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Gonna give my quick intro on Tim. So Tim and I were both speakers at an event in Amsterdam near Amsterdam. For me, it’s in Amsterdam because I’ve never been. I’m sure everybody in Europe is like, that’s nowhere near Amsterdam, but it was near ish Amsterdam, about three hours away.

And it was this great talk Tim gave on sales calls on how to run sales calls. And I have run so many sales calls. And I feel good about, you know, they’ve been I feel like I closed pretty well, but as I was watching Tim give this talk, I was like, oh, my gosh. There are so the opportunities I’m missing.

So right as soon as I got back to Canada, I reached out to Tim, and I said, when can we bring you in? We do. How do we get you here? And he agreed to come on in.

So here he is with us today, sharing some awesomeness, and I am doked, to welcome.

Tim, why can’t I see you Tim? Where did you go?

Tim.

Probably will page one somewhere.

There you are. Tim. Hello. I am going to spotlight you so we can get started.

Feel free, Tim. Take it away.

Oh, hello, everybody. So let me just do this.

There we go.

Cool. So, as Joe said, I presented this at the conference that’s formally known as Convergent Hotel back in November.

It’s about two hours north of Amsterdam off the in the north sea, little island off the coast of the Netherlands, and basically it is two hundred and fifty of the world’s best conversion optimization and copy experts, all basically pinned into one hotel. It has been three days of conferences and, presentations just to talk with each other. Sorry. We got somebody else that needs to be muted.

So this is a little bit different to my normal subject matter as I’m more known as a business intelligence or day to the motion optimization specialist, but it was the tenth anniversary of the conference, and I wanted to do something a little bit different. As I’ve explained to Sarah beforehand, one of the common things I hear when I go speak people or when I see them at conferences is that they struggle to get buy in. They struggle to get people to renew. They struggle to get resources if they’re working internally.

And it’s not something I’ve ever had a problem with. In twelve years of doing this, I’ve I’ve not really, had a problem. So I thought I’d do something which would help people on that. So this is called selling magic beans.

So on what basis am I talking to you today? What authority do I have to join the call of some of the world’s best copywriters and tell them they’re doing it on.

And they could be doing it better. Well, I have my ten meter swimming certificate.

And after, like, nearly thirty years in marketing, twenty five years in digital, fifteen years in commercial optimization, I’ve become an international speaker, and I have won some awards.

But that’s enough about the fluff stuff because I prefer to show rather than tell and let you make your own mind.

So what we do, we like to consider is the intersection, between creative arts and data informed science.

And we think we’re quite special there in the middle.

And when we have an interaction, when sales gets involved, with our more worthy disciplines.

This is what we tend to think it is.

And we have a negative perception of salespeople.

So when people say they’re good at sales, we talk about people who have him sell ice to the eskimos or Santa the Saudis or deep fried beige things to the Dutch or I guess maple syrup flavors to Canadians. And is that good at sales?

I don’t think so. I think that’s bad sales, and that gives people the ick. When you’re sold too badly, the reason we will have negative kind of perception of people who do sales, and it’s the reason that pushy sale people may feel comfortable. Because what you’re selling to them does not provide a solution.

Eskimos don’t need ice. Ice, they have. They need heating. Waterproofs maybe. A good salesperson would identify that and sell them what they need.

That’s often not what we see.

Now a little bit of a explanation to start out is that something to know about me, and my brain works a little bit differently. I’m some flavor of neurospicy, I’m introverted and getting in front of somebody being the center of attention, like this right now, telling people how to do things, it gives me the major So this section makes me feel uncomfortable.

My brain works like this all the time.

So how am I doing this? So one of the problems I have is I don’t know if you feel the same.

And when I go to conferences, there’s always that interaction and being an introvert. I really love it when someone says stand up.

But actually, I’m talking today, and I would normally or did in the conference have the chance to make everybody else do this for once, which was quite nice. But I can’t really do that on a Zoom. So we can’t really do the stand up to participate piece, but if you wanna put your hands up and raise them, if you recognize this, we’ll start out, pretending we’re doing the audience participation. And if you wanna do it in your head, that’s fine too.

So first off, hands up if you dislike being tricked into impromptu surveys.

That’s all of us.

But we’re gonna do one. So first of all, is anybody actually in sales, the dedicated sales role, selling product services as a primary function, Prospects don’t always buy even when it’s a perfect fit. Frustrating.

If the following applies to you, put your hands down or if you do your mentally, put put your mental hands down and you’re in the group before the the sat down people.

Probably more likely to apply. Who’s freelance? So you sell your own services even if it’s not your primary function.

It’s necessary, but it’s a distraction and it can be frustrating. Because you get so many leads that seem positive and end up as nothing. You speak to a prospect. They’ve asked for your advice, or your service, you’ve agreed what’s needed, you’ve got a time to do so, a price, but then it just peters out and goes cold. Does that sound like anybody?

Maybe you work service role or agency side. So you’re dealing with client communication. Somebody’s already done the selling, but you still have to speak to people.

You do account management, and ultimately, you’re probably responsible for retention.

And if you can’t organize the delivery, if you can’t bring the various peoples together, then it’s a risk.

And when delivery relies on other people, rather than just yourself, it’s even harder.

Soundly familiar, hands down, meant to be sit down if it has.

