able to solve big problems in the marketplace. And when you solve problems, it creates value. People exchange money for the value, which is why our business took off like it did.

3:00John Lee Dumas:Fire Nation, there's a reason why there used to be a long, like seven-year-plus apprenticeship method way back in the day, because that's how you build skills. That's how you put in the reps. That's how you learn from people who are currently where you want to be. and Fire Nation, today we're talking about how to become a master at closing your clients. And we're going to be going through the seven beliefs that prospects need to have before they click that buy button. So Cole, let's go through those now. So there's seven beliefs the prospect has to have to buy. And just for context, essentially how I came up with these is when I got into sales, right?

3:39When I first went in and got a job, I was the worst salesperson probably in existence. So I just was, I went one for 30 in my first 30 calls. And I got to the point where the sales manager sat me down and was like, you know, paraphrasing this, but basically like, you got to figure this out and you got to go. So what happened was I was listening to all of these closers calls who were also my team who were way better than I was at the time. They had experience selling solar, they'd experience selling door to door. They were just way better than I was. And what I expected to see or hear when I was watching or listening to their calls, is I expected to hear this jujitsu objection handling, high pressure closing, you know, all this stuff, right?

4:20And what was really perplexing is at first, you know, I just thought they had better leads because they were never getting objections whatsoever. And then as I went deeper and deeper and deeper and realized, no, they're not getting better leads. It's all the same leads. What I realized is that they're not really doing objection handling. They're doing objection prevention. And so then I started to ask myself the question of like, well, what are they doing on the beginning of the call or during the call that's eliminating objections before the close. And what I discovered is there's seven reasons why the prospect may or may not buy.

4:50Okay. And essentially any objection that you can get ties back to one of these seven reasons. And from that, I really created the seven beliefs that the prospect needs to have to buy. And this is what really allowed me to go from pretty much the worst salesperson on the team to being the best salesperson on that team. And then eventually leaving that being the best salesperson on another team and another team until really now I'm probably recognized in the alternative education industry as the top sales trainer in the industry. So essentially, what are the seven beliefs? Okay. There's pain, doubt, cause, desire, money, support, trust.

5:21So pain is essentially that they have a gap from where they are now to where they want to be. And there's two types of pain. There's a problem and an unfulfilled desire. So a problem is let's say they have back pain. Okay. That's a problem. Let's say your doctor tells you that you need to lose weight or you're not going to be able from metaparadine. Unfulfilled desire, let's go with the weight loss sample again. An unfulfilled desire is maybe somebody who's at 9 % body fat, wants to get to 6 % so they can win a bodybuilding competition and compete, et cetera, et cetera, right? That is more towards metaparadine.

5:57And they don't really have a pressing problem, but they do have an unfulfilled desire and that's still a gap. So we need to identify first, what is the pain? That could be a problem or an unfulfilled desire. Then we have to establish doubt, which is the second belief. Doubt is any reason why they just don't want to do that on their own. Okay. Maybe they're not able to do it on their own. Like if you saw a software, doubt is always going to be there because they're probably just not going to develop the software themselves. Right. So doubt is the reason they're not going to DIY do it themselves.

6:28Now, if you sell coaching, this is a lot more important, which is what my background is, which is much harder than software. So with doubt, you have to get them to believe that it would take unnecessary resources in the form of time, money, energy, reputation, etc., than just the resources required of buying your offer, right? So it's a much more efficient, faster, more effective path just to go with what you're selling, right? That's where the doubt is established. It doesn't necessarily mean that they have to admit that they, oh, I can't do this on my own. It's just that that makes sense to not do it on their own, right?

7:01It makes sense to take a proven pathway, get where they're faster, follow somebody who's done it, et cetera. That's the second belief. So we did pain, then we did doubt. Doubt is the inability to fix the pain on their own. The third belief is cost. And cost is essentially that there is a belief that the consequences of not fixing the pain are going to be greater than the consequences of investing in whatever you're selling, right? So the consequences in time, energy, money, reputation, et cetera, are greater over time of not fixing the pain than the consequences and the pain associated with investing in the offer.

7:36Because there is pain associated with investing in what you're selling, right? There's obviously the money that they're going to have to spend. But even more importantly, a lot of times when you get to more sophisticated buyers, there is reputation involved, right? Maybe you're trying to get somebody who's going to be an affiliate and promote your product, right? They're putting the reputation on the line. There's also essentially pain in the form of the time commitment and the bandwidth it's going to take to implement what you're selling sometimes. So cost means the consequences have to be above a certain threshold of not fixing the pain more so than the consequences of investing your offer.

