The Oren Klaff Project

Latest Episodes:

Increase your win/loss ratio Sep 24, 2019

Best Strategies For Handling Q&A Sessions at the End of Your Presentation Sep 19, 2019

Jim Davies' book Riveted on Amazon: https://amzn.to/2kQeFlU
https://www.jimdavies.org/

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Can you use HUMOR in your presentation? Sep 18, 2019

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SWEARING - How You Can Use It In Your Presentation Sep 17, 2019

Jim Davies' book Riveted on Amazon: https://amzn.to/2kQeFlU
https://www.jimdavies.org/

Follow us on Instagram: instagram.com/OrenKlaff
Follow us on Facebook: facebook.com/PitchAnything
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Buy Flip the Script on Amazon: https://amzn.to/2lTHtKm
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Controlling the Sale - Why You NEED to Get Better At This Part of the Sales Cycle Aug 12, 2019

All Stories NEED Conflict

Language was developed to convey information about risk, danger, and conflict. It was NOT created for the purpose of selling SaaS software. Sure, you can use it for that. But it’s not what it’s meant to do. If your pitch doesn’t have conflict, you need to add some. At the start of this episode, I spend a few minutes explaining how this works and why it is so important. I also give a couple examples so you can see how to apply it to your own pitches.

Get Control of the Sale

The second half of this short episode is devoted to another topic that I see giving people problems during a sale. It’s the moment when the buyer says they need to discuss your proposal with their partner, spouse, or boss. If you allow this, you’ve just lost control of the sale. You’ve let the buyer put you on a shelf and now you’ll have to patiently sit there waiting for them to pull you back off if they ever decide they need you.

Instead, you need to learn how to prevent this from occurring. You need to get control from the beginning so that the prospect can’t use this tactic against you. And in case it does happen, you need to know how to respond. I’ve got some tips in this episode and, of course, in my new book, Flip the Script.

The #1 Best Sales Trick From Celebrity Financial Advisor Eric Matthews Aug 09, 2019

Who Is Eric Matthews?

After spending 10 years working in the entertainment industry, Eric Matthews left his job managing $3B in assets for a Beverly Hills finance firm and started his own wealth management company. He had an A-list Rolodex and was a savvy investor, but he realized he needed to learn how to sell himself. He started practicing his pitch and he became a student of sales. Eventually, he started closing deals and was able to grow his company to where it is today.

Discovering the “Trick”

Eric’s closing ratio skyrocketed when discovered a simple trick for closing big deals. The idea came out of his experience in the entertainment industry and his love of films and as soon as he started using it he noticed massive results. When Eric told me about this it blew me away and I immediately knew I had to invite him on the podcast to share it with the world.

Leveraging Pre-Wired Ideas

The trick works by tapping into something called pre-wired ideas. Eric found he could be much more influential when he tied the ideas he was trying to communicate to the most emotional parts of the buyer's favorite movies. Over the years he has refined this approach to a step-by-step process for closing a deal. On this episode, he reveals exactly how he does it and the science behind why it works.

Priming the Audience - Why Introductions Matter and How to Make Sure Yours Is Perfect Aug 05, 2019

Why Introductions Matter

In college I worked for a carpenter and I discovered that everything has to be sanded and primed before it’s ready to receive a coat of paint. Today I’m a speaker and I’ve learned that priming is equally important for giving a good speech. When the audience isn’t primed properly during your introduction, the speech is set up to fail. Unfortunately, giving a good introduction is much harder than it looks and few people give it the time and attention it deserves.

Where Most Intros Go Wrong

Here’s what happens most of the time. Whoever is introducing you will Google you on their phone a few minutes before they are supposed to go onstage. Generally they come across your LinkedIn profile and whatever 3-5 year old bio you have on your website. After reading over this for a few seconds they will then proceed to walk out on stage and “wing” your intro. Often they get the actual information WRONG. Even when they get it right, they almost never give an intro that primes the audience properly.

The Real Job of Your Introduction

This is about more than just telling the audience who you are and what you do. The real job of the introduction is to prime the listeners on you expertise, status, and credibility. Importantly, the intro should get people excited for your talk, but not TOO excited. You want them to be interested and curious, but not overly emotional. The more worked up they are the harder it will be for you to match the audiences energy when you take the stage for your talk.

Elements of A Perfect Introduction

Don’t leave your intro to chance, it’s too important! Write your intro yourself and send it to the client ahead of time. Before your speech, spend some time chatting with the person who will introduce you so they have familiarity with you. This allows them to start off their intro in a casual and social way. I also recommend a bit of randomness in the intro, a clear conveyance of your status, some humility, and a sense of complete trust that the speaker is going to be great. Jim and I reveal exactly how to do all of this on today’s episode.

