Paul M. Caffrey (00:01.038)
And I'm delighted to be joined by sales consultant, Alan Langer. Alan, how are you doing?
Allan Langer - The 7 Secrets Sales Academy (00:06.441)
I am awesome, Paul. How are you?
Paul M. Caffrey (00:08.75)
Yeah, no, really good, really good. Looking forward to this conversation because we're going to talk about something we haven't spoke about before on the podcast. I think it's so, so important. And the topic is body language. What brought you to be somewhat of an expert on body language and sales?
Allan Langer - The 7 Secrets Sales Academy (00:21.033)
Yes.
Allan Langer - The 7 Secrets Sales Academy (00:27.369)
Well, when I was selling myself, I actually sold a high -end Anderson windows for many, many years and I was their, their top sales rep, but I'm a, I'm a student of getting better and learning and I, and I, and always trying to research what's going to be better, you know, make me better as a salesperson. And I started stumbling across body language just from research and realizing why isn't there any body language with regard to sales?
Cause if you ask every salesperson, do you pay attention to body language? They're all going to say yes. The problem is they don't do anything with it or they don't know what to do with it when they see it or when they register it. So I actually made an entire chapter in my book about body language in sales during a sales conversation and it became a game changer, literally like my sales kind of skyrocketed due to really.
not only paying attention to body language, but what does that mean? And then what do I need to do about it when I see it? So I think it's the most, unappreciated unspoken about area of sales. It's kind of ignored. Nobody talks about it. I've never all the sales training I've ever taken every sales manager I've ever had never ever mentioned body language. And if you start to pay attention to body language and then know what to do with it as a salesperson, you are really going to increase your, your productivity.
Paul M. Caffrey (01:55.15)
And body language is interesting because it's something that once you learn it, you can't unlearn it. You will. You will see it all the time. I remember a book, what everybody is saying, and it was some ex FBI. Yeah. And I remember I still I probably read that book 12 years ago, and I still recall some of the lessons from it. So for somebody who has he doesn't really know what to look for when we speak about body language. What?
Allan Langer - The 7 Secrets Sales Academy (02:08.457)
Joan of Aro, yep.
Paul M. Caffrey (02:24.366)
What are some easy tells or some easy signs they should look out for, let's say in an early sales meeting?
Allan Langer - The 7 Secrets Sales Academy (02:32.553)
So there are, I do a whole workshop on body language. It's actually my most popular one. I probably did it 30 times, you know, in the last 12 months or so. And it's a couple, you know, first of all, body language is, is you need to look at the context of everything. You need to look at the context of the conversation. You need to look at the context of the environment. So I, I will preface this by saying, if this happens a hundred percent of the time, it means this, it's never a hundred percent of the time.
However, there are certain things that are about pretty close to 100 % of the time. One of them that comes to mind and something that everyone should pay attention to is when someone purses their lips. When they do a micro and a pursed lip is a micro expression. So if they just simply go just like that, that is never a positive sign. Someone purses their lips for some sort of negative reason. It could be a big negative reason or it could be a small one.
But it usually pertains to something they just heard or something they just saw that you showed them. If you ignore that, if you just keep plowing through your sales demo, that whatever bothered them is going to stick in their brain. And then at the end of the conversation, you're going to say, man, that was a great appointment. Why didn't they buy? Well, they bought, they didn't buy because something bothered them. They showed you nonverbally and you ignored it.
So that would be one, pay attention to pursed lips. Here's another one that I'm going to kind of debunk a little bit. Everyone always says, my God, they cross their arms. Crossing their arms is a negative thing. Crossing their arms could be very negative all the way to very positive. It happens to be based on the context of the conversation. When I'm in front of a room giving this talk, if I stand with both feet on the floor and cross my arms,
It's more of a power position. It's more of a, I'm not sure, you know, incredulous kind of position. As soon as I actually lift one of my legs and cross them and I relieve my balance or relinquish my balance, the body language becomes opposite and now I'm very comfortable. So be careful with crossed arms. Crossed arms does not always mean they're blocking you off or it's negative. You have to look at the context of the conversation. So those are, those are two quick tips that come to the top of my head.
Paul M. Caffrey (04:53.71)
Yeah, the crossed arms one is very interesting because I must admit, obviously, one of the things you come across is, yeah, crossed arms is negative. So if you're giving a presentation, you kind of would irk me a little bit and I'd be it would be in my mind that, there's something going on here. And I will be consciously trying to get that person to interact. And I always wondered, well, how come people actually would have their LinkedIn profile photos with their arms crossed or if you're in the newspaper or business magazine?
It's a very common power pose to that. So that that's quite it was quite good to debunk that. You spoke, I suppose, about pursed lips and what that looked like was a hesitation for anybody listening or somebody who kind of was wanted to say something but didn't. So there was just a little movement in the mouth. So, again, pretty interesting. If you do see that happen, should you address it straight away? Should you come back to it? What's the rule of thumb there?
Allan Langer - The 7 Secrets Sales Academy (05:24.361)
Mm -hmm.
Allan Langer - The 7 Secrets Sales Academy (05:49.961)
Yeah. So, so the, the concept I train on this is the old TSA expression in the United States. If you see something, say something. So if you see some sort of nonverbal signal, don't ignore it. Now you're not going to say, Hey, I saw you purse your lips. You're not going to do that. But I always like to use the phrase, you know what, Paul, let me pause here for a minute. How does everything sound so far? So if we were talking and I was talking about my product or service and you pursed your lips.