If you’re in house, this can apply to many things, internal politics, developer resource, where your priority sit on a road map, getting brand or legal sign off, vendor management, those targets and those deadlines are set. You have to deal with it, but none of these things were an issue, but they are, and you have to get past them. Does that sound like? Something that applies to you, if so, mentally sit down.

Okay. So we probably covered the majority of you. I can’t see everybody’s screen, and I can’t see inside your head yet. Give Elon some time.

Let’s say, have you ever needed another human to do a thing, but a mutually satisfactory outcome?

If you haven’t got that, then the remaining sociopaths, I’ll deal with you guys later.

So in summary, You all will fit at least one of those scenarios I’ve described.

Most of your interactions are persuasion and negotiation in some format.

So I have an offer for you.

Twenty minutes or so of your time.

I’ll show you how to deal with those situations.

To get better outcomes more easily or consistently using skills you probably already have. Now if I could offer you that, will give me your attention.

If I nail it, would you promise to look into this a little further so that I’ve helped you to help yourselves?

Agreed?

So I have a dark secret.

I didn’t always work in business intelligence.

I used to be in sales.

I did retail. I did telesales for print advertising. Just keep parents.

I did copywriting. I started doing copywriting, line edge adverts, and classified papers, selling them, writing them, getting them typeset, getting them to the printers for a tight schedule. I know about these deadlines and about the pain of copywriting. I also know the value before it hit internet.

So I sold as a job I was a Nikki salesperson.

So how does that fit with a neurospicy introvert who hates being in front of people and telling people what to do?

How did I live in an alpha type one extrovert world?

How was I successful? And I was. I did really well themselves.

How does the polar opposite of the salesperson stereotype succeed in the salesperson’s world?

And do it without the So that’s what we’re gonna talk about. Selling magic beans is sales without the ic, without it being It’s consultative selling, mutually satisfactory outcomes as the main goal.

So To help you with retention, I have a mnemonic.

Now as a point of principle, who made the word for remembering something using a pattern or initials so difficult to remember to spell and to say.

It’s not very helpful. So I’ve got a new one for you. A way to remember important things easily.

Right. I mean, it’s right there.

Anyway, The one I want you to work from today, Joe’s already mentioned it, is PCMC.

Prove confirm match close.

Or the short version, puckermucker, or as Sarah said, the Canadian version, Puka Muka.

Now, Tucker is actually British slang. It’s British Indian slang from the the days when we we were over there, and it means genuine. The real McCoy, the real deal, solid.

And Mucker is a mate, a good person, someone to remote a lie on in your team.

So I have a confession to make.

You’ve already been pocket market.

That’s what I was doing. I’ve already probed all of you.

Sorry.

I hope you don’t mind.

I said, are you in sales freelance client service in house or similar, do you recognize these issues affecting things that you need to happen?

I then confirmed it back to you, and I reframed it. You have these issues. Your interactions require persuasion and negotiation.

I then matched the features to the benefit.

Fundamentally, this talk cover sales skills, which can help you.

Making it easier to do things, whatever they are for you, and reusing existing skills. I made the connection between sales skills which we’re talking about, what you already use, and the problems you’re likely facing if you’re in one of those groups we identified.

And then they closed with a summary and a request to action. You agree. This option has the most gain for the least pay. You agree to spend your attention in time because today, that’s all it’s costing you.

Now if you’ve been doing this for a while, this probably sounds familiar.

Is this you? Do you recognize this problem? We can solve that problem with feature. Do you want this benefit the results from our solution?

If so, click here, if not read more call to action.

This is what we do.

We already do sales in our day job. We have to come up with copy. We have to go with headlines. We have to come up with UX pieces that persuade somebody to take an action. We give them reasons to do so, and we appeal to what is attractive to them. It’s Aida, but done in the graphical format.

So we know pucker mucker works. We’ve just not heard it like this. This way to remember important things easily It’s already part of your skill set.

We just don’t use it on our own challenges.

It’s good news.

This is all easier in person or in internal comps than it is to an audience.

This stuff that we do on web pages in print in copy is much easier one to one. It’s the ultimate person in personalization.

One to one rather than one to many. Because we can read reactions and it’s immediate and it’s interactive.

So these skills that we have approximated for the web page, the printed page, the email, actually work very effectively in person or in person cons.

So what does Pucker Mucker stand for? While the p stands for probe, and probing is open questions.

We find out about the problem. We get them to open up more about it, and we listen.

We actively listen to what they say.

Open questions can be used for things like what, where, when, how, who, or why. Again, shouldn’t be telling you anything you don’t know, but I’m reiterated here. And we’re actively listening. So their rep responses should prompt more questions.

What would you say is the biggest issue facing you right now? Where is this happening? Which department? Which part of the site? Which part of your audience?

When do you see this happening most? Is it seasonal? Does it relate to a single occurrence or is it an ongoing issue? How does this object impact your objectives? Does it slow things down? Reduce sales increase cost? Give me some examples.

Who does it impact internally? Which departments are affected? Which audiences segments are not resonating most with your messaging?

You may not need to ask all of them in that order. That’s not what we’re trying to do here. The idea is to try and open open questions so you don’t just get a yes or a no answer or a single word answer. We want to be involved with the solution, so we need to find out what the problem is. And that’s what we’re doing with pro We need clarification. They say something in response to one of your questions. Something you something you heard from that is interesting.