The Dominance Hierarchy - Take Control of Your Social Status in Any Situation Jul 26, 2019

The Importance of Dominance

You can’t overlook the role of status in every interaction. Getting a deal done is no different. It requires you to successfully complete a complex social dance that takes into account the status and expectations of everyone involved. If you don’t understand everyone’s role, then you can end up paying too much attention to the wrong person and not get your deal done.

Managing Your Status During A Deal

It’s a fine art to maintain perfect status alignment during an entire deal. I’ve developed a lot of helpful tricks. For instance, think about a high school football player who is recruited to play for a college team. He will be more likely to say yes if the head coach calls with the offer than if the assistant coach calls. Similarly, in a deal, you need to save yourself for only the most important communications and let your team handle everything else.

Control Others By Controlling Yourself

One easy way to establish your status is to set rules for what you will and won’t do during a deal. It’s not hard to create some boundaries and set certain behaviors as off-limits. The key is to make it about what you will and won’t do, not to try and make rules about what other people should and shouldn’t do. Bev and I explain how to do it and give examples on this episode.

How to Spot a Liar - Cutting Edge Lie Detection Tips from the CIA Jul 24, 2019

The 3-5 Second Rule

Lying is not our natural state. We are designed to tell the truth. When someone asks you a question, your brain goes and finds the answer. Then, if the answer is something you don’t want to reveal, your frontal cortex gets involved to construct a lie.

When someone is telling your the truth, this whole process should take around 3-5 seconds. And they should have a normal human reaction during this time. They shouldn’t appear nervous or anything weird like that.

Establish a Baseline

Before you can spot any lies, Jason told me, you have to establish a baseline. This means you start by asking some very basic easy questions and watch the person’s reactions. Then you can increase the pressure later on with more difficult questions to figure out what their “tell” is.

During this episode, Jason explains exactly how to find a baseline for the other party during a business negotiation. You’ll learn what you can say to figure out whether they are telling the truth and Jason will show you how to break the idea in a way that also gets you a ton of information about the other person.

Hosting a Speech - Rookie Mistakes for Putting on An Event Jul 22, 2019

When Events Go Wrong

Once, I spoke at an event where the light from the projector was hitting the back of my head. It was super distracting and the photos of me all look crazy. I’ve arrived at events planning to use my laptop to control my slides only to find they don’t support Macs. Once my slides froze halfway through my talk. I saw a guy say he didn’t need slides but they couldn’t turn off the screen, so he had the screensaver behind him during his whole speech.

Avoiding Mishaps

On this episode, Jim and I talk about many ways to avoid problems during your event. Having all of the right technology is very important. We cover the main things events often get wrong with regard to their tech. Adapters are big! Another way to avoid mishaps is to have a good tech session the night before the speech. And to give the speaker the right kind of space to prepare for the talk. We cover all of that and more on this episode.

The Perfect Confidence Monitor

For me, a good confidence monitor is one of the big keys to a great talk. But many events don’t get these right or don’t have them at all. The confidence monitor is the little screen that shows you what slide you are on. If it’s in the wrong place or if it’s set up wrong it can wreck an entire talk. I share my secrets for getting the confidence monitor right on this episode.

Handling Power Plays - Put a Stop to Arrogant Behavior from Prospects Jul 17, 2019

Eliminate Arrogance

If you don’t eliminate arrogance early on during a deal, it will only continue to escalate. People who are allowed to think that their time is more important than your time will be very difficult to close later on. It is essential that you call these people out on their arrogant behavior the instant you see it. Do it in a nice way but be clear you aren’t going to tolerate it.

Using Power Plays

As I’ve mentioned on a previous episode, when someone shows up late to a meeting I usually say, “Oh, you’re here for the 10:07am call? I didn’t know about that one.” It works perfectly and sets the right tone for the rest of the meeting. On this episode, Jason Hanson reveals some of the power plays he developed while he was working for the CIA.

What if You Can’t Rock the Boat?

Not everyone can cancel a meeting because someone was late or call out the buyer on his arrogant behavior. Sometimes you have to be more tactful. For instance, maybe you’re a small firm and you are meeting with one of your three clients, the CTO for IBM. Even in these situations, you aren’t powerless. There are still subtle power plays you can make to establish yourself as an equal in the relationship. Listen to the full episode for more.

Confident and Non-Needy - How the CIA Uses Research to Close Big Accounts Jul 15, 2019

Making the Approach

My new book, Flip the Script, is about how to approach someone important who doesn’t know you and get them interested in working together. I reveal a number of specific scripts you can use to achieve this. What all of my scripts have in common is that they have to be delivered in a very specific way. You have to approach the prospect with complete confidence and non-neediness.

Just Like the CIA

Ex-CIA agent Jason Hanson told me the exact same thing about the way he used to approach prospects when he was trying to recruit them to spy for the United States. He says non-needy confidence is so important that CIA agents are trained to literally make an introduction and then turn and walk away without even waiting to see how the person responds. This signals that you really don’t care what the person thinks about you.

