Here’s a good one. How do you teach and sell at the same time? I used to struggle big time with this one. I would do a presentation to a group and I would teach, I would pour my heart into it, I give them my best strategies, at the end, no one would buy anything, no one buys anything. And I thought if impressed the audience enough, if I just show them how smart I am and how much I know and how much I could help them and they would buy, now it turns out that’s not the case. I was having a conversation years ago with my first mentor, Alan, and I was explaining to him about, “Hey, you know Alan, I kind of just getting started, right, in terms of speaking, and selling, and closing from the platform, and just doing events. And yet I’m not closing anybody. I don’t understand why.”
I could be doing a one-hour talk, maybe you are doing a one-hour talk, maybe you’re doing your 90 minutes signature talk, maybe it’s one day, half a day, three days, it doesn’t matter, but at the end of your talk, at the end of your event, are people buying from you? And he shares something with me that forever changed the way I looked at this. He said, “Dan, why are you so egotistical?” And I was like, “What? Why do you call me egotistical? What do you mean?” “Is that you’re egotistical, because you think your one-hour talk, your one-day event, right, your half-day event, you are so egotistical you think that is going to solve all their problems. So, them having their problems, coming to your event, coming to your talk, by the end of that, you’re going to solve all their problems and all their problems will go away by you dumping information on them.”
He said, “That’s egotistical.” And I said to him, “I never thought of it that way.” He said, “If they don’t continue the education with you, if they don’t buy your other programs, if they don’t take something home with them that day, that hour, by the time you’re done, chances of them getting results, chances of them implementing what you’re teaching is zero to none, because we’re creatures of habits.” And that changed my life. From then on, I know I can’t help them if I don’t sell them. You can’t help anybody if you don’t sell anybody. If you want to create lasting change, lasting impact in other people’s lives, in other people’s businesses, you have to sell them something. So, how do you do this? How do you balance the teaching and the selling at the same time?
The way you do that is this. There are three ways. First, in the beginning, you set the expectations. “I don’t like a lot of speakers, and experts, and thought leaders, they hide the fact that they have an offer. They pretend, ‘Hey, let me razzle and dazzle you and let me impress you with my content’ and at the end, ‘Oh, by the way, if you want some more information, here’s something that I offer.’” That’s horrible. How much believe you have in what you sell? Don’t hide the fact you’ve got something. The way that I do it in the first five minutes, 10 minutes into my talk or an event, I tell the audience, “I have got something to offer. For those of you who want it, I will tell you more about it near the end or halfway.” But I don’t hide the fact that, “Hey, I have something to offer.”
When you do this, your audience, if they’re tuning in virtually or in person, they’re not thinking about, oh, they’re not holding onto their wallets, “You’re going to sell me something,” no, you tell them you’re going to sell them something. In fact, sometimes in the beginning of my talk, I would say something like this, I would say, “Hey, how many of you believe, put up your hand, I would sell you something.” Right? They all put up their hand, right? And then, I would tell them, “You will not be disappointed.” And then, everybody would kind of laugh and chuckle and say, “Yeah, I am going to sell you something. Here’s what I’m going to offer to you.” I will tell them a little bit about it and then go into my content.
So now, throughout my talk or throughout my event, they’re not thinking, “Mm, I wonder what he’s going to sell me.” They’re not thinking about that, they know you’ve got something for sale. It’s almost like, the secret is out, now, they could be relaxed and enjoy the event or enjoy the talk. Now, it’s up to them to see, “Hey, is this a good fit for me? Do I want to buy this or not want to buy this?” But don’t hide the fact that you got something to offer. Tell them upfront. And number two, you also let them know ahead of the time, “I am not going to solve all your problems in 90 minute. I’m not going to solve all your problems in one day. I’m not going to solve all your problems in three days.” Right?
You let them know, “I’m going to give you enough so that you can make the decisions that we are the right company or the right organization to help you. We’re going to deliver value. You’re going to walk away with steps, strategies, checklists, you’re going to walk away with a roadmap, you’re going to walk away with steps. But if you want us to help you implement some of these things, or even maybe offer them for your services, we could help you with that.” So, that’s the second way that you do it. Makes sense, right? Number three, you would structure your talk, you would structure your event in such a way, this is how you balance the sell and teach at the same time is this, what are the objections they might have that would prevent them from moving forward with you? What are the objections they might have in their minds that would prevent them from moving forward with you?
When you understand that, let’s say, “Oh, it costs us too much,” or, “It’s a time commitment. I don’t know if it’s going to work,” you structure your presentation, you structure your talk, you structure your event to demolish all those objections ahead of the time. So, by the time you get to the offer, there are no objections. You’ve already handled those objections. And the way you handle those objections is now you insert your teaching pieces. So, your intention has to be, “I’m going to offer them something,” and knowing you can’t help them if you don’t sell them. Getting applause is good for your ego, not good for your prospects, not good for your clients, because it doesn’t help them. And it’s not good for your wallet either, not good for your bank account, not good for your business.
You don’t want applause. You want people to vote with their wallets. So, intentions clear, and then you let them know upfront during the talk, “I’ve got something to offer,” so there are no surprises. And then, you reverse engineer, you list out every single objection they might have when it comes to buying your high-ticket offers and you handle those objections one by one by one by one with your content. And that’s how you balance the teaching and selling at the same time. And that’s exactly how you could offer something to your prospects without slimy, without feeling salesy, without that yucky feeling, “… he’s going to sell me something,” or, “She’s going to me something,” not at all. And that’s how you do it, that’s how you balance the teaching and selling at the same time. Until then, let’s go high-ticket.