ASA 02 | Seeding

 

Seeding is the new selling. It boosts sales while reducing personal rejection. But what exactly is seeding? In this episode, you’ll discover three new insights which are critical to becoming a highly skilled ethical influencer – seeding, transparency, and designing your first offer. As we all know, ethical influence is central to our discussions.

Lean in as Alex shares some stories and accounts that show the importance of seeding, transparency, as well as beginning with an offer and the end in mind. Make these insights work for you so you can quickly and easily influence and win more customers.

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Why Seeding Is The New Selling

Ethical influence is central to our discussions. You and I will also explore other fascinating and important topics such as growing relationship capital, virtual presentation strategies, finding JV partnerships, principles of karmic marketing and content repurposing strategies to name a few.

You’ll learn three key insights which I believe are critical to making you a highly-skilled ethical influencer. You’ll discover why seeding boosts sales while reducing personal rejection. You’ll discover why transparency is the single best-pressed amplifier of all.

Trust is the lubricant to any sale. You’ll also learn why designing your offer first is the easiest way to seed it. Please read carefully because this can have a significant impact on how you can quickly and easily win the hearts of others.

Smuggling Donkeys: Transparency And Designing Your Offer

I want to share the story of Nasreddin Hodja. He was a Turkish peasant who used to run around and ride a donkey in the thirteenth century. He was a storyteller. He tells the story of another person who rode donkeys past the Turkish border going into the Orient.

Turkey is a strategically-located country. It leads into the Soviet Union and then later on China. Back then, there was a border to go into the Orient and there was this Turkish donkey trader. He would go to the border and the border patrol would look at him and say, “What are you smuggling?” He said, “I don’t know.” He would point to the donkey and they would burn the hay on the donkey that the donkey was carrying because they didn’t trust the peasant.

They would search every orifice of the poor donkey’s body because they thought that he was smuggling something going into the Orient. People would smuggle into Asia and the Orient and come back with lots and lots of money. That was the trade back then.

He was let go. He went past the border and he would come back empty handed. The next day, he would show up with another donkey and they would say, “What are you smuggling?” He would raise his shoulders and point to the donkey. They will look at the donkey. They would search every cavity of the poor donkey.

They couldn’t find anything. They couldn’t find any stolen goods or any jewels or treasures that were being confiscated and taken across the border. They’d let him go and he came back again without a donkey. He would leave with a donkey and he’d come back empty-handed.

This went on and this guy would get wealthier and wealthier. As Hodja tells the story, over the course of 30 years, he became one of the wealthiest traders in all of Istanbul, Turkey.

After this 30-year period, the chief of the border patrol was about to retire and they were going to have a big party. He came over to the donkey salesperson and said, “I’m going to retire. I’m not going to throw you in jail. I want to know what you’ve been smuggling. I know you’ve been smuggling something. You’ve gotten wealthier and wealthier. You have to be smuggling and I don’t know what it is. For whatever reason, we couldn’t find it in 30 years. I promise you on the graves of my grandchildren, I won’t put you in jail when you tell me.”

The peasant, now a wealthy man with a wealthy family and generous to others inside the city said, “Do you promise not to throw me in jail if I tell you?” The border patrol commander said, “I promise.” He said, “For 30 years, I’ve been coming to the border and for 30 years, I’ve been smuggling donkeys. That’s what I’ve been smuggling.”

[bctt tweet=”The shortest distance between two points is the path of least resistance.” via=”no”]

When something is transparent, it is the ultimate social lubricant to breeding trust. They were looking for something else and they couldn’t find it. This Turk was a donkey smuggler and his offer was the donkey. It was in plain view. He began with the end in mind, which by the way is a habit too of the late Stephen Covey’s book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.

I knew him. I know his son, Stephen M.R. Covey, and he too says to begin with the end in mind. The end when you are selling something. This is all selling aside, but when you’re enrolling and ethically influencing someone, you need to begin with your offer. The offer is what it is that you’re selling.

This Turk who was smuggling donkeys began with his offer. He was smuggling donkeys. It was transparent. It was clearly in front of the border patrol and they didn’t even realize it. They ended up trusting him and they were laughing and celebrating once the border patrol head honcho retired.

Starting with your offer and then focusing on being as transparent is possible. When I am about to enroll people, I say, “It’s my intention to do everything in my power to inspire and influence you to say yes to what I’m offering.” Can I be any more transparent than that?

I have done nearly a million dollars in sales for the Genius Network, for my good friend, Joe Polish, at a morning panel utilizing that line selling $25,000 memberships to a mastermind called Genius Network.