Get Confident Through Research

For Jason, this level of extreme confidence usually comes from research. He conducts extensive background checks on every prospect before he ever attempts to make contact with them. But how can you do this in the business world? On this episode, Jason reveals his best tips and tricks for researching prospects and gaining extreme confidence and non-neediness in your next business negotiation.

Extreme Preparation - How the CIA Gets Ready for a Meeting Jul 12, 2019

How Do You Prepare?

When you have to get ready for a big meeting with an important prospect, what do you do? I used to do a lot of preparation before every meeting but lately I haven’t had time to do as much research before sitting down with someone. I wondered if this has been hurting my win/loss ratio. To find out what next-level preparation looks like, I talked to Jason Hanson, an ex-CIA agent and the author of the new book Agent of Influence. Jason told me how the CIA gets ready for an important meeting.

CIA-Level Preparation

Of course, CIA agents always memorize multiple entrance routes and exit routes into and out of a building before they attend an important meeting. They also run something called a surveillance detection route (SDR), which is a very long sequence of stops designed to make it easy to tell whether or not there is anyone following you. Additionally, they conduct extensive background checks on everyone who they might come in contact with.

Next-Level Readiness in Business

It turns out CIA agents use tactics very similar to the ones I present in my new book, Flip the Script. Jason recommends conducting detailed research on your prospect so you can casually use insider language when you first meet them. But he also stresses the importance of authenticity and not coming across like you are using a pre-written script. How do you walk this line? That’s the topic of today’s episode. Tune in to find out.

Practicing Your Pitch - How to Get ‘Reps’ and Nail Your Presentation Jul 11, 2019

The Importance of ‘Reps’

I’m currently reviewing a book by an ex Hollywood agent and there’s a story in there where he goes to meet with Jon Bonjovi and he’s playing something on his guitar. This agent asks what he’s playing, expecting Bonjovi to say it’s a new song he’s working on. But actually Bonjovi said, “I’m just working on my scales.” The best in the world make it look easy but they never stop practicing the fundamentals. When it comes to speaking, you absolutely need to get ‘reps’ in before you try to deliver your talk.

Where Most People Go Wrong

It’s easy to fall into the trap of just reading through your speech on paper or going back through your slides over and over and practicing the speech in your head. The problem with this, Jim explains, is that it generates a feeling of confidence and success without actually forcing you to do any of the things that make speaking so hard. Another thing people often do is write out the entire speech word-for-word and spend a bunch of time trying to memorize it.

Science-Based Practice Strategies

In this episode, Jim explains the science behind the best times to practice a speech. We also talk about how to memorize your talk, whether you can use notecards, and how well you should know the material. I reveal some of the strategies I use to prepare for my own speeches and I also share an idea from my new book, Flip the Script, and show you how to apply it to your speeches.

Writing vs Speaking: The Problem with “Writing” a Pitch or Presentation Jul 03, 2019

Reading is Not the Same as Speaking

I spent two years writing my new book, Flip the Script, and it’s a great read. But last week I had to spend 5 days in the studio recording the audio version and I realized that good writing is not the same thing as good speaking. Many of the things that worked well on the page sounded strange when I first read them out loud. In fact, my publisher hired a professional audiobook director to coach me through it because this is a very common issue.

Don’t “Write” Your Pitch

When companies come to me for help with their pitch, I always start by speaking the words out loud. That’s how I develop the content. Then someone from my team transcribes it and our graphics department creates slides and turns the speech into a pitch deck. This process always felt right to me and now I have realized why it’s so effective. There is a fundamental difference between written content and spoken content and if something is going to be delivered out loud it’s never a good idea to write the first draft on paper.

How to Avoid Awkward Speech Writing

I hear a lot of people talking about “storytelling” and delivering a “story pitch”, but I don’t recommend focusing on that unless you are a professional storyteller. The key is to write your pitch in the way that you actually talk. People don’t talk in stories, they talk in terms of situations. Focus on a situation instead of a story and your pitch will sound much more natural. I reveal exactly how to do it, along with some specific examples, on this episode of the podcast.

When Buyers Push Back - The Science of Overcoming Resistance Jul 02, 2019

Psychological Reactance

It has a terrible name, but “psychological reactance” is one of the most important concepts for sales people to understand. In popular culture, this is what we refer to as “reverse psychology”. The basic principle is that when you tell someone what to do they often react by doing exactly the opposite of what you are asking.

As Andy explained to me, when someone feels like you are threatening their autonomy or reducing their freedom, they push back in order to prove to you and to themselves that they aren’t being controlled by you. Of course, this is a critical factor in sales, where it often seems like the harder you push a buyer to say “yes”, the harder they resist you.