Paul M. Caffrey (06:06.83)
Yeah.
Allan Langer - The 7 Secrets Sales Academy (06:20.457)
And if I just kept going again, I ignored something that bothered you. But if you purse your lips and I'm like, and I basically say, Hey, you know what? Let me pause here for a minute. Paul's everything sound okay. I just kind of brought you back into the conversation. I got you away from that negative thought in your head. And amazingly enough, most people will actually tell you what bothered them. They'll say, actually, I'm glad you asked. You know what? I didn't really, I don't really, I don't really need those 10 features that you're talking about right now. I only need this.
boom, now you're back in the conversation and find out exactly what the customer needs. You can use phrases like sounds like, looks like, you know, this doesn't sound good, looks like this sounds good. It's about, you know, the old crazy term, always be closing ABC, you know, we've all heard always be closing. I hate that term. My ABC is always be checking. You always want to be checking in on the client, check their temperature to see how they're doing.
Paul M. Caffrey (06:53.518)
Great. Yeah.
Allan Langer - The 7 Secrets Sales Academy (07:18.697)
Because once you start coming across as that typical salesperson who's not listening and just talking, you're not going to be a successful, you're just going to be mediocre. Check in on your client all the time. How does this sound? How does that, how does this look to you so far? You know, open -ended questions and, and that's what you do when you see a nonverbal signal and they're never going to sell, tell you, my God, you noticed my body language. They're actually going to feel like, wow, this guy's paying attention.
Paul M. Caffrey (07:46.19)
Yeah, that's the most important part is to show that you're engaged and in the conversation. And you'll be so surprised. I've given presentations where we've had a great first call and we've went in to do the presentation. And then the decision makers just they just kind of sat back and they went very disinterested. I remember calling this out immediately and going, well, is this agenda not on point with what we discussed, what we're going to cover off?
And then it turns out that person just absolutely hated PowerPoint. So I was like, OK, great. So you're not a slides person. Well, we don't need those. And then it was the conversation. So even check in the way that people want to run the meeting, if you see a big switch in body language, I guess, to your point, addressing it as opposed to I'm sure that person probably would have politely let me keep going, but they definitely wouldn't have bought from me. And so the I mean.
Allan Langer - The 7 Secrets Sales Academy (08:18.025)
Yeah.
Allan Langer - The 7 Secrets Sales Academy (08:22.153)
Yeah. Right.
Allan Langer - The 7 Secrets Sales Academy (08:36.137)
Sure. No. It's a great point. Well, it really is. That's a good one.
Paul M. Caffrey (08:42.574)
Cool. One that I've always noticed, if you're ever in a meeting and there's a lot of people in the meeting, I've always kind of gauged who I think is for the solution, who I think probably doesn't seem to care. And then who seems to be against it. And the body language is a big piece on this. And if I ever see somebody putting their hands to their nose like this or any of these like subtle kind of
maybe more obvious cues very much would address that. What other subtleties should you be looking out for to see if somebody is maybe disagreeing with your sales presentation or maybe not so interested that you could maybe pick up on?
Allan Langer - The 7 Secrets Sales Academy (09:30.665)
Well, there's there's two, obviously two types of conversations and in the world since COVID we've been in the world of zoom. So quite a, quite a few of your listeners, I'm sure do a lot of their sales calls and a lot of their demos over zoom over teams, which makes it more difficult because you can't see the rest of the body. if you read that book, Joan of Arrows, what everybody is saying. one of the things I took from that book that was absolutely fascinating and is 1 billion percent true.
is the face is the least accurate part of the body to read when it comes to body language. The feet are actually the most accurate because the body language comes from your caveman brain, your limbic brain. It's the part of the brain you can control. It controls heartbeat and breathing. It also controls our body language. So the further away from the brain, the body is, the less we're going to be able to control it. People can control their faces. Now that being said, we're not
interviewing serial killers in the bowels of a police station here, we're talking to business people. So for the most part, their face is going to be fairly accurate. Because most of the time what they're thinking is going to come out from their face, even if they realize they shouldn't have made that expression, and they corrected it already came out. So on zoom, you want to look for disinterested types of tells, like glancing, looking down.
I hate when people spend zoom like this, you know, cause you know, they're on their computer, drives me crazy. It's I think it's, it's just so rude, but people are rude to salespeople. They don't want to be sold. They don't want to be on the, on the zoom with a salesperson. So they're going to do that. in those situations, you can use humor to get them back. Like, you know, Hey, what's, you know, what are you looking at over there? Is there, is there something in your backyard or something like, you know, it can make some, some people to bring them back and, and things like that.
but you gotta watch for disinterested. And here's something from a how you look to people, cause you gotta watch your own body language as well. Always show your hands about 60 to 70 % of the time. When you show your hands on zoom, you become more trustworthy. It's been proven. They've done studies on this. So if I sat here this whole time and I never showed my hands, it's fine. But the more I show my hands, the more people will listen and the more they trust me. So,
Allan Langer - The 7 Secrets Sales Academy (11:56.041)
I would say to answer your question, look for signs of disinterest and to your point, the person who's interested in what they need to solve their problem is the one who's going to be paying attention more. The other people might be along for the ride and they don't really care.