Follow-up. Dig deeper, ask another probing open question, get to the bottom of what they see the problem to be, not what you perceive it to be, what they think it is. Because that’s important.

Then, and people often skip this step, and it’s hugely important that people jump straight to. Ah, I heard you had a problem. I’ll give you a solution. My product does that. This is great.

Not only does that sound a bit keen, a bit salesy, a bit Iki, it’s disingenuous. It’s dangerous. You’re jumping in with your opinion. You need to first confirm with them that you both agree on what the problem actually is and understand them what the problem is the same way.

So it’s hugely important because you can’t offer a solution until you’ve understood the problem fully.

So confirming is your chance to reframe and reflect. Those are two parts of this you need to remember.

You’re reframing to common issues, and elements, time, quality scope, volumes. These are things you’ve got problems with. These are the things we’re gonna go back to. And we’re not asking close questions within the confirm section to say.

You tell me more about this rather than me saying, here’s my decision.

So we’re narrowing down the open discussion about here’s everything that would be in going, could I just say that this is probably a good summary? And in doing so, we’re prompting them to say, actually no there’s more, or yes, you’ve got it nailed.

So the point of confirming is What you’re saying is, ah, the problem is this, the cause is that the consequences are this, and we’re trying to get the point where we stilling down that big nice friendly open chat we had of probing them sort the problems are into clarifying what the problem is. Oh, not gonna get it done on time. Okay. What’s the deadline we’re talking to? When you say we, who does that involve?

What could we add to this timeline? These things you’re narrowing down to go okay. We need more people. We need more time. There’s too much to fit into that area. That’s what we’re trying to clarify.

So you’re really trying to get them to summarize back to you what you’ve understood.

And you’re using phrases like That’s interesting. Could we say a common theme is? Or could I clarify that you would like, or to summarize?

That’s what we’re doing in the confirming state. It’s repetition and reflection.

And be specific, show that you’ve been actively listening, by giving back the information when you refrain. So if they mentioned a specific group person timeline, you reflect back to it, confirm that is a truth. So we only have three months. This only impacts you or that particular group.

In this way, by how much, like whether it’s up or down, You heard it. You probed it. You confirmed it back to be specific. And quantify.

Okay. It affects you by how much we’re trying to do something where somebody’s going to exchange something for value. So quantifying what value that has, whether that be the amount of risk or the amount of problem it is is part of the process. Don’t be scared of that. If you’ve quantified what bad looks like, they said here’s a problem here’s why it’s not working.

Repeat it back to them. Confirm it. Ah, this has this much negative percentage impact on the problem. Is that right? Yes. This has this much monetary problem on Yes, that’s right. We’re trying to get them to be the closed responses once we’ve got them nailed because that shows we’ve got it correct.

If quantifiable good likes, here’s what we’d like to happen. It must be this high. If you hit this number, we’ll be happy. Great. Repeat that number back, then confirm it. Make sure and see if it’s a hard number, it could be different.

Size of problem dictates the priority, the value, and the risk they have associated to it. So it’s an important part the confirmation process before you can look to a solution to provide that because they will judge the value of the solution against that total cost, and it may not be just the military site. It may be resource. It may be availability. It may be the time.

So ultimately you’re trying to say to them, this is what I understand. Is this correct?

And if the answer is in the affirmative, you can move on. If it’s not, you probe some more and you confirm some more to narrow down the pieces that you haven’t yet distilled down.

And ideally, this ends up with a situation where you’ve closely matched the problems they’ve got with versions of the core issues which you’re offering can solve. In the case of copper writing, I’d imagine, we can’t write copy the converts can offer you the coffee to convert, but that seems to be what we’re aiming towards.

And that’s what we do in the next stage is we are matching those two pieces together.

So match the benefits of features.

So given these are the scenarios, these are the problems we’re trying to solve. Which problems can you address?

And if you reframed well in the previous one, you’re halfway there. The stuff they’ve been talking about matches very closely to the stuff you can offer, because that’s what you distilled it down to.

Now important, unless he’s got his own slide, never match features without benefits. And I know it seems ironic be explained to copywriters who write about features and benefits all the time, but when you’re explaining the benefits of copywriting, Don’t just sell it on features, but that’s one of the problems you get with. Anything that’s kind of esoteric same with running AB tests or we can run this many AB tests. They don’t care how many AB tests you’ve got.

What they wanna know is what do I get out of the results of those AB tests? I can write you thirty adverts for this price. What does that do for me? I can write you this much copy in this time frame.

Again, a feature, what’s the benefit to me? I can rewrite your headlines on landing pages.

Right?

So never match features without benefits ever.

This is the phrase to remember. Should be in your head, even if you don’t say it.

This is good for you because And now don’t overuse this in every sentence every time you speak to them, but I’m sure copywriters will have no problem finding synonyms alternative phrasings.

But the key aim here is to pair features of benefits. You need a bridging phrase to go between I can do this, which solves the problem we talked about, and that’s good for you because That’s your bridging phrase.

You said you have problem a. Feature x is designed to address problem a.

Which is good for you because the benefit solving problem a was one of the things you confirmed that you wanted from a solution.

That’s the pattern. That’s everything we’ve just done.

Probably everything you’ve done before.