It’s All About Identity

One important key with psychological reactance is that people will resist much more strongly if they feel like the topic is central to their identity. Whereas if it’s a topic they don’t care about, they might not resist at all. So if you sell used cars to little old ladies who don’t know anything about cars, this might not be an issue for you. But if you’re in B2B sales and your buyers actually work in your industry or even if you’re selling to amateur enthusiasts, you absolutely need to avoid triggering reactance.

How to Avoid Buyer Resistance

On this episode, Andy and I reveal some specific things sales people to do trigger reactance and we discuss what you can do about it. Asking the wrong questions at the wrong time is one of the biggest problems I see. We talk about what those questions are and why you should avoid them during this episode.

Raising the Stakes: How to Make People Care About What You Say Jun 28, 2019

Start Big, Start Strong

If your presentation doesn’t start out with a high-stakes Big Idea within the first 15 seconds, you’re going to lose your audience. This means you have to provide some new information that makes your topic more urgent, compelling, and important in the listener’s mind. If you get this wrong your audience is going to be playing on their phones and barely listening to the rest of your talk.

For ANY topic there is a way to raise the stakes. Don’t tell me it’s impossible in your industry because you sell something boring like industrial air compressors. I could make a #2 pencil into a matter of human survival if I had to. It’s about making the problem seem more important to the listener. On this episode, I speak with Jim Davies about the science of raising the stakes.

Don’t Drop the Nuke too Early

One of the biggest problems I see is people let the cat out of the bag in the first two minutes of their talk. They try to raise the stakes but they end up giving away the punch line. You can’t drop the nuke right at the beginning of the movie.

Jim told me that the human mind is a change detector. So if you introduce an idea as being important it will grab our attention for a short while. But unless you keep raising the stakes and making it MORE important, we’re going to get bored. The idea is going to slowly fade from our minds. This means you have to gradually build intensity during your talk.

The trick is figuring out how to raise the stakes during the first 15 seconds while still leaving yourself somewhere to go. You do this by posing questions. The answers need to come later on in your speech. Start with the questions. Jim and I break down exactly how to do this in this episode.

A Script for Raising the Stakes

One way to raise the stakes is using the words “either” and “or” at the start of your presentation. Tell your audience that by the end of your talk you are going to either decide to work together or decide not to work together, but it isn’t going to end on a “maybe”. This poses a question and makes the discussion seem much more important.

On today’s episode, Jim and I provide four different scripts you can use to raise the stakes in your own presentations, along with specific examples of how they work.

Speak the Language of Money - Four Factors Investors Need to See in Your Deal Jun 26, 2019

Money is Counter-Intuitive

Sales approaches don’t work for raising money. Actually, standard sales and marketing tactics scare professional investors away because people with money don’t want to be “sold” and marketed to. They want to be attracted to you and your deal naturally.

What Money Wants

The first place I see people go wrong is they don’t understand what investors are actually looking for. Most of us think that people with money must be looking to make as much money as possible. When we pitch a deal, we naturally focus on how much money the investor will be able to make if they invest in our deal.

But, actually, investors don’t want to make money, they want to properly balance risk and reward and they want the deal to be the right size for them. Different investors are looking for different things depending on where they are in their careers and you need to be able to give them what they want. On this episode, I explain exactly how to do it.

The Language of Money

When you talk to investors, you have to use certain words to describe your deal. If you aren’t using the proper lingo, investors won’t understand your deal and they won’t invest. Speaking the language of money lets your listeners know that you’re a pro and it makes them feel comfortable giving their money to you. Use the wrong words and you look like you don’t know what you’re doing. On this episode, I explain how the language of money works and I give some specific examples of how to “speak” it.

The Level X Group - Hanging Out with Some of the Top Performers on the Planet Jun 20, 2019

Reaching Level X

I have a very hard time collaborating with others and working with coaches because I’m already running at such a high level in my own life and business. I might not be the best at jet skiing or yodeling, but when it comes to writing a pitch, nobody beats me. The problem is that coaches don’t agree with your own plan. Coaches are people who tell you what to work on. But when you reach the highest levels it’s very hard to trust people enough to let them coach you.

Many sales people have this problem where they have taken so many different seminars and worked with so many different sales coaches that now they sort of have a Frankenstein personality. But I’ve noticed that top performers never have this problem. They are always very clear about who they are and they can take a few things away from a seminar without letting it completely change up their approach.

Forming the Group

One of my current side projects is to assemble a group of top performers in a variety of fields to address this issue. I’ve noticed that top performers don’t easily allow others to hold them accountable because they want to be holding themselves accountable. So the idea of the Level X Group is to get these top achievers together and find new ways to hold ourselves accountable and push ourselves forward in life and business.