8:10Hopefully that makes sense. This is the typical like what's going to happen if nothing changes. This is why at UPW, for instance, Tony Robbins takes people through the Dickens pattern because he's getting them linked up to what's going to happen if nothing changes. And he's helping bring all that cost to the forefront so that they can make a change. The fourth belief is desire. So we did pained out cost. Then we have desire. Desire is the compelling payoff to fix the problem. Now, it's not enough to just establish what the pain is. You have to establish also where they're going. So Robert Cialdini, he talks about a famous study in one of his books, Yes, to where there was two different advertisements.

8:49And this is before COVID. So, you know, nobody get all COVID crazy with this. But this is way before COVID. And there was two different advertisements. One was like you need to get the vaccine or some sort of pain or cost is going to happen. Or sorry. One was if you have this disease, some sort of pain or cost is going to happen. And the other one was, if you have this disease, this pain or cost is going to happen. So you need to make sure you get the vaccine at this place. Now, as you can imagine, the second one that actually recommended, you know, not only associated them with the pain, but also what to do next, it wildly outperformed the first one.

9:24And so one of the conclusions Cialdini made from that study is essentially that you can't just have somebody associated with what they're going away from. They're much more prone to take action if they're also associated with what they're going towards. if that makes sense. Okay. So they need a dual association. Otherwise, what he found is people just have paralysis by analysis. So desire is the fourth belief. The fifth belief is money. Okay. They have to have the resources and willingness to fix the problem. So resources is like, do they actually physically have the resources? That's actually logistic.

9:55You know, if you're something, something that's 50 grand, but the person has$500 in their bank account and a$400 or a 400 point credit score, they're probably not going to get the 50 grand, right? Logistically, they don't have the resources. Willingness is very different. Willingness means they do have the resources, but they're not willing. So for instance, I used to coach a dating coach in sales, and he was selling an attorney making a quarter million dollars a year on how to fix his love life. Well, here's the deal. The guy had the money to do the 5K program to fix his love life, but he wasn't willing.

10:24To him, fixing his love life wasn't worth five grand, right? So willingness this actually ties back and is really a surface level thing of cost, right? Which is why we want to establish that first. The next belief is support. That means the people around them, close to them or stakeholders in the decision, support them in fixing the problem or in fixing the pain. Okay. So this could be your typical spouse, your business partner, but it also could be somebody above you like the board or the chair or your boss. It can also be somebody below you because maybe you're buying something, but you're not going to be the one implementing it.

10:57It's going to be your team implementing it. So in that case, you have to get your team's buy-in so that you can have that belief that you can move forward and fix the problem. The last one is trust, and that is trust in the method of fixing the problem. So here's the example I always use for this. When you watch Russell Brunson sell from stage, he doesn't try to convince you that ClickFunnels is the best software you should use ClickFunnels. What he tries to convince you of is that funnels is the best method of getting customers online. It's the most effective, fastest, best method of getting customers online.

11:28Because if he can get you to believe in the method, you're going to buy ClickFunnels as a byproduct of that belief, right? So with all offers, there's two sales you're making on the phone. There's the sale on the method and the sale on the product. And the first sale you have to make is the method. And that's where the majority of what you do should spend your time. And the way you make that is you make your pitch of what you're selling, the simultaneous explanation of why everything they tried in the past has failed and why this is going to be different. So the greatest example of this, asides from Russell's thing, is the ketogenic diet.

12:01If you read a good direct response sales letter of the ketogenic diet, essentially it's going to talk about how the real reason you haven't been able to lose fat is because of insulin resistance, which is the problem-based mechanism. so instead what we're going to do is get you in a state of ketosis which is the solution-based mechanism so that you can ultimately lose weight and then you know eventually keep it off la da da right so by the nature of reading that sales letter about insulin resistance and ketosis and all of that different type of stuff what you're going to understand is the reason why you haven't been able to get the result in the past and why this is going to be different and i'm not you recommending a ketogenic diet, but that is how they sell it.