But ultimately, You’re selling. Now I’m talking about selling, and this can cause a problem because to me this is sales technique.

But we’re not, for the most part, selling. We’re not exchanging money for goods, and that’s what most considered to be there. So maybe we should call this persuasion architecture.

But actually, we are still selling. If you’re trying to get somebody to attend your road map and brainstorm meeting. You have to sell them on the value of that. Tell them what’ll be there and give them the benefit of them attending. Is still sales.

If you want them to use the form you’ve got, the copy requests so that you can assign the correct team member, and that team member has the information they need to go ahead so it will work smoothly in a viable strategy and will fit the cost base they’ve agreed to, who have to sell them on that idea. This sort of cooperation needs to be sold as if it was a product and they need to agree. Now they’re not paying in money. They’re playing in compliance with the approach or they’re paying in actually signing off the thing you need signed off. But the technique for selling somebody a product is the same as the technique for persuading somebody to do something that helps move the game forward. And if that’s the brick wall we keep hitting, then maybe we should borrow from sales.

So, you know, if your copy is fully researched and using psychologically powerful, the phrase that’s tailored to the audience, it means it will resonate more strongly and clearly explain your offering and can increase conversion. Sounds a lot better than I can write you thirty back thirty adverts. You’re selling the idea of what you do differently compared to chat to EPT or the intern they’ve got who can bang out the Google ads.

Ultimately, that’s what we’re trying to get.

And then the final purpose. We close. We ask for agreement. And again, we’re not talking about money or sign contracts for the most part, but we still need to close.

So we’ve got a summary of what we’ve discovered.

We’ve got repetition, so we’re recapping what’s been agreed, how we’re gonna solve it, and the benefits of that.

And all of that primes for yes response. Again, this is a common thing that we do in copywriting, it’s a common thing we do conversion optimization.

Is we repeat the good points back to them, and we say them in different ways because different people hook on to different pieces, the NLP word that triggers in one person’s brain, the emotion that’s caused up here, we do another one. And by repeating back to them, we are reinforcing and it’s one of the common things from advertising is repetition. You see the same advert again and again and again till it’s ingrained until you sing, you know, b k whopper whopper whopper that that hits hard because that’s how human brains work. So use it when you’re trying to persuade somebody. Remind of the good stuff that they will get if they do the things that are agreed for, rhyme the yes response.

So we can deliver this benefit repetition using x repetition, and you’ve agreed is a good fit, repetition of agreement, and we have reason to proceed.

That’s that’s that’s the pattern we’re following.

And this is where we fall down because we don’t think of it as sales, so we don’t think about it in terms of closing. Joe in the interest said I do really well on sales calls. We’re not talking sales in this situation. We’re talking persuasion internally, or to then depart us to whoever you need to do something. And therefore, but we still need to close as if they were going to buy because they are buying with time. Well, they are going to be buying with spending some internal credit arguing with their boss to get you the thing you need to move forward.

And to do that, to have them to make a commitment, we need to have persuaded them. It’s worth their while. And those are mutually satisfactory outcome.

So in an industry that obsesses over calls to action, next steps, and the perfect most used phrasing to get somebody to do something, struggles when they’re talking to their boss to ask for more budget or more time because we failed to sell ourselves because we don’t close.

Because we don’t like closing because closings are salespeople and salespeople are icky.

So let’s have a look at some closing techniques that we think are Ricky.

The alternative close, do you want me to start Monday or Tuesday? You’ve made the assumption, and you just give me a choice.

Angle close, but if you want me to include all those features, you’re actually agreeing to more budget. So you’ve taken them asking for extras in the scope and turned it into an upsell.

This is umptiv close, and this one’s really powerful. These using car sales all the time. Great. I’ll get that booked for you.

I’ll submit a compliance for you ready to sign off. It walks straight past them agreeing and the basic tells them they have agreed. It’s a powerful one, but it can be a bit We’ve got them now on ever close. If you agree today, I’ll still have capacity.

If you wait, it may mean delays. I mean, that’s perfect for things like legal or brand comply any department that drags its feet longer and is causing this to not work.

Find you. You’re making the choice, but if you can do this for me today, I can have it ready tomorrow. If you wait until tomorrow, sorry I’m booked for the rest of the week, you’ve pushed it two weeks away.

Give them a challenge.

Less relevant for copy perhaps, but you can show examples, so the no obligation trial close. Try this out at no cost. Let us show it’s not as effective. Is a good technique.

Are these all sounding familiar again? Because Do you want it in red or blue? Do you want to buy the starter pro or enterprise?

You pay for more benefits, you pay less and get fewer or will get more benefits. Payless and get fewer.

Scarcity, time sensitivity, free trial or demo, These work. We know these work because we AB test this. This is what we do on landing pages. This is what we do in sales emails.

These approaches, these closing techniques we use on our b to c stuff every day. We spend hours polishing it.

Why don’t we use it when we’re asking for internal resource more time or on budget or sign off?

We’ve got data that shows it works on the b to c market.

We won’t necessarily have the volume to test this internally, but trust me, we know this works.

But when it comes to what we need, We don’t close.

So that would be my appeal to you today. Think about this like sales is not a key and remember to close.

So famous book in conversion optimization is always be testing.

And a famous phrase from the big sales film was always be closing.