On this episode, listen as Casey and I conduct the first meeting of Level X and start to establish some of the group’s founding principles.

Secrets for Starting a Call - How I Use Pace and Tone to Get Things Started Right Jun 19, 2019

Two Underrated Tools

At the start of a call, you need to do something to grab the prospect’s attention and set yourself apart from all the other sales people out there. I’ve discovered that your tone of voice and the pacing of your speech are two of the best tools you have for this. In this episode I reveal how I use these tools on my own calls.

Don’t Get Self-Deprecation Wrong

One tone I often use at the start of a call is self-deprecation. This works well for making you approachable but it can also undermine your expertise and authority. I’ve found the key is to be self-deprecating about everything that doesn’t apply to your business but nothing that does. Bev and I cover some specific examples and scripts for this during today’s episode.

Use a Provocative Tone

Being provocative is about saying things that are light but not funny. You want to stir up a small controversy to get people talking. I’ve found this works best if you immediately relieve the tension by following provocative statements with a bit of self-deprecating humor. I’ll reveal exactly how I do it today.

Get Serious About Pacing

I only have one rule on pace and it’s very simple: talk faster about less important things and talk slower about the big stuff. It’s fine to breeze through your opening at a face pace but when you get to talking about the price, you need to slow down. To convey seriousness and authority, drop your voice and start talking at half speed when you reach a discussion of price.

Handling Tough Audiences - Winning Over Your Harshest Critics Jun 18, 2019

Tough Audiences Don’t Really Exist

Once you get to a size larger than 200 people, every audience is basically the same. Blaming a flop on the crowd is an amateur move. If your remarks didn’t go over well and you were speaking to a decently sized room, the only reasonable conclusion is that it was your fault. You’ll need to try something different next time.

The one exception is when you get put in front of a room that is completely wrong for your topic or who aren’t even in your industry and don’t understand any of your lingo. In these cases, you will need to have some emergency strategies in your back pocket.

Overcome Objections in Advance

If I know my listener is going to have some specific objections to what I’m about to say, I like to address those in advance and just get rid of them. Jim pointed out that Eminem uses the same strategy in the movie Eight Mile. During this episode, I reveal a precise word-for-word script you can use to crush audience objections before they even come up.

Get Everyone Off their Phones

I was recently speaking to a room full of millionaires and when I walked up to the podium half the room was on their phone. I couldn’t just start talking without everyone’s full attention so I used a dominance technique to force everyone in the audience to pick a side. Don’t get thrown off by the word dominance, it doesn’t mean “dominate”, and it’s not aggressive in any way at all. Every room has a dominance hierarchy, so a dominance technique just means, “restructure the social hierarchy.” It was extremely effective and everyone put away their phones. I’ll show you how it works on this episode.

Don’t Let Your Audience Down

There are a couple simple ways to ensure you never let your audience down. First, get as much information about your listeners before you give the speech as possible. I’ll share my proven strategies for doing this on today’s episode. I’ll also talk about how to take listeners on a roller coaster so they feel pleasantly emotionally manipulated.

Entrepreneurs 3 Top Questions - Most Common Mistakes Made by Start-Up Founders Jun 14, 2019

A Special Episode for Entrepreneurs

Every day, I get emails from entrepreneurs and sales people all over the world asking for my advice on various issues. I used to answer each one with a long and detailed response, but now I just don’t have time. Also, many of the questions are very similar, so I found myself typing the same things over and over again.

This is why I’ve decided to start doing a Q&A from time to time on the podcast. This is the first Q&A episode and it’s dedicated to some of the most common questions I’ve been receiving from entrepreneurs recently. To make sure my answers stayed fresh and off-the-cuff, I recorded the episode in my truck, with my producer reading me the questions while I drove around.

My Best Experience as an Entrepreneur

First, I talk about something that happened to me in my early 20s, when I was just starting my first company. It was an experience that really solidified my love of entrepreneurship and startup culture and I’ve never spoken about it anywhere before. In this episode, I explain what happened and why it had such a big impact on me.

The Most Rewarding Aspect of Entrepreneurship

Why are so many people drawn to entrepreneurship, even though the odds of “making it” and founding a successful company are so low? I believe that the high rate of failure is actually a good thing. When everyone expects you not to make it, you’ve got permission to fail. It takes the pressure off for everything you do to work out perfectly.

Most Common Entrepreneur Mistake

The last question I answer is about the biggest mistake I see entrepreneurs making. The great thing about entrepreneurs is that they’re visionary and they want to change the world. But this usually leads them to focus too heavily on their idea and the potential for helping people. Investors and buyers want to know about the DEAL itself. In this episode, I explain how to change your pitch to give the listener more of what they really want to hear.