Paul M. Caffrey (12:11.31)
Great. And the where to put your hands on Zoom, that's quite an interesting one, because even as we speak here, my hands are just out of shot. The traditional training is keep your hands on the table, which we're all aware of. And we know how to pose or have that triangle for the power piece.
Allan Langer - The 7 Secrets Sales Academy (12:20.585)
Yep.
Paul M. Caffrey (12:29.902)
And so bringing that to Zoom is a really solid idea and something that I never thought of. And apart from getting your setup, which I mean, you've got a lovely setup there. You can see it's well lit and you're right in the center of the screen. Anybody can do that with their laptop. I mean, just try your laptop on a bunch of books. That was certainly what I did when COVID kicked in and I wasn't expecting to be working remote like like none of us were. One thing which was is is always trained to us.
Allan Langer - The 7 Secrets Sales Academy (12:29.961)
Right.
Paul M. Caffrey (12:56.654)
And I'd love to run it past you, Alan is if you're doing a presentation, a sales presentation to five or six people, the teaching is say one whole sentence, looking at one person and then move on to your next sentence and say to the next person. And when we moved into this zoom world, the training was speak to the camera for the majority of your presentation. But if somebody else asks a question, address that to the corner of the left corner of the screen or to the right corner.
give that impression that you're speaking directly to that person. Is this something you agree with or is this maybe us overthinking how to present to multiple people on Zoom?
Allan Langer - The 7 Secrets Sales Academy (13:37.001)
Yeah, I think it's a little overthinking because so many cameras are in so many different positions like I My cameras right here. I'm looking at my camera now, but when you're talking I'm looking at you, so I'm not looking at the camera Do you know I'm looking at you? I don't know I mean, I don't know what angle my face looks on your screen So I wouldn't worry about that That's just one thing that not to worry about look at your camera when you're talking to the group if someone speaks just look down to them they'll know that you're looking at them, but I wouldn't spend too much time about that because
There's so many cameras all over different angles and everything. It's impossible to come up with one way to do it.
Paul M. Caffrey (14:10.126)
OK. Great. Well, I mean, that's good, right? One less one less thing to worry about for sure. Yeah, when it comes to your own body language and you know, as salespeople, this is something that we're very aware of what our bodies is saying. I mean, a couple of things which have been shared is like if you're in a sales meeting, if you are.
Allan Langer - The 7 Secrets Sales Academy (14:15.785)
One less thing to think about, yeah.
Paul M. Caffrey (14:35.406)
If you're meeting a man, you're better off to sit to the side of them and have the conversation that way. If you're meeting a woman, you're better off to sit across opposite them. If the alternative gender, any of that ever come out with any of your sessions or again, is that a little over the top?
Allan Langer - The 7 Secrets Sales Academy (14:54.825)
I, I spent a lot of my time in consumer sales. So I'm, I'm, I was talking to homeowners quite a bit in the house, but even, even when I was in B2B, I didn't worry about necessarily where I sat in relation to them, but I wanted to make sure there was nothing between us. So I hated the fact that, you know, sales training is like sit at the kitchen table and you're sitting across from a couple. So it's you against them with this big barrier. So.
I would always ask them, where should we sit? What's comfortable for you? Would you like to sit in your living room? And most of the time they would say, yes, let's sit in the living room. Cause now that's their comfort zone. And I actually could watch their feet cause I wanted to see what their feet were doing while I was in front of them. In a B2B situation, if you're actually meeting in person, ask them what's comfortable. Like you don't want to, usually you're going to probably be in a conference room.
which kind of sucks because they're going to be across the conference table and you're going to be on one side. So get as close to them as possible. So if they're across the table, say, do you mind if I sit here on the corner? So at least you're on the corner and you're closer to them rather than having a barrier. So the corner of the table is a smaller barrier than the entire conference table. when you can sit in, sit on, on, on some chairs, you know, like say you go in their office and a lot of people have the big desk and then they have like a little table or chairs.
on the other side of the office, sit there instead of behind the desk. So try to eliminate any barriers between you is what I would recommend.
Paul M. Caffrey (16:27.022)
Cool. Okay. I mean, that's sound advice. At least there are generally a lot of options of places to sit when you go into that conference room. So yeah, going for the corner typically should be there. You've mentioned feet a few times. Let's get into this. Are we saying that if legs are crossed, it's a good sign because people are relaxed? Or are we saying if your feet are pointing a certain way? What is that?
Allan Langer - The 7 Secrets Sales Academy (16:49.929)
So there's quite a few, and again, I would recommend reading this book, the Joe Navarro book, What Every Body Is Saying, Every and Body are two different words. When you're looking at feet, there's quite a few ways to look at it, standing position, sitting position, but let's say we're in a sitting position. When someone crosses their legs, for example, if you're sitting next to them and they cross their leg and they're,
is blocking you so let's say they cross the leg away from you that's a sign where they don't trust you and they're kind of still protecting themselves so they're blocking themselves with their thigh when that switches and they actually cross their other leg and they're open to you they usually will now turn to you so their body's facing you that's a great sign because now they're opening up to you and they feel safe with you and they start to trust you so that's one thing to look for I actually love when I go into if I go out at night and I'm sitting I love watching
dates at a bar, I can always tell it's an online date or a first or second date. And I'll be with whoever I'm with. I'm like, she doesn't like him. What do you mean? How do you know that? Well, look at her legs, look at her body language. So the guy will be facing her completely and she's facing the bar with her leg crossed, blocking him. Great sign right there to say that the date's not working well as opposed to the other way where the date is working well. So kind of the same thing in a business situation because business sales calls, they're first dates. You're trying to make it.