12:40And so with your solutions and how you explain what you're doing over the phone, you need to make it so it's the simultaneous explanation of why everything they tried in the past has failed and why this is going to be different. That is so key. And that is the seventh belief. Now, here's the most important thing. What belief is the most important? It's pain, right? Because if you hadn't noticed, pain is obviously the problem or the unfulfilled desire. Then doubt is the inability to fix the pain. Cost is the consequences of not fixing the pain. Desire is the compelling payoff of fixing the pain.

13:14Money is the resources and willingness to fix the pain. Support is people around them, close to them will support them in fixing the pain. Trust is the trust in the method to fix the pain. So if there's no pain, you can not get the other six beliefs. That is why pain is the most important thing and the very, very first thing we need to establish when we're on the sales call. We need to find why are we here? What is the gap? And once we find that, the entire conversation, the entire container of the conversation is predicated on fixing that pain. So you have to have that first.

13:49John Lee Dumas:Fire Nation, I hope you're really taking in all of these steps and all these beliefs here. And again, it really circles back to just what Cole said, pain. Are you starting with the pain? They have a problem, an unfulfilled desire, doubt, why they shouldn't DIY themselves, cost, the consequences of not fixing the pain. They're greater than what the cost is. Desire, the compelling payoff to fix the problem, the money, the willingness, the client needs to have the resources and the desire, the support, are the friends and family around them there, the trust, trusting the method, keyword, the method.

14:23John Lee Dumas:And we're going to be talking about this Fire Nation and more when we get back from thanking our sponsors. Fire Nation, ideas are exciting, but systems will allow you to create freedom. That is where High Level comes in. High Level allows you to build and run your entire business from one platform. Website builder and hosting, funnel and landing pages, email marketing, automation and workflows, calendar booking, payments and subscriptions, even course and membership hosting. Everything works together seamlessly. Plus, award-winning 24-7 support so you are never stuck. And when you go through my link at highlevelfire.com, you unlock my full bonus stack, a 30-day free trial of High Level with full access, a private 50-minute coaching call with me, weekly live office hours with me, a digital copy of my book, The Common Path to Uncommon Success, my 50 days to something execution roadmap, and more.

15:15John Lee Dumas:Stop piecing tools together. Start building momentum. Visit highlevelfire.com and start building your something today. Fire Nation, are you ready to create something special in just 50 days? If you just thought yes, then check out my free YouTube series, 50 Days to Something. Every video is short, clear, and built to move you forward one intentional step at a time. Clarity, offer, validation systems, momentum. By day 50, you are not working on something. You have built something, something to be proud of. And this is completely free on my YouTube channel right now. If you're done letting weeks just drift on by, visit eofire.com slash YouTube.

15:59John Lee Dumas:That's eofire.com slash YouTube and press play on day one. 50 days will pass in the blink of an eye. The only question is whether you'll still be thinking or finally building something special. Cole, we're back. And man, going through those seven belief prospects was pretty awesome because now I I think people can really understand what it takes to take a prospect, a client, a potential customer through a system, should I even call it maybe a method that could be successful. And you have a four-step process to become a baller closer. We're talking calibrate, source, ramp, ascent. Let's talk about that now.

16:40Okay, great. So this is more for somebody who wants to get into high ticket sales as a full-time profession, right? So we recommend with our students, we have a certification program that teaches this. So they follow four steps. The first one we call calibrate. So essentially, in a way, sales is sales is sales. However, I think anybody would agree there's nuances between industries, right? When you try to sell whole life insurance the same way you would try to sell high-end luxury real estate, of course not. So the very first thing that we teach students how to do is essentially attune and learn the specific nuances and language and et cetera of this industry.

17:15So that is the first step is understanding essentially that whole sales process that I went over with the seven beliefs, understanding how it applies a different type of B2C and B2B offers, etc. The second step is source. And so the way I like to explain this one is if you were getting into sales as a real estate agent, would you make more money selling high end luxury real estate or would you make more money selling class D real estate by the hood? Obviously, high end luxury real estate. So the reason for that is that those are two different opportunity vehicles, right? Like Warren Buffett says, it's not always how hard you row.

17:49It matters more what boat that you're in. So the same way there's different opportunity vehicles or different opportunity, or sorry, boats in business, which is what Warren's referring to, it's the same thing in sales. And right, it's the same thing in real estate, right? So it is also the same thing in alternative education sales. So there's certain offers out there that are really, really good. and there's certain ones to where you want to avoid at all costs. And so a great example of this is the very first thing I started off, I was, you know, doing full-time sales and I was probably making 10K a month, you know, a lot of times like 8K a month tops.