I did nearly $2.5 million. Not just me but the whole team, for the War Room run by Roland Frasier, Perry Belcher, Richard Lindner and my good friend, Ryan Deiss, in doing the same thing in the panel. We were doing two panels at the Traffic & Conversion events if you’ve heard of that.

It’s stating the intention upfront to your audience or your candidates. I don’t like to call them leads or prospects, because they’re human beings. The candidates who you are serving and ultimately selling know in advance what it is.

“Raise your hand if you think I’m going to be enrolling you in a continuing education course.” That’s what I tell my people who go to a Guerrilla Business Intensive overseas, whether it’s Brazil, Europe, South Africa, Australia, India or in Asia.

I say, “Raise your hand if you think I’m going to enroll you into continuing education during these five days I’m here,” because I trained for five days. They raise their hand and I go, “You will not be disappointed.” They laugh and that way we got it out, so that it feels good.

There’s no seam, there’s no line between. “Here’s what I taught you. Here’s what I’m going to sell you.” It’s all one thing and that’s called seeding. A seed is required to flop into a root that grows into a trunk that grows into branches, leaves and then creates more fruit.

Where are the seeds? If you look at an apple, the seeds are inside the fruit, which drops to the ground. The seeds are planted on their own, in the old days. There are new root, new trunks, new branches, leaves and new fruit. Isn’t it amazing the seeds are inside the fruit? The seeds are inside your offer. Design your offer first.

ASA 02 | Seeding

Seeding: When something is so transparent, it is the ultimate social lubricant to breeding trust.

 

Seeding: The Path Of Least Resistance

This is an Alexism that I really enjoy from my book, Alexisms. The shortest distance between two points is not a straight line. If there’s a mountain between point A where you are and in point B where you’re going, you have to go through that mountain and it’s a straight line. It may take you ten years to dig a tunnel to through mountain.

The shortest distance between two points is the path of least resistance. That may not be a straight line. It may not be as direct. You may have to seed your way and flank your way, to use a military term, but you go around the mountain, it takes you ten days. That’s the shortest distance between two points. It’s the path of least resistance.

When you come up with something that you want to enroll others in, something you want to sell, begin with the end in mind. Begin with your offer.

I want to teach you something else that my good friend, Lisa Sasevich, taught me, and that is the PSPSPS model. Not only is your offer important to start with, but you may have other offers afterward that you ascend to.

PSPSPS means problem, solution. After that solution, your client has another problem. What’s the solution to the second problem? After the second solution, there’s also another problem.

What’s the solution to that problem? For example, many of my students have the problem of not knowing what to say during a discovery session or strategy session or a way to enroll people. If I give you a script or a template or a how-to course called Conversion Secrets, that will solve that problem.

What’s the new problem you have as a result? The new problem is, where do you get the traffic online or the prospects and candidates so that you can make those presentations? That can be another course on how to generate traffic in order for you to conduct these discovery and strategy sessions.

Once you solve that problem, the traffic problem, you have a third problem. The third problem is how do I scale this so I don’t have to be the only one doing all the work, so I can make it a multimillion-dollar concern instead of a multi-hundred-thousand-dollar company?

There’s a course on how to scale or coaching on how to scale. Each solution has an offer and it has to have a problem associated with this. Are you getting this? That’s called ascension.

When people come into my world, I tell them, “In the first year you’re going to be a student. In the second year, if you choose, you can be a coach and I will pay you to teach other students of which you are one. In the third year, the goal is for you to be a partner so we can joint venture.”

For some people, it takes three years. Student, coach, partner. For others, it takes three quarters like nine months. Yet others it’s taken three months.

One person, his name is Tellman Knudson, he went through TeleSeminar Secrets and became a partner in three weeks. He went from student to coach to partner in three weeks. It was the most amazing ascension I’d ever seen, but that is the exception of the rule.

Tellman is unlike a lot of people I know. You want to start with your offer and you want to allow your students to know what the ascension path is. If you start with your offer, then make sure that when you’re seeding you have language consistency.

If you talk about coaching, then don’t talk about mentoring. If you talk about prospects, then don’t talk about candidates. When you’re seeding, be consistent.

[bctt tweet=”When selling anything, begin with the end in mind.” via=”no”]

There’s a big difference between features and benefits. I’ll go to our home shopping network of HSN. My good friend, Bob Circosta, sold over $5 billion worth of merchandise and he has a great technique of turning features into benefits.

Before, I talked about the green room at QVC. HSN is the other home shopping network, which is actually called the Home Shopping Network, and it’s in Florida. Bob came up with this technique, which I want to teach you. It’s called the WSGAT technique.

You’re never selling features. You’re not selling anti-lock brakes on a car. You’re selling safety. You’re not selling arms on a conductor stand to hold your notes. You’re selling time-saving so that notes don’t fall down or you’re selling avoiding embarrassment if you’re a teacher and you have a conductor stand as I do on stage for five days.