You know, you want them to like you a lot and then ultimately, you know, buy your product or service. the other thing is if they're sitting and they actually put both feet on the floor, they're still sizing you up. They're keeping themselves a little protected. That extends to when they're standing and they have both feet on the floor. That starts from the basic concept of fight or flight. We all know what fight or flight is, right? Where we're going to prepare ourselves to run or to, or to face our foe.
Well, you can't do that when you're unbalanced. So when you have both feet on the floor, you start in a balanced position and you're still in an untrustworthy, protective position. So if someone's standing or sitting and they have both feet on the floor, they're not sure of you yet. As soon as they relinquish that, as soon as they put their legs out and cross their feet, or they are in their standing and they cross their feet like this, that means they now trust you and they like you and they're relinquishing their balance.
Allan Langer - The 7 Secrets Sales Academy (19:14.729)
no longer worried about fight or flight. So those are kind of two things to worry to watch with the feet.
Paul M. Caffrey (19:20.334)
Yeah, and I really like that as well. When you a good way to pick this up is if you're meeting up with a group of your friends or you happen to see a group of friends somewhere to your point, Alan, you can really look at that group and see who's enjoying the conversation, who's maybe looking to get out of the conversation. And again, how people's bodies are facing is very, very key. Now, salespeople were taught to go in and to sit in a confident power pose.
And that essentially is what we're told. But then we're also taught to, well, look, you should be mirroring the other person. And we also consciously mirror the other person in the sense of someone's lying back, leaning back and they have a hand on their head like this as they talk. And you're probably naturally going to notice that you're in a similar position if you don't follow your body language whatsoever. Should we adopt a power pose going in, sitting in a meeting? Is there a certain way that you recommend people sit or that they stand?
Or should we just switch off and just let ourselves naturally mirror what the other person is doing?
Allan Langer - The 7 Secrets Sales Academy (20:23.849)
Well, there's a couple of ways to answer that. I'm not a big fan of power poses because you never know how the other person's personality is going to handle that. The pose that is always accepted and makes someone else feel good is just leaning in slightly. Whether you're sitting or standing, if you lean in just slightly, not in their face, but if you just lean in slightly, they're going to feel like you're listening and that you're comfortable with them. That's all they need to feel.
Sales is about the other person feeling comfortable with making that purchase with you. And that start that's going to start with your body language because they're going to size you up. I joke about this all the time. We see someone walk in a coffee shop. We immediately make a judgment. Look at that jackass that just walked in. that person looks nice. Right. We have no idea what their personality is or what they look like. But we do that. And everyone is doing that to us when they when they get on a sales call. So if you're in person, lean in a little bit. That will eliminate a lot of the unsure.
feeling that the person will have. As far as mirroring, mirroring, I am always cautious with mirroring because it's a second level of body language. What I would suggest, if people want to start to employ this and start doing some research on it, read some books, watch YouTube. There's really a lot of good body language people on YouTube. Start practicing. Body language takes practice.
If you don't practice, you're not going to be good at it. I wasn't good at it when I first started. I didn't know what I was doing, but the more you do it, the more you practice, the more you're aware of it, the better you get at it. Once you feel comfortable, then you can start looking at mirroring because I would, I would from a mirroring standpoint, when you're comfortable with body language, then you can start doing some mirroring, like just leaning back, like you said, or if they do this with their head, do that. But then you want to watch if they start to mirror you.
Once they start to mirror you, then you know you're in a good position. But I wouldn't start with mirroring because you're gonna look fake. You're gonna look like you're trying to do stuff and you're gonna forget about what you're talking about. So the first thing to do is just pay attention to body language, see what's happening. Then when you get really comfortable with it, then you can start playing around with mirroring.
Paul M. Caffrey (22:40.43)
Yeah, and rightly or wrongly, it is something that you can start doing. So if you've got some meetings that you're in, maybe internal meetings where the stakes are not that high, but they're meetings that you have to do.
Allan Langer - The 7 Secrets Sales Academy (22:48.905)
Paul, let me pause you for a minute. Let me close my window because of course they started cutting the lawn next door. Hold on.
Allan Langer - The 7 Secrets Sales Academy (23:15.273)
I can't seem to get away from noisy places. All right. Sorry about that.
Paul M. Caffrey (23:17.87)
Well, we didn't pick it up all good. So now this is super fun so far. What I was going to ask next. And yes, I was going to say if you're in a meeting like an internal team meeting, you can sometimes use that to be playful with your body language to see, you know, can you sit in a certain way and get other people to start mirroring what you're doing? Lead the I suppose lead the charge and watch what that does to the meeting. I think obviously it's quite interesting if you get
you participate earlier than you act disinterested. You can see other people kind of doing the same or conversely, if you're really engaged, you get other people mirroring your body language and they get engaged as well. Now, I've done that from a playful place, but never any real intention behind it. But again, something to try out in your internal meetings when the stakes are low, you can give it a go and see how you get on. Is. Is there anything?
really obvious that we should look out for. So for example, when people lean back and they do put their hand on the back of their head or anything like this, does that mean anything or does that just mean that maybe they're sitting for too long and they need to get a better chair?