I’d like to just adjust adjust that. We don’t want the ink. Always closing feels icky. That’s what sales guys do.

But we always want you to be a Pucker Mucker. Be that good friend. And Pucker Mucker process is still sales.

So is it just that simple though? All you need to do is close and everything is fixed.

Objections.

Ah, yeah. But I need to check solution x does actually solve this. Ah, that covers problem a, but I still have problem b. That sounds to me like you didn’t ask enough questions, but okay.

I need to go back and look for c two.

I can’t decide right now. I don’t have budget. I don’t have the authority, something something something whatever dark side.

So these are things that get thrown up when we try to close, we get an objection.

We aren’t salespeople. We don’t like objections to us. That’s no. But, actually, objections are cool, cool beans.

Because we try to close and we get objections.

We failed to sell?

No.

Objections are a buying signal.

Reframing it. I get this. It could work. I’m still talking to you.

But I need reassurance.

That’s what an objection says.

So how do we handle that? Objection to a buying signal Actually, I’ve got another problem that needs a solution in order for me to buy.

It’s still part of that process. And how do we deal with prior problems?

This is where audience feedback, but I’m I’m blessed to presume the entire class is shouting back. Haka marker because we pucker marker all the things. If we’ve had an objection, what they’re saying is here’s a problem that didn’t come up in our original talk. What do we do with the problem? We come through that process again. We’re gonna probe it, confirm it. We’re gonna map to the feature solution we’ve talked about before, and if we agree that works, we’re gonna close it.

And if they object, we’re gonna go back to PRIP, and we keep going until we have eliminated all the objections.

Because if we haven’t successfully answered their problem, then we shouldn’t be closing because we haven’t found a solution for them. So if we haven’t found a solution, we need to find out why. Well, the thing is I like it, but my boss needs to sign off of it. Okay. So let’s find out why your boss wouldn’t sign off on that. We didn’t ask that earlier on. You didn’t mention you didn’t have authority.

More grist for you to go in with probing.

So I’m in the way of the next steps be here and forth. There we go.

I couldn’t edit all the slides to get my law phasing.

So we’ve gone through that. We can’t confirm. We go back to probe.

Once we’ve gone through, we go to next steps. So what are common groups?

In the objection category.

Time budget commitment required. Wouldn’t necessarily be money in this situation, but I have to do something that’s not my day job to help you out. Tell me why. What’s in it for me?

I need time to think it over. This is usually a big one, but to be honest, this is more avoidance. This is I don’t want to face a choice, and you need to find out why.

And we’ve got objection by inaction, and I’ll explain more about that when we come to that. So common objections beyond that and the one which most people deal with, and they think sales on the persuasion is price and not to be too dismissive because it is a piece of this, the price is not a bad objection. Price, if that’s all they’re objecting to, is we want it, but we can’t justify that level of investment.

It’s actually a strong buying signal.

So what you need to do is negotiate on the cost because they like the outcome, or you need to negotiate on what’s delivered to bring it below their cost. But they have agreed that in principle, they have a problem they think you can solve. So, actually, they’ve bought. I need more to convince me and maybe most convince me the value is there.

We can’t afford everything that’s in there, but some of this fits.

But this idea is solved. If price is the only thing they can come up against, if there’s no other blocker beyond price, the idea is sold.

You’re just negotiating over terms.

And it may be you can’t make those terms work. It may be the amount of stuff you have to take away to make it fit makes it no longer viable.

But again, we can go into that probe, confirm match closed pieces because we need to find out why because we may not be able to sell them on the idea this time.

But if the thing they try for cheaper doesn’t work, they will have already gone through the process and come back to you much more quickly next time.

So I’ve decided later. Yeah. Yeah. I can’t make a choice today. It’s not my choice.

I need to speak to other people. Totally understandable. Every needs time to think it through. What concerns you the most though?

It’s another chance to ask the question because if it was truly solving the problem, you could decide today even if you can’t take the next step. So which bit of the thing is holding you up? What’s the thing today that isn’t there? Do you actually think x is harder to solve than I’ve understood?

Let’s go back into that. Understand a little bit more about why you think the solution won’t work for the price of the timeline we’ve agreed to. Commitment you’ve I’ve asked you to to give to me. What else could I consider?

Is there something else that we didn’t cover when we were going through this? That now we’ve been talking about it for a while, has come up and you think, Ashley, how that won’t work in same way as I wanted it to. What could I do that would make you commit today?

We’re trying to for another close and in pushing for another close on I decide later, we’ll either bring out the true objection because I haven’t got time for it. Isn’t a real section, there’s gonna be another problem you haven’t solved, or we’d find out that they have no interest at all. In which case, walk away. If you can’t offer them a genuine solution, you shouldn’t be selling to them. Because that’s icky.

At this point, once you’ve got them here and you’ve asked these questions, you’ve kind of got them thinking, stop talking.

Let them surface which of the obstacles is blocking them. Don’t try and suggest ones because basically you’re handing them a give out a jail free card. If they’ve got an objection saying I need time to think about it. Make them give you a real reason. And there’s a degree of sales art and just go.

I’m just prompting them. What about that? Give them the chance to dig that hole. And quite often, they’ll start coming out with the real reason. And it may be that real reason is a complete blocker. It wasn’t one they felt they could share early on, and that in itself is something to, like, ask, well, why didn’t you feel you could share that? We’re trying to get a solution.