Here’s the WSGAT formula. It’s called WSGAT and it’s What’s So Great About That? Here’s an example. The feature, these are anti-lock brakes. What’s so great about that? They keep your family safe. What’s so great about that? When you’re driving in this Volvo, you know it’s safer than other cars. You can keep going and you can play with a study buddy or an accountability partner.

It’s this game of features to benefits, but that’s what you’re going to be seeding is benefits. I’ve been seeding All Selling Aside because this is not about selling. It’s about storytelling and how storytelling can cause ethical influence faster even if you hate to sell. The storytelling is easier to learn than selling.

If you’re selling a course and you want to enroll people into them, the way you seed that is at the very beginning, you can’t sell it. I talked about the elderly woman feeding pigeons, but you can’t run at the pigeons like the young boy did that I observed on that same day and then the pigeons fly away.

You can’t do that because you need the time to do this dance and build rapport and trust, which is the lubricant to all sales. What you can do is seed. The way you seed is to take the names of your modules.

If one of the modules is called Quick and Easy Ways to Learn WordPress, let’s say that’s the name of the module. The way you seed it is you say, “We’ll be talking about a few quick and easy ways to learn WordPress, even if you’re a tech dummy.”

That’s a seed. The seed is like hitting a rock with a hammer 100 times and the rock splits after 101 hits. Don’t think there’s one close. There is no one close. There is a bunch of trial closes.

My good friend, Ted Thomas, talks about this. Back in the old days, in the 1920s, there is Elmer Wheeler. You can look him up. Tested Sentences That Sell is a great book. See if you can find a copy. It’s rare. I have one. It’s all about trial closes that lead to the close and it becomes seamless.

When I say seamless, that means it has no seam. When something has a seam, it doesn’t feel good. That’s how you know when you’re being sold. When someone is pimping you into a sale, it doesn’t feel good. You feel like you’ve got to take a bath.

ASA 02 | Seeding

Seeding: Storytelling is easier to learn than selling.

 

When someone is pampering you into a sale, which I’m suggesting, that is awesome because when you seed, then it’s like breadcrumb navigation all the way to the loaf of bread. That’s where this discovery comes in is when you finally realize you’ve been selling all your life.

When you wanted ice cream or candy before dinner growing up, you probably did maybe 22 trial closes with mom or dad or whoever raised you.

Seeding really matters like the breadcrumb navigation because that is the path of least resistance. The bottom line is to remember the Hodja story. Nasreddin Hodja, smuggling donkeys, going through the Turkish border and the shortest distance between two points is the path of least resistance.

Here’s our quick review and these are the specific insights you and I rediscovered. Number one, transparency means hiding nothing and exposing everything in your presentation as Nasreddin Hodja did in the thirteenth century with donkeys.

When selling anything, begin with the end in mind. That is habit two in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. That end for you is your offer. You always have to begin with your offer. Otherwise, what are you going to seed? Inside of each fruit, there are more seeds. Your offer is the fruit.

The third distinction is that seeding is like breadcrumb navigation and the path of least resistance. Think of an apple. The seeds are inside. The only way you get new apple trees is for that fruit to open up. That’s what I want you to do when you seed. Remember, these distinctions can only work for you if you work them.

Speaking of reviews, I want you to go to AllSellingAside.com/iTunes and type in your biggest takeaway or a-ha moment you experienced now. It forwards to my iTunes channel. I don’t just want you to say nice things, I want you to focus on a specific takeaway or a-ha because that’ll have more meaning for others who are reading the reviews. It will take three minutes out of your day, but what you declare could provide you a lifetime of learning. I promise.

I have one final gift and I’m giving this to you in honor of this episode. Thank you for reading so far. It’s a complimentary copy of my eBook titled, Alexisms: Useful Life Lessons from a Recovering Serial Entrepreneur. That’s me. You can instantly download it right now at AlexismsBook.com. You can get it on Amazon.com, but you have to pay for it. Why pay for something you can get for free?

That does it for this episode. I hope our paths cross again next time for All Selling Aside, the show dedicated to making ethical influence within your reach so that you can achieve and even exceed your sales potential.

A special shout out to my good friend, Michael Lovitch, one of the Cofounders of Baby Bathwater Institute. He is the one who came up with the idea of All Selling Aside because storytelling is what selling is all about. Thank you, Michael.

Do whatever it takes to join me next time because our topic will be the three reasons why people buy, but you want to find out what they are.

I encourage you to invite a friend or bring a study buddy with you. That way, you can utilize this as training so you can get better at this world of sales that people are afraid of. I can’t wait for our paths to cross again. All good wishes.

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