Allan Langer - The 7 Secrets Sales Academy (24:27.113)
Yeah, I mean, those types of tells are, they're all based on the context of the conversation. If you see someone do that and the conversation or the meeting is going well, then they're probably just getting comfortable or stretching or something. But if you're on slide number 10 of the, you know, the inner workings of the flux capacitor and they start doing that, you might realize that, you know, that they're probably bored. So it's really all, there's so many, 90 % of body language, 95 % is context, you know.
Again, there are certain ones, certain things that if it happens, it's pretty sure that, you know, like purse lips, it's not a good thing. but. You know, pay attention to the context. And then when you start seeing things, like I said, if you see something, say something, if you're unsure, it's not a bad thing to say, you know, let me pause here for a minute. Is everybody good? Am I getting, you know, is this, is this presentation getting boring right now? Let me, let me hear. And people will appreciate that. They really will. They're like, yeah, thank God. Yeah. We don't need.
Paul, we don't need to see any of this stuff. Let's get to the price or whatever they're going to say.
Paul M. Caffrey (25:31.15)
Yeah. Okay. That makes sense. The two types of sales conversation, which people are going to come into again and again. One is going to be that initial conversations can be, you call it a discovery call. It's a fact find whatever it is, there's that, which is predominantly conversation. You know, we're looking to understand your business and make a recommendation of what you could or should be doing based on what's happening at the moment.
And then there's the other sort of presentation, which is coming back in after that work has been done. And maybe it's showing the demo or it's telling a narrative, whatever that may be. You are presenting something typically a demo and slides for those two very distinct meetings in a, in a face -to -face environment. Should you.
Should you be looking to sit for the discovery chat and lean in and should you always stand up and present or if you're in a conference room, are you better to sit down with your slides on the screen and speak conversationally while you present the idea? Or is there a best practice for that, Alan?
Allan Langer - The 7 Secrets Sales Academy (26:37.129)
Are you talking in person or Zoom or both?
Paul M. Caffrey (26:39.982)
Let's say in person first and then, yeah, if there's anything to add for Zoom, that would be super interesting.
Allan Langer - The 7 Secrets Sales Academy (26:46.569)
Well, I'm going to assume that you got the meeting in person by doing some sort of discovery over the phone or in a zoom to begin with. You're not going to say, Hey, I'm Paul and I sell this. Can I come to your office? That's not going to happen unless they know, you know, that meeting with you could help their business or solve their problem. So that, that initial discovery call is what's going to get you in the door. And you're going to do that call and that conversation.
with asking open -ended questions. I would say another major area of sales that most sales reps miss is open -ended questions. Most, you see the human brain is wired to ask close -ended questions, meaning yes or no answers. Salespeople do it all the time. How does that sound? That is a dead end question. You're gonna say, good or not good? Or, you know, is that okay with you? Yup.
End of conversation. What did I say that you just liked? That's an open ended question. For example, one of the, I get, I get like reverberations. I like, it drives me crazy when I hear a salesperson say, do you have any questions? Never ever ask that. Do you have any questions as a closed ended question? And how are most people going to answer that? They're going to say, no, no, I'm good. God keep going. Simply switch that around to an open ended question.
What questions do you have at this point? What questions do you have? It makes the prospect start to think a little bit and say, actually, I do have a question or actually, no, I'm good so far, but you're asking an open ended question. It gets their mind thinking in a completely different way. So open ended questions are going to get you into that demo portion of your, of your process. And now you're showing what you're showing, but again, stick with open ended questions, ask them.
Here's here's a big thing that that I always train and I think salespeople usually Get wrong people always will start to sell their product or service They don't sell the problem that they solve So Instead of me selling my sales services, right and you know, what do you do? I'm a sales coach or I'm a sales consultant. That's boring. That doesn't solve a problem. It just says what I do
Allan Langer - The 7 Secrets Sales Academy (29:14.345)
But if someone says, what do you do? Well, I help your sales team sell more if they're struggling. I just address the problem that you have. And now that person wants to talk to me. So when you're, when you're in front of someone, focus on the problem that you solve, not your product or service. If you, if you switch that mindset, the person will feel like this is the solution for me rather than them having to think about, okay, their problem.
If the prospect has to think about how your product or service solves their problem, you're not doing your job. You need to let them know how it does that without getting all demonstration happy and PowerPoint happy, if that makes sense.
Paul M. Caffrey (29:58.67)
Absolutely does, Alan. I mean, that's the key. The key point is you're there to solve a problem. And if there's no problem to solve, you're probably wasting each other's time. And like that, that is the reality of it. And I guess one thing I call out is most people will invite you in or will spend time with you in a call because they have a problem that they think you might be able to solve. And sometimes they're not always going to share what that problem is or the nuance behind that problem. So.
Allan Langer - The 7 Secrets Sales Academy (30:08.329)
Yeah. Right.