Why didn’t you tell me that earlier? Because I could’ve helped you with that.

If the real reason is complete blocker, then then so be it, but at least you know now while going, Oh, strange.

So I appreciate you think x is insufficient. What we said today doesn’t work. Which parts of this needs to be better, faster, stronger, different, etcetera, to make you more comfortable. That’s what we’re gonna try and find out.

In action. This one’s kind of difficult to explain, but it’s probably the most common one. It’s We don’t puck a muck at only once because we can sell the idea that somebody’s gonna be helping us with a project. They will definitely agree they’ll have legal join the call. And then they don’t.

So we don’t puck and muck at only once at the point where we sell the idea.

We wanna be consultative, and that’s what we’re doing with this. Every time. Every time there is a contact, there’s another chance to sell the idea this is could, every call, every email.

So if you keep getting people who are no shows for team team or Zoom meets, you need to find out why. They need to participate with you to write that copy. They need to get legal to sign off with it. They agreed they would on the last call. Why didn’t they?

Let’s get into it. Let’s sell the idea of them kicking legal’s ass to come to the table.

How do you think it’s going?

You say it’s okay, but this remains a problem. This is you gently noting them that they haven’t done their part, which is slowing everything down. But, actually, you’re trying to probe again.

Ah, we could address that by doing x. It’s a feature of here’s our solution which results in this benefit. So even on those sub problems, those little blockers that are meaning the thing you’ve had agreed to in principle that just isn’t happening, every call, every email.

Is there anything wrong? Can I help? Would this help? If I could solve that, would you go ahead and commit to doing the thing you said you’d do in the first place?

Would that work for you? Then shall we proceed? We’ve closed again.

Now it’s not a sales pitch. It was sold.

Persuaded months ago, but you are still asking them what can we do next? What’s the next step? Can we do this? And inaction is probably the most poisonous thing because if they don’t do what’s been agreed, if they just said yes to get you out of the way, it was a cheap sale.

When it comes to actually doing the thing, you won’t get the results. And if you don’t get the results, that client doesn’t renew, that project doesn’t happen, that promotion doesn’t happen, cats and dogs living together, everything breaks down.

So we don’t just puckermucker, the initial sales pitch, which is why people think, oh, I’m not a salesperson. I don’t need this. We are trying to probe, confirm match and close. Every interaction, every email, every chance, we’re trying to go through that, what where and how, to understand what today’s problem is, what today’s block is because they all added up is what we try to get rid of.

So we’ll pack them up all the things.

Now, this is a lot to observe. I’ve seen some of the chat down.

But we have a certain amount of time to do this in, and I can’t give you twenty years with the sales experience in twenty five minutes.

But you do not have to freestyle this.

You can do research.

I didn’t invent Buckamucker Pro confirm match clothes.

I learned that when I was in sales training thirty years ago, and it was based on us an agent technique back then. We use long form sales messages, letters, which is goes back to the pamphlet days in our copywriting today. These persuasion techniques are old. There’s plenty out there where you could read up on this. If you want to get better at selling, but persuasion architecture to help you with your interactions with clients’ vendors’ internal external, read up on it. I’ve just in try and take your mind out that you’re gonna become sales. Just think about could I use these techniques I use in my copy on the people I need to do stuff for me.

Plan.

If like me, this doesn’t come naturally and walking into a place and getting somebody to do something by using these techniques does not feel Good. Plan for it. If you genuinely ethically have the right solution for them and want to find the right solution for them, then you should go to read ahead find and if you need time to go off to sort out, go sort it out. Doesn’t need to happen all at once we aren’t selling cars. We don’t have a bonus based on this. Plan, take your time.

Wargain, if it doesn’t fall naturally to, you find somebody in the business or a colleague around it, and get them to be an aggressive person who doesn’t wanna help you. Get tell them, brief them. This is somebody who’s going to tell me they will do the stuff two weeks later, they will still not have signed it off, and we’re now hitting a deadline. You are roleplaying as this person just be as obnoxious as possible.

Even if that doesn’t help you learn what you need to say, it gets you out of your comfort zone or gets you into a comfort zone with that situation because that situation is how it works. And quite often that entire blocking attitude is a defense mechanism from that person. They’re not gonna stop doing it. That’s what they do every time. So you have to get past it. And you can do this importantly in advance.

So there are thousands of sales possession techniques out there, if you like this sort of thing are interested, go up and read on them, don’t become a salesperson.

But focus it on how it would help you with your internal stuff.

And the good news is you’ll probably find you’re probably using a lot of these. You will start reading these sales and persuasion technique books and go, we do this all the time in copy. This is why we phrase things like that. Oh, I see this neuro linguistic programming thing says don’t challenge people with canned, say could in the email matching in terms of people’s phrasing or the way they deliver information.

That’s also what we’re doing with writing copy. All of these techniques you probably already know, you just never focus them on dealing with your own problems.

So one final way to remember important things easily to add to this proper preparation prevents piss poor forms. Uh-uh.

Didn’t be less catchy than Bakamaka.

So if this isn’t natural to you and it wouldn’t be because we haven’t chosen to go into sales, plan ahead.

It’s a simple but effective structure.

So write this to your memory, parker marker, probe confirm match close.