18:24And that was, you know, pretty much the best anybody was doing on the team. Then I went somewhere else and immediately was making like 14 grand a month pays, right? And so that was after a year spending a lot of time at that first position. The second one, immediately, without any increase in skills, I was making more money. So, you know, did I increase, you know, if my income went up 50 % in 30 days, was it because my skills got better? No, I was just driving a faster vehicle. And then I did a short stint at that position and went to my final place I was at in my sales career. And that was essentially, I almost tripled my income there.

18:59So again, did I get three times better in 30 days? No, I just was again, in a faster opportunity vehicle. So essentially what we show our folks is the different criteria that business owners need to have so that they can sell for them. So they're making sure they're getting in a good offer in the alternative education industry specifically. And then the next step after that is ramp, right? So it's not enough to just get the position. You actually have to acclimate to the offer, get within KPI, and preferably become the best person on your team, which, believe it or not, is actually not that hard in high ticket closing because so many people do it as like some sort of side thing or some sort of like just to get by, just to pay the bills.

19:39If you really make it like your fire, your passion and something that's like your purpose, you will just become so much better than everybody else if you truly work at it. And so the next thing we teach our guys is the ramp, right? So we teach them the beginning of day, middle of day, end of day process as a sales rep, how to do actually the prospecting, how to do the actual closing. One of the biggest opportunities for high ticket sales reps that people don't capitalize on is actually self-generating their own leads and also working their own pipeline. That is how you can get results that some closers are never going to get if they solely rely off the inbound leads provided from the business owner.

20:14And the fourth step is ascension. And so the reason we call it ascension is it's really the next step of being a high ticket closer. And so this is where you become what's called a sales integrator. So the reason why high ticket closing is such a lucrative role is because it's fixing a problem of exactly where the money is exchanging hands and it's doing it to where the business owner is going to get all their time back to where they don't have to do it themselves. Well, what happens is once they get a few closers in place, sure, they don't have to take the sales calls, but the only thing they don't want to do more than the sales calls is actually manage a sales team.

20:45So the business owner kind of goes from being a full-time salesperson for their business to being a full-time call center manager of their business. And they don't like that either. So there's a huge opportunity if you could rise to become the best closer and show leadership potential. There's a massive opportunity. and a lot of our students ascend to really becoming the sales manager or sales integrator, as I like to call it, which is where you can not take calls, but be tied to a percentage of revenue or tied to a percentage of profit and make$20 ,000,$30 ,000,$40 ,000 a month, if not more. In fact, one of my sales integrators on my team has cleared$80 ,000 a month in a single month.

21:17So it's a true way where by focusing on one skill opposed to the dozens and dozens of different skills you need to focus on as a business owner, you can really create life-changing wealth.

21:26John Lee Dumas:Fire Nation, if your eyes didn't open during those seven beliefs prospects, and if you aren't getting fired up going through this four-step process to become a baller closer, you need to check your pulse because this is what can take you to that next level. And luckily for Fire Nation, Cole, you have a certification program where anyone who wants can take the next step. Tell us more. yeah so i mean if you guys go to closers.io slash eof so closers.io slash eof you can find out a little bit more about it but essentially what this is geared around is either taking a regular salesperson even somebody with no experience whatsoever and essentially equipping them and certifying them with the skill of high ticket sales and that's not just going through a training program watching some videos and saying okay now i know how to close there's actual intensive role play, coaching, one-on-one elements to this before you can go out there.

22:19And then after that, you can get access to our private Rolodex of 700 plus clients that we've worked with over the past couple of years. And we can actually teach you how to go out there and find a contract really easily. If you are good and if you have the skill, it is very, very easy to get a position. The key is getting the skill and getting good, which is what the certification program is for. So if anybody wants to go to that, it's closures.io slash EOF. And you can find out, there's like an informational video that'll teach a little bit more about what it is.

22:45John Lee Dumas:Fire Nation, you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with. You've been hanging out with CG and JLD today. So keep up the heat. Head over to eofire.com. And if you type Cole, C-O-L-E in the search bar, the show notes page will pop up and you will be able to see links to everything that we talked about here today. If you are somebody who says, wow, I connected with Cole. I understand this content. This is exciting to me. closers, that's closers with an S, C-L-O-S-E-R-S, closers.io slash E-O-F is going to take you to where you need to go for a video for some more explanation and the next steps.