Paul M. Caffrey (30:28.526)
we have to dig in and diagnose that absolutely crucial. And one other thing which comes to mind is if you're presenting to an audience in sales, we sometimes end up presenting to audiences or you may be doing keynote speaking or whatever that may be. I guess rule of thumb is if the person who's presented before you.
was really bad, you should stand in a different part of the stage to where they stood and you then get separated. And conversely, if they were really good, you should then stand where they stood on the stage. Have you ever come across any of any of this theory in your in your work?
Allan Langer - The 7 Secrets Sales Academy (31:12.329)
Again, that's really, hey, if you want to do that, I've never thought of that, I've never seen it. I always go into that the person before me is not going to be as good as me. So I'm going to do my thing and you're going to do your thing. And hey, if they were great, you kind of can acknowledge that they were great and joke around, boy, that's a tough act to follow kind of thing. I did a recent symposium where...
I guess it was a full day seminar kind of thing. There were five speakers and I was the, I think I was the third one and the first two were just God awful. They were terrible. And I was thinking this whole time I was getting all cocky like, this is going to be easy. I'm going to blow this room away. But then I kind of took a step back and like, listen, I still got to do my thing. I still got to, I still got to perform here because, even though they were terrible, now these people are expecting the presenters to be bad.
So I went up there and I just did my thing and got a standing ovation. But yeah, just there's a lot of things. You can overthink a lot of things. I think that would be overthinking it there.
Paul M. Caffrey (32:19.502)
OK, and yeah, I mean, one other thing to call out when you're speaking as well is, you know, have a look at yourself if you're watching a sports game that you're really into or maybe even a Netflix episode. There is long periods during which when you can be enjoying something that you're just sitting and looking at it. So if the audience is just sitting and looking at you, not necessarily a bad thing. It's your point earlier, Alan. We want to maintain our attention. That's probably the most important thing.
to maintain above all else. So with I guess with that said, let's touch on pricing briefly because I suppose this is where the two things overlap a little bit. I know that pricing is something which you're quite strong on. When it comes to presenting price, and I've often seen sales professionals and it's quite interesting when you see this.
You can tell there's a little bit of anxiety when they're going to deliver the price because they still have built up the value. It's still a big number. And then they sometimes do a little gulp before they deliver the price. And what that says to me is, okay, you're not totally convicted of that being the right price. And there's probably a discount here to be had or something that you don't believe this is for me. When it comes to your pricing strategy,
What is the best way to deliver commercials?
Allan Langer - The 7 Secrets Sales Academy (33:46.473)
So this is a whole other podcast from pricing, but I'll give you, I'll kind of give you a fly over and from a, from a philosophical standpoint, the first thing to remember is if you spend your entire sales presentation or sales demo building value, you're wasting time because you're building value to the number that they have in their head, in their head, rather than the value, rather than the number that it's actually going to be.
So for example, I'll give you an example for my in -home selling days, but it can apply to anything. Let's say there was a couple that they wanted a new roof. So they got the roofing guy coming over in the morning and they're having dinner the night before and, and they say to each other, well, what do you think this roof's going to be? And the husband says, I don't know, probably 10 grand honey. my God, it's going to be 10 grand. Yeah. I think uncle Tony got a roof. It was, it was, it was 8 ,000. So this is a good company. It's probably going to be 10 ,000.
Fast forward to the next morning, the roofer pulls up to the house, looks at it, it's gonna be $20 ,000 roof. He just knows it because of experience. If he goes in that house and he starts building value to the 20 ,000, he just starts talking about how great his company is, how great the shingles are, how great the installers are, the warranties, blah, blah, blah. He's thinking in his head, there's no way they're gonna think this roof is less than 20 ,000, because I'm building all of this amazing value. What are they thinking?
They're thinking, holy crap, this roof is really going to be $10 ,000. So then what happens when he puts down 21 ,367 on the table, what does the couple have? Sticker shock. And he's surprised, my God, why do you have sticker shock? Because you built value to their own number, not to the number it's going to be. So you need to prepare the customer with the sticker shock first in your conversation by anchoring a price conversationally.
The way I did that was I'd walk in a house, I'd find out what they wanted to do. And then I say, before we get going, do you think a window, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, I just want to see where your heads are at. You think a window right here is going to be more than $2 ,500 or less than $2 ,500. And they'll usually say, my God, I hope it's less. Well, you know what? You're designing your window. You're going to find that out. And then you just move on. I just anchored one window price in their head. And if they have 10, now they're thinking this price is going to be $25 ,000 rather than $15 ,000.
Allan Langer - The 7 Secrets Sales Academy (36:10.409)
And then I start to build value later to that price, to the anchor price rather than the price in their head. So that's number one. Don't just hide the price and build value because you think that the value is going to match that price. They have no idea what the price is. Number two, you should always 100 % of the time, if you can, there's some industries you can't do this, but pretty much almost all of them you can. Show them three prices.
Give them three choices. Showing a business or a consumer or whoever's purchasing one price puts them in a yes or no mindset. Yes, I'm gonna do business with Paul or no, I'm not. That's it, yes or no. If I give them three choices, now they're saying, hmm, what choice am I going to choose to do business with Paul? It's a buying mindset. It's not a yes or no mindset. So when people have choices,
especially has to be three two is two two is too few and four is too many three choices will get them to think What are they buying rather than yes or no? Do I need to go with this? So that would be the two kind of like high -level things that I could help people with if they need to but that's how I train pricing and It's a game -changer like when I started presenting three prices My closing percentage almost double. It's just it's a game -changer
Paul M. Caffrey (37:31.726)
Absolutely and do you firmly have a recommended option when you position the three prices?