To make it more effective, Other things which will improve the effectiveness of using this structure, especially if it’s not something you’d thought about before.

Do some, ask questions in the q and a session, do some of the research and make it fit your style and needs. I’ve given some examples based on stuff I’ve done in the past that fit where I talk and I deliver information, I’ve tried to second guess some stuff on what might be the relationships you’ve got if you’re doing copywriting and trying to sell the concept to copywriting.

But if you can prepare and think about how this fits what you need to happen, which blockers you face regularly, some of the ones I covered might be things you do every day. You’ve may never have seen them. Pick the ones you struggle with, research techniques can help you get around it. There are lists and lists websites of common objection handling techniques, and you’ll recognize them there are lists and this and this of closing techniques. Learn a couple get comfortable with them.

So q and a, I can’t cover everything in there, but some prompts of things you can talk to me about, closing techniques, How to negotiate to win, objects and handling, how to do open questions and active listening and pair the two together, speaking of pairs, features and benefits.

More on the kind of psychological wordy side of things, but mirroring an affinity, particularly if it’s face to face.

Storytelling, which is very effective if you’re trying to sell a bigger picture piece or actually selling something with a budget or selling into somebody that’s a group But, ultimately, that’s me done with my storytelling today. So thank you for your attention.

Nice. Plaps all around.

Thank you, Tim. Amazing.

I think people were taking a lot of notes. I know I was taking a lot of notes.

So well done.

We have maybe a couple minutes for questions, Tim.

Sure. Yeah. Uh-huh.

Three minutes. We’ll definitely end at the end of hour, but if you’re cool for the next, like, eight minutes.

Yeah. That’s fine. Yeah.

Okay. Sweet.

If you have a question, put up your hand and you can come off mute if you are scared, then put up your hand, ideally, with, the thing so that zoom will move you around reactions because there’s lots of people here and I can’t see you.

If there’s a way to raise your hand, just do that.

Perfect. I will attempt to remove your spotlight.

There will okay. Perfect. Yeah. There we go. Catherine, Catherine, please come off mute and ask your question.

Hi. Me, you mean?

Yes. You, Katherine.

Wanted to make sure there weren’t twenty others.

Yeah. I’m there.

Yeah. Hi. I’m really interested in this today, and thank you for that presentation.

I am a journalist by profession right now, and I am I have done copywriting. I’ve been on the same side as paper as you have in terms of, that sort of editorial work as well. I just wanted to see if you had any sort of perspectives on, segueing from journalism into this work.

Well, actually, one of my best friends was a journalist are in print and then ultimately on the website, and then be he then moved to be freelance and his His main job now is copywriting, and but he, most, to the most part, does copywriting on social media posting.

So he basically runs social media accounts for people so he does a little tone of voice work and research.

So trying to find kind of, I mean, writing for journalism, you have to write in the, the the AP style or the style of the paper you’re writing for for the audience.

There’s an awful lot of people in marketing who need to hit their brand style, but have got absolutely zip in the way of writing ability. Yeah. They can copy paste a press release, but they got no. So if you can sell the ability to learn and follow a brand style, you can write social media posts for brands for them, and better than ChatGPT can because whilst a lot of them are going, oh, I’ll just put it in chat GPU and they try it. Their prompts always they always come out sounding generic.

The other thing he does is beyond a fair bit of blog posting to promote his own work. Is kind of ghost writing stuff. So blog posts for people on SEO. Same thing. He’ll do a lot of SEO research you’ll find the keywords at work, you look at which words are converting.

And so he sells his ability to write kind of conversion minded copy, but conversion money copy that this SEO scored because that’s what the demands for.

Sorry. Just click follow. Oh, sorry. I’ll let finish.

Take care. I just wanted That’s how that’s how he segway from kind of pure journalism. He still does that. He still writes a book. He still does magazine bits, but the bulk of his work is kind of pretending to be somebody else, and because he can adopt a tone, and he’s got a view to kind of what it needs to hit, either it be social tone or SEO word density, he he’s able to make that read, like, human stuff rather than just SEO copy.

Yeah.

That’s a that’s a sorry. Very quick follow-up. I just wanted to know, does he tend to specialize or generalize in in the sort of work he does?

He’s got a background in automotive like me, so a big motorcycle fan. He loves his games. He does an awful lot of stuff, but he’s effectively goes where the money is. So if, he does health, does elf stuff.

He’s done historical stuff. He’s done classic cloud restoration, part of being a journalist, he should be the subject, and you are working with people not just going blank page, go for it. So he does a lot of work. So whilst he never did the sales training, I did.

He does a fair bit on just an area. But if you’re more comfortable in one market, sell yourself strong in that one, it just tends to be the demand is fairly widespread so you have to adapt.

Okay. Thanks, Tim.

Cool. Thanks, Tim. Thanks, Catherine. Cathy. Good point, Catherine. Kathy at Funnel Fair, you’re up next.

Thank you so much for this amazing, presentation first.

I wanted to ask maybe specific quest to specific question, as, neuro spicy person myself, I find the biggest issue to be active listening. And I wondered whether you have any book recommendations or material recommendations about that because as I listen, I get all these ideas, and then my brain gets very loud. And I realize the person has been talking for another few minutes, and I wasn’t really in there.

Okay.