Red Flags that Stop Sales - 7 Ways to Lose a Deal After the Buyer Says “Yes” Jun 12, 2019

No Sale is Safe

Just because someone has agreed to buy from you doesn’t mean the sale is “in the bag”. I’ve had CEOs agree to purchase $250,000 consulting packages from us and then lost the sale later on because their CFO or someone from the Board of Directors didn’t like the deal. Those kinds of losses really hurt.

Today I spoke with Cullen, whose job is to advise businesses and CEOs on large purchases, hires, and consulting contracts before they sign on the dotted line. Before that, Cullen was in sales. So he has been involved in thousands of large deals from both sides of the table. I brought him on the show today to talk about what he looks for in a deal before he will approve it and what red flags cause him to stop and pump the brakes.

Show You Can Handle the Heat

The first thing Cullen does is apply a bit of pressure to the sales rep to see if they can handle it. He wants to gain an understanding of how they perform when the stakes start to go up. “I can usually tell within a few seconds if someone can take the pressure” he told me. How can you be sure to pass these kinds of tests? We cover that in depth on this episode.

Be Willing to Adjust Your Timeline

Another big issue for Cullen is the timeline of the project. He often asks the sales rep what would happen if he needed to speed up the timeframe or slow it down. What aspects of the proposal could be adjusted to change the delivery schedule? If you can’t talk intelligently about this, you immediately look like an amateur. Cullen and I provide some helpful strategies on this episode that will allow you to answer this question in a smart way.

Demonstrate a Next-Level Understanding

It’s also important to show the buyer that you understand how your product or service will fit into the core focus of their business. You need to demonstrate an overall perspective on the organization instead of just being a hammer that is looking for a nail. We cover a few scripts that work for this and I’ll show you the strategies I use in my own business.

Warming Up an Audience - NEVER Start with a Joke and What to Do Instead Jun 11, 2019

The Common Wisdom is Wrong

When you think about how to start a speech, the first things that come to mind for most people are to kick things off with a joke or to begin with a story. But these strategies can actually backfire. Unless your joke is hilarious and relevant to your topic, and unless you are a very talented storyteller, these approaches come across as amateur.

On this episode, cognitive scientist Jim Davies and I explore the science behind why these strategies often fall flat. We also reveal two specific scripts you can use to start any presentation off with a bang: the “harder than it looks” setup and the Apparent Contradiction Frame.

The “Harder than It Looks” Setup

One way to warm up your audience is to introduce your topic as being more difficult than most people think. This causes your listeners to immediately pay attention. First, they are interested to learn what makes it so difficult. Second, they want to find out how to overcome these difficulties.

Jim and I break down the science of how this setup works and we walk through some scripts you can use to apply it to any topic you’d like.

The Apparent Contradiction Frame

Another great warmup is to reveal two pieces of information that both seem true to the audience but are mutually exclusive. This creates conflict in the listener’s mind. By highlighting a contradiction, you entice your audience to pay close attention to your talk in order to resolve the conflict and figure out the truth.

This technique works because the human brain hates contradictions and works hard to resolve them. It’s simple to find conflicting statements for any topic you’re speaking about and I’ll show you how to do it during this episode. Jim and I provide examples and scripts you can use to apply this opening to your own talks.

These are the 12 Things That Always Go Wrong During a Sales Call - And How to Avoid Them Jun 10, 2019

The Problem with Phone Sales

Selling over the phone is hard. You never have the prospect’s full attention like you would in person and it’s easy to fall into Beta Traps and find yourself stuck in the low-status position. In this episode, I’ll show you how to avoid many of the most common problems.

Starting the Call Right

Before you begin any sales call you face a major hurdle: you have to successfully get the prospect on the phone at the appointed time. This can be surprisingly difficult, especially if you sell to CEOs or other busy and important people. If you wait around on the line for more than 6 minutes for the prospect to dial in, it sub-communicates that his time is more important than yours. This instantly drops you to the lower status role.

To avoid this, you have to be willing to walk away from the call—and the sale. You have to reschedule the call for a later time as soon as six minutes have passed. And if the prospect is just 2 or 4 minutes late, you have to reframe and establish dominance as soon as you get them on the line. Failing to do this sets you up to lose the sale. In this episode, Carmine and I walk through the steps you need to take and we provide word-for-word scripts you can use in any industry.

The First 10 Seconds

Once you get the prospect on the phone, additional Beta Traps can emerge quickly. What should you do if the prospect takes your call from a coffee shop? Or while they’re driving in their car? How should you handle a poor connection? What can you say if the prospect starts asking you about your competition? Or if they tell you they’ll need to run everything by their boss or business partner?

Any of these issues can kill a deal. Thankfully, there are simple solutions to all of this stuff. Listen as Carmine and I walk through a typical sales call and address everything that can possibly go wrong. We provide detailed solutions that will work for any sales professional, regardless of what you sell.