Allan Langer - The 7 Secrets Sales Academy (37:39.081)
So you're going to normally, that's what they do online. Like you'll see a lot of the online companies, especially the SaaS companies and, and you know, apps and stuff, they're going to give you three options. You're going to give you the free version, the middle version and the gold version, whatever. And you'll always going to recommend one. That's just a psychological thing using social proof to say, this is what most people buy. It depends on what you sell. Normally you're going to want to, the people are going to say, this is what we need. This is what I'd like, but.
you're going to add stuff to that or take something away. So you can then say, here's what you want. This is what you wanted, but for another $85 a month, you can get this. But if you want to take these things out and save a little money, you can start at our introduction in our intro package. So usually you can pinpoint what they actually wanted, but then show them two other areas that they can go to. I like to call it. You want to have like a no brainer price. Like why would you, why would you buy the middle package when for a hundred bucks a month more, you can get the
the premium platinum package. It's kind of a no brainer. So recommended, I would go with what they really want first and then go from there.
Paul M. Caffrey (38:44.078)
Yeah.
Paul M. Caffrey (38:48.11)
Yeah, and if you're in control of your pricing, whenever you put the middle package, it's probably going to determine what you sell. So I suppose to your point, if there's a very small discretion between middle and premium or your large offering, that will get people to jump up that way. So there's a whole whole mindset behind that. Super interesting. What is your number one prospecting tip out?
Allan Langer - The 7 Secrets Sales Academy (39:10.537)
Number one prospecting tip is engagement on LinkedIn. I spent, when I started my company, I had 62 followers on LinkedIn, I think, because I just, I wasn't expecting to start a company and it just happened and then COVID happened and I just dove in and now I have almost 15 ,000 and I got there by consistently posting, but then engaging with my prospects in a non -salesy way. Now, when I first started with LinkedIn,
We didn't have any of these daily, inane, annoying sales messages that we get on LinkedIn every day now from people we've never heard of. That has become a problem on LinkedIn. So it's harder to engage because people are very cautious now. They don't want to talk to anyone. So find your prospects, do a very harmless introduction connection request. You know,
I even start my connection requests now. Hey, this is not a sale. This is not a sleazy sales pitch. Just want to connect with like -minded folks and have them in my network. Hope you're having a great day, blah, blah. And that usually works. You know, the people like, good, it's not a sales call. And then instead of following up with, okay, great. If you're, if you need my product, here's my calendar link, which people do just sit back and then press the press the little bell button on their profile. And then you'll get it. When they post something you'll.
you'll get a notification and then comment on it and then engage with them. And then after you do that for a little while, then you can start contacting them. So it's a slow burn. It's not something that's going to happen overnight, but people will start to follow you, start posting content at least once a week, twice a week is better. They'll start following you. And then all of a sudden the lurkers in the background, you'll get a con, you'll get an email one day or a message saying, Hey, can we chat about your sales training? So that would be my, that's what I've done is, is really,
Spend an hour a day or so on LinkedIn, back and forth, commenting, engaging and posting.
Paul M. Caffrey (41:14.35)
Great. There's a lot there. A key point to that is LinkedIn is a platform for engagement, is a platform for chat and dialogue. So it's not an email platform. So when people treat it like an email, cold email going out, it's very, very difficult to be successful. So I really like that part. And particularly if you're working in a certain territory, you can only go after certain accounts. Very easy to find out, well, who's in that territory and start building that out. What is your number one sales tip, Al?
Allan Langer - The 7 Secrets Sales Academy (41:26.729)
Right, exactly.
Allan Langer - The 7 Secrets Sales Academy (41:45.225)
That's a loaded question number one sales tip To two of them come to mind we already spoke a one which is open -ended questions But I will I will do my second one then and my second one is is stop selling so fast and what I mean by that is as soon as This is like an epidemic in in sales as soon as the rep hears the problem You know our our widget is not as fast as the other widgets in the industry
That's our problem Instead of when you hear that problem asking more open -ended questions, the reps will then immediately start selling Well, I've got a widget that's gonna be twice as fast as the competition and they immediately start to sell Without really digging in because you never know what you're gonna hear when you ask open -ended questions So for example, let's say in my my world when I was selling, you know, I would go in the house Because they needed windows and they would say I would ask them what's going on?
Well, I sit in the living room and there's a draft on the back of my neck. So I immediately could say, well, I've got a window for that. This great window is going to stop the draft and I can start selling right away. Or I could say, well, tell me more about that. Well, it's been happening for five years now. And now I just noticed it in my daughter's room. really? Describe for me what that's like for her. Well, she gets up at night because she's freezing and we can't put enough blankets in there. And by the way, the back door has got a draft.
So now I just asked two open -ended questions and I found out so much more information rather than selling. And now the prospect thinks I'm listening and understanding him rather than selling him or her. So stop selling so fast. As soon as you hear the problem, ask open -ended question and they answer it. Ask another open -ended question and then a follow -up open -ended question. You should do at least three open -ended questions after you hear the problem.
before you even mention how you can solve it. And you can ask more if you want, because the more you ask, the more they're gonna like you. So that would be my number one tip with the open -ended questions and not selling too fast. They kind of go hand in hand.