Give given the time we’ve got left, that’s a very risky question to ask me because Yeah. There’s loads of stuff.

No would be the short answer. I don’t have a particular book. I I’ve only recently kind of worked out that I’ve a little bit different to me, but I thought everybody’s brain worked like this.

The technique I’d say to look for if you’re gonna search would be anchoring.

So it’s something that I always used to do is that whatever keeps you in the room. So if your brain is going off at a million miles an hour, take notes. Like let as they’re speaking, jot down notes next to the like, here’s what they said. Here’s the thing that popped off.

Put a little star next to the ones that are your ideas so you can identify them later on and then come back to them after. So it still allows you because you are then actively listening. But tell I’m taking to take notes, and just be honest. Hey.

I’m a bit neurospicy. I’m gonna write things down. Is that okay? I may need to circle back to some things to check.

Just be as honest as possible. But actually anchor by writing stuff down. Pen and paper, don’t type because it allows you to kind of jump backwards and forwards across the page and gotta go a little asterisk. Come back that little circle.

That’s how I did it.

Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you so much. Have a great day ahead.

Awesome. Thank you, Kathy.

So we’ll go with the last question from Ben right away, but, before we dive into that, yes, the replay for this will be available for everybody in freelancing school. If you’re not in freelancing school, just follow-up with us and get in it.

Cool, Ben. Please what is your question?

My question is you know, you’ve you’ve gone through a whole lot of things that are sort of like, this is how you do this. And It’s it’s sort of a question, but how important do you think it is to really be conversation?

With this process. Like, you gotta be I think you gotta be flexible.

Oh, hundred hundred percent. Yeah.

It’s really annoying to me when I get a salesperson who’s trying the hardest not to be salesy, and and I’m ready to buy. I got I got, you know, my credit card in my hand, and I’m I’m like, just let me buy, and they won’t stop.

And in in the the realm of the neurospicy thing, you have to learn to pay attention. And a good way to do that is keeping a conversation.

So, you know, if they start to monologue on you, It’s obvious to me that they’ve had numerous interactions with other people trying to sell them the same thing, and I’m putting their pitch not back.

Right?

Okay. So so one one technique is the early close that I think it it has to be natural. Like, what feels icky is when somebody reads from a script So as much as I’m saying use sales techniques, I’m not saying be sales people. I’m saying be yourself, but have this pattern in the back of your mind is what you’re trying to achieve by having a nice chat is do I know what the problem is?

Can I help them with that? Do they agree if so? Can I close them? And if you repeat that close, it repeats like a small close many, many times.

If they wanna jump off, if they’ve got the credit card in hand, or the I will commit my dev team to you. You’ve you’ve convinced me. If you ask early, you’ll find out yes or no quite early, but you need to do the Pucker Mucker stage to get to an early close, even if you only do one probe, one confirmed, one match. And that pattern in your head stops you from going on and you say monologuing about something that you perceive is a problem that customers actually not told told you as a problem?

My my idea about the monologuing. It’s not, the salesperson monologuing it be. It’s if I’m in a sales car. And I get them and and, you know, I’m not asking open ended questions.

But if they go on for more than, like, a couple of sentences, Mhmm.

This is something where they’ve talked to somebody about it before. Most people cannot get Because it cannot carry on a theme for two minutes.

Cool.

So that’s one where I would basically confirm quicker.

Yeah. Mhmm.

So so if you if you if they if it seems like you’ve got No. They’re gonna go on for ages talking about this. Okay. So to summarize, to be quite brutal with that, to what you’re saying is x y zed, and just getting to put a pin in that.

Because they’ll keep coming back to grievances again and again. So good. Okay. So that’s agreed.

That’s on the list. Next.

Yep.

And you have to just be harsher than you really would be And that’s kind of part of the technique is it feels like you’re being harsh because it’s not natural to us. But that’s part of part of it.

My brain starts bouncing off And I and I, like you said, you’re you’re getting all kind of ideas public.

I am not engaging with them. I’m engaging with myself. I have to get back to them because I can generate a dozen ideas that have nothing to do with what they’re interested. Totally.

So just the interest of time. Sorry. Totally get it, Ben. Thanks for your comment and question.

Tim, thanks for your answer too. Sorry to have cut you off. It is the end of the session though, and I so appreciate everybody’s participation. The notes Sarah will reach out with the person who has won a full year in copy school.

Tim, where can people reach out to you in the event that they need to hound you? I know this isn’t your full time thing. It’s not what you necessarily do, but, LinkedIn is a good place to reach you.

Yeah. LinkedIn Tim Stewart. I think a few people have found me already on there. It’s not that difficult. So so it’s in fact I think it’s that picture.

So Okay.

That’s sweet.

So look for that guy.

Look look for that look for that headshot.

Yeah. Excellent. And if not, reach out on on Twitter, it’s p g dot p j e e d a I. If you’re no longer on Twitter because understandable, it’s the same thing on Blue Sky and on Masterdon and pretty much every social media including Xbox Live.

So Excellent.

Excellent. Awesome. Awesome. Okay. Tim, thank you again. Round of applause for Tim.

And again, the replay will be available for freelancing students, and I hope to see you chatting in Slack about how you are doing sales calls differently with Book and Look.

Thanks again, everybody. Have a good rest of your day or night. Take care. Bye.