How to Get Hired on the Spot - Sales and Interview Tactics You’ve Never Heard Before Jun 07, 2019

Resumes are Dead

A good resume is not going to get you hired for a top position in today’s marketplace. Neither is a LinkedIn connection. For the best jobs with the best companies, it always comes down to your ability to pitch yourself during the interview.

On today’s episode, I talk with entrepreneur Rick Smith, the founder and CEO of Select Blinds, about what he looks for when he’s hiring people for executive-level positions in his company. He told me he doesn’t even look at the resume. The main thing he looks for is the ability to think on your feet during the interview. “I want to be pitched to,” he said, “I believe a good pitch demonstrates a skillset that I would like to surround myself with here at my company.”

The Walt Disney Principle

Rick reveals a simple trick that he uses during every single interview. He says he got it from Walt Disney, who is rumored to have used this same trick for every person he hired. The idea is to measure whether the candidate is someone who cares deeply and will take pride in their position with the company.

Pitching Yourself for a Job

The heart of any job interview comes down to the candidate’s pitch. It’s about your ability to sell yourself as a good fit and a positive addition to the company’s culture. During this episode, I give two examples of scripts you can use in any job interview to stand out from the other applicants.

Rick agreed that if anyone said these words to him during a job interview he would hire them on the spot. The scripts are provided word-for-word on today’s episode, along with a break-down of exactly how they work and why. If you hire people for your company or if you are looking for a new position or thinking about going on the job market, you won’t want to miss this episode.

How to Deal with Bad Customers - Creating a Relationship Out of Thin Air Jun 06, 2019

Remembering Brenden Daily

This episode is a special tribute to Brenden Daily, an ex-NFL player who worked with our team before he passed away unexpectedly two years ago. The qualities I saw Brenden demonstrate every day were an inspiration to all of us here at Pitch Anything and he is sorely missed.

From watching Brenden I learned that the qualities that get you into the NFL don’t have much to do with the game of football. Instead, it’s all about how much force you can generate with your hips in approximately 1/10 of a second. The only way to get drafted is to combine perseverance, integrity, and purpose with a willingness to work tirelessly and without attachment to the outcome. Entrepreneurs need exactly the same qualities.

How to Create an Instant Relationship

If all of your customers were your long-time friends, they would treat you with complete fairness and conscientiousness. They would never miss a meeting or stand you up for a phone call. They would buy. But your customers aren’t your friends. They don’t know you at all. This is why they sometimes treat you with disregard.

The solution is to create the illusion in your listener’s mind that the two of you have a relationship. They way they will treat you with more respect and will be less likely to act unfairly toward you. I reveal exactly how to short-circuit the relationship process on this episode.

Dealing with Bad Customers

Once you know how to create the feeling of a high quality relationship out of thin air, the next step is learning how to use that relationship to make the customer feel bad for treating you unfairly. To do this, talk to the customer about how the two of you need to feel so comfortable with each other that you aren’t afraid to get mad and tell each other how you really feel. Then you can tell them what part of their behavior doesn’t work for you.

I’ve got a word-for-word script showing you exactly how to do this on today’s podcast episode.

Don’t Be A Pig - You Need to Know When to Quit Negotiating Jun 05, 2019

The Problem With Over-Negotiating

When I was first starting out in this business I learned an important lesson about dealmaking from my friend and mentor, Russell. I was working on a big deal in which we were going to make about $1.3M and I realized there was more demand for the deal than I had originally thought. Great! We could make $2.2M instead. I was so excited.

But then Russell told me something I’ll never forget. “Don’t be a pig,” he said. “This is a fair deal and these are fair terms. Sell it out and let’s move on to the next one.” I learned a lot from that, and it’s still a part of my approach today.

In My Deals, Everybody Wins

Pushing people too hard is a mistake. Yes, you may make a few more dollars in the short term, but you’ll quickly develop a reputation for being hard to work with. Once word gets out in your industry that you aren’t a team player, it’s almost impossible to live it down. Especially today with customer reviews and social media.

The solution is to adopt an attitude that everybody needs to be a winner at the end of every deal you do. Yes, you want to make money. But you also want the other parties in the deal to make a reasonable margin and be able to stay in business. I discuss how to do this without getting taken advantage of on today’s episode of the podcast.

How Do You Want to Spend Your Time?

Here’s the other reason not to negotiate too hard: how much of your time do you really want to spend grinding other people down for a higher margins? I was at a car dealership recently and I used a rather strange negotiation tactic. The salesperson told me the price and I said, “I’ll take it.” I didn’t negotiate at all. I paid the money, drove it off the lot, and spent the rest of the weekend with my family.

Be a person whose time is too precious to spend fighting over a few dollars. That’s a type of prize framing that I use all the time. I don’t want to pay outrageous prices for things, but if the price is fair I’m not going to waste my time trying to get a slightly better deal.