Paul M. Caffrey (43:49.742)
Great.
Paul M. Caffrey (43:53.998)
Yeah, that's it. Look, it makes makes total sense. We have a lot of people who listen to this show who are maybe working in large corporates or in big tech companies, and they're always looking to get ahead to get that next position. What tips have you got for somebody looking to get promoted?
Allan Langer - The 7 Secrets Sales Academy (44:13.489)
So, being promoted for me, people are going to promote people who perform, obviously, but who are also likable. So, and again, this comes down to your personality, but the more you seem interested in the company's success, I think the easier it will be to get promoted. People who want to get promoted for themselves and not for the company usually get left behind.
But if you show that you're a selfless, you're for the company, you're doing things to make the company succeed and you're performing, I think those are the people that move ahead rather quickly. If you're in sales and you wanna get into sales management, a lot of mistakes companies make is they take the best salesperson and they turn that person into the sales manager when one, they don't wanna be the manager or two, they have no management skills whatsoever and they fail.
If you have those aspirations to be promoted to a sales management position, then you better do your homework and take classes and courses and learn how to be a good leader and a good manager because just because you can sell really well doesn't mean you can lead a team of salespeople. So those would be my, that would be my recommendation there.
Paul M. Caffrey (45:29.518)
excellent and when it comes to sales and looking to improve what books do you recommend people check out?
Allan Langer - The 7 Secrets Sales Academy (45:37.097)
Well, my book is right back there, The Seven Secrets to Selling More by Selling Less. That one, you know, God, I really love, his name is escaping me right now. Selling Made Simple and Business Made Simple. Donald Miller, he has two books called Business Made Simple.
Paul M. Caffrey (45:39.534)
Tell us more.
Allan Langer - The 7 Secrets Sales Academy (46:05.225)
and the story brand and His story brand concept and his business made simple are really great books because they not only will help you with the Conversation of sales from a storytelling standpoint, but there are there's a lot of great the business made simple book is a lot of great tips on on Thinking like a business person see it see I'm gonna go off on a small tangent here
Most salespeople treat their sales job as a job. When, if you change your mindset to treating your sales job as your own business, like let's say you sell widgets for, you know, ABC widget company. But if you pretend that that's your job, you're selling for yourself. You're going to be better. You're going to, you're going to be more motivated. So treat your job like it's your own business and you'll be, and you'll be, be more successful.
And that book, Business Made Simple by Donald Miller will help you to do that. It's really a good book.
Paul M. Caffrey (47:07.375)
Great. We'll look forward to checking that one out. StoryBrand was a great read. I haven't read the other yet, so I'll definitely look at that. When we think about sales preparation and getting ready for the moments that matter in our week, what is doing the work before the work look like for you, Allan?
Allan Langer - The 7 Secrets Sales Academy (47:11.369)
Yep.
Allan Langer - The 7 Secrets Sales Academy (47:28.393)
Mindset is a big thing for me and it's something that I think everybody struggles with everybody struggles See the human brain I do so many studies and research on How the brain works a psychology of sales psychology of everything and we default to negativity naturally I think the last survey I saw was 82 % of everything online is negative
So we're constantly inundated with negativity. You sit in any coffee shop and you see the four old guys sitting there having a cup of coffee and all they do is bitch all day long. That's what they do. It's like that's what people do. They complain all day long and it's hard to switch that mindset. So I try to start every day and I sit down on Sunday nights and I try to plan my week but I try to have a growth mindset. I try to have an open mindset to be positive constantly, to write down affirmations to...
know that what I'm doing is going to propel my business further. And anytime I have a negative thought, I try to catch myself and I try to fix it. So my work before my work is, is my mindset. It's about, this is going to be a great week. I'm going to get two more clients. I'm going to have fun with my daughter. I'm going to do all these different things rather than, my God, it's going to rain all week. It's going to be crappy. Like it's so easy to do that. It's hard to be positive.
It's hard to have an open growth mindset, but if you get consistent at it and practice it and it becomes a habit, you'll just be more successful.
Paul M. Caffrey (49:02.734)
Fantastic Alan and for people who want to find out a bit more, who want to maybe reach out to you about your services, how can they find you?
Allan Langer - The 7 Secrets Sales Academy (49:10.569)
So my website is the sevensecretsalesacademy .com. Just like you see on your screen, the seven, use the number seven, the sevensecretsalesacademy .com. There's a form there. Fill it out and I'll be in touch with you. I always do free discovery calls. If you want to see how I can help your team, I'll go in and even, even like I said earlier in the podcast, the body language workshop, it's about a two hour workshop. I guarantee you, you guys will, you know, they'll sell more. I always say to business owners, what would it be worth to you?
if your rep sold two or three more jobs per month as a team, just two or three. That's not a lot. How would that increase your bottom line? And doing a body language workshop where they're learning how to do something with these tells will help them do that. So reach out, I'd love to come to your company and do one of those workshops.
Paul M. Caffrey (50:01.294)
Great, well, Alan, thanks so much for being so kind and sharing so much info with us. I look forward to the next time we chat.
Allan Langer - The 7 Secrets Sales Academy (50:07.817)
All right, Paul, it's been great. Thanks for having me on.