Negotiate until you reach a fair price, shake hands, and move on.

Story Pitch vs Data Pitch

The final topic in this episode is the difference between a story pitch and a data pitch. I see people get this confused all the time. There are two main ways to pitch any deal and if you choose the wrong one you’ll never be able to convince others to invest in you. You also don’t want to mix these together.

I’ll show you exactly what the difference is and you’ll see an example of how to construct each type of pitch. Finally, I’ll point out some common mistakes and how to avoid them.

You Speak, They Listen - How to Keep Any Audience Engaged and Paying Attention Jun 04, 2019

Why Is It So Hard to Keep Audiences Engaged?

As I wrote extensively in my book, the human attention span is about 15-20 minutes. My original research has been copied or quoted by just about every business author, so this should be familiar ground. 20 mins. That's the longest amount of time we can reasonably be expected to stay 80%+ focused on a single topic, idea, or activity without some kind of additional stimulation.

When you give a presentation, it seems exciting and fascinating to you because you're the one who is talking. Your adrenaline is pumping and you're moving around the stage. Biologically, you are the most interested person in the room in what you have to say.

For shorter speeches of 5-10 minutes, this is fine. The audience can pick up on your enthusiasm and it will carry you through. But when you have to give a speech or presentation that is longer than 20 or 25 minutes, you'll need to do something to engage and re-focus your audience.

According to the research, there are two main things you'll need to do. First, you have to provide some pacing changes and media changes (e.g., show a video clip, play some audio, or introduce another speaker). You have to break things up. Second, you'll need to provide markers and "sign-posts" that make the organization of your speech extremely obvious.

Techniques for Breaking it Up

Motivational speakers are famous for asking audience members to stand up and high-five each other or give 10 other people a hug. These kinds of activities work great for giving the audience a mini-break and getting their blood moving and endorphins pumping. But if you're giving a serious speech to the board of directors of your company about quarterly revenue growth, the Tony Robbins approach can feel cheesy and out-of-place.

On today's episode of the podcast, I talk to Jim Davies about a number of different strategies you can use to break up your speech and re-engage the audience. The most effective method is the use of video. But while video clips are a great way to break things up, they also present a host of problems if you use them incorrectly. Learn what the science suggests about the proper way to use videos during presentations of different lengths.

Adding Sign-Posts

The other problem for presenters is that the structure of your speech is extremely obvious to you because you wrote it. But if your speech is more than 20-25 minutes long, your audience is going to have a hard time following the points of your talk. This is because humans have a limited ability to hold items in our working memory. When we pass the 25 minute mark, the mechanical functions of the brain start to fatigue and we forget what we heard at the start of the talk.

The solution is to "sign-post" and make the structure of your talk way more obvious than it seems like it needs to be. The farther you go over 25 minutes, the more obvious the sign-posts should be. Learn exactly how to achieve this on today's episode.

My Emails Get a 70% Response Rate - Here's How I Do It Jun 03, 2019

The Email Outreach Problem...

Some say that email is dead today, but let's be honest: email is still the easiest, cheapest, and most efficient way to generate a lead and close a sale in just about any industry on the planet. If your email outreach isn't generating sales, you're leaving a lot of money on the table. I have consulted with businesses in every industry and have consistently been able to double or triple their response rates in just a few weeks.

Here's the problem with how most people do email outreach: they make it all about themselves. The typical outreach email reads like this, "Hi, I’m Corey, from XYZ company, and we have a product that can decrease your cost, increase your throughput, make you tanner, make you more in shape, increase your bottom-line revenue, your operating margin, your EBITDA, and make the sun shine more often in your geography. I’d love to show you what we have. We’ve been awarded Microsoft’s ACT developer of the year and the queen of England frequently discusses us on her podcast, and we won the Edwards award 3 years running. Please click here for a demo."

These kinds of emails are all about the sender, which is a huge mistake. I've found that outreach works best when it is focused on the recipient rather than the sender. There are two tactics I use to shift the focus: social relevance and problem-specific relevance.

Social Relevance

First, I explain how to make the recipient feel a sense of familiarity and connection with you just from a glance at your name and subject line. I call this "social relevance". Unless the reader recognizes something about your name or the subject, they will immediately skew your email as marketing. And then the response rates go way down.

The key is to lead with social relevance, and I break down how to do it in this episode.

Problem-Specific Relevance

The second thing that will get people to open your email is if you refer to a specific problem that your reader is currently dealing with. Often, marketers try to keep their emails really general so as to apply to as many people as possible. For example, "want more traffic?" However, this is actually the wrong approach. Everyone wants more traffic. It's so general that it feels like a spam email.

But when you mention that you can solve a highly specific problem that your reader is struggling with, it will grab their attention. In this episode, I reveal exactly how to do this without sounding cheesy.

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