Last month, we held the first annual Closers Olympics. It was an incredible event put on by Keith Everett Jr., Elijah Rubin, Earon Bevans, and Q Quentin Flores. I’d like to extend a big thank you to the major players that made it happen without wanting any recognition, Jennifer Coronado, Anneliese Maddox, and Andrea Stakes. While there were technical difficulties, I’d say they did an admirable job for a first event. They poured their hearts into it.

The judges had a tough job, and I think they did great. Thank you Max Maxwelll, Brent Daniels, and Carlos E. Reyes. I know that some people disagreed with the scoring, but that’s why you never leave it in the judge’s hands. What I learned in sports long ago is that you’ve got to play through the officiating. Nobody’s ever complained and looked better by doing so.

Congratulations to Adrian Salgado for winning the title of King Closer in the first year. You were one of the favorites, and you showed why. It was also fun learning from all of the contestants.I want to give serious props to RJ Bates III. I had no idea what kind of a killer he was on the phones. I just assumed his team did all of his acquisitions. Don’t be surprised if RJ comes out with a course!!

I want to break down my opening how I cold called over the weekend.

Hey (First Name)! with a smile and upward inflection. I’m coming off as a friend. You’ll notice I got a few “What’s up!” on my cold calls. I’m breaking down the guard here. You must pause here and wait for a response.

This is Steve. I’m calling about your property on 123 Main St. Probably caught you at a bad time…. Notice I did not ask if it’s a good time. You will sound like a salesperson. Notice I did not ask if it’s a bad time, either. I stated that I called them a bad time. Now THEY have to tell me if it’s a good time or bad time. If I ask if it’s a bad time, and they say yes, I’m stuck in a hole. If they tell me it’s a bad time, they might ask me what this is about, and I can continue the call.

I was talking to (lead provider), and they mentioned that you wanted to sell your property, but we weren’t able to buy it. Can you help me understand what happened? Help me out…I then disqualified for a couple of minutes to see who was real and who was a waste of time. I said things like:

You should list your house. You should fix it up. Sounds like you have a lot of time. Seems like you already figured out how to fix your situation. And so on.

If we made it past that step, I established the rules for the rest of our phone call.

(First Name), can I share with you how these calls normally go? Thank you for taking time out of your schedule to talk with me.

Typically, homeowners we’ve worked with in the past have wanted to know: what’s the process? how much money they’re going to get? and how soon they’ll get it? PAUSE Did I miss anything?

Obviously, for me to see if this is one of the houses we’re going to buy, I’m going to need to ask you some questions, will that be okay?

Naturally, at the end of our call, we’ll figure out whether we will be buying your house. Is that fair?

As you can see, none of use are perfect. We all have room to grow. I’m not calling anybody out here. These are 12 of the best, and we all make mistakes. I’m not singling anybody out here. Just things I noticed that you may notice in yourself. Here are some keys to a great cold caller:

You need to know when to get off the phone. Wasting time on a dead prospect kills your hourly income. If you waste 15 minutes on 2 prospect per hour, you’ve cut your hourly income in half. Which means you’ve cut your ANNUAL income by half. Thank about that. Disqualify and move on!

NEVER say the words decision or decision maker. There’s only one industry in the world that uses those words. And it’s sales. Want the seller to raise their guard? Say “decision maker” on a call.

Don’t ask anybody, “how are you doing?” I get it. You’re trying to build rapport. Unless you genuinely care how they’re doing, you’re going to sound like a salesperson. Lots of valuable prospecting time is eaten up with this question.

Don’t push for “now” or “today.” For example, If I can pay you what you want, will you be able to sign right now/today? Go for no. I don’t know if I can pay you what you want. But if I was able to come up to your price, you wouldn’t be able to sign anything today…. You want them to say, “The hell I can’t!” or “Of course I can!”

Speed is so critical. If you talk faster than the prospect, they think you’re trying to put one over on them. If you’re slower than them, they’ll think you’re stupid. You have to match their speed.

Composure was tested, and everybody succumbed a little bit to the bright lights combined with the shot clock. I’m no exception. In my opinion, most of us were operating at 90-95% of our skill level. Gotta give credit to Steven Morales, I think he was as cool as the other side of the pillow at 100%.

70/30 rule always applies! Whoever does the most talking loses. I think there was a contract or two that was on the cusp, and the closer on the phone talked too much. Don’t buy your sale back!!!

Don’t get too cute. If a seller catches you in a lie, you just dug your own grave. It’s not impossible to overcome, but why not avoid that situation altogether?Don’t end questions with Right? Correct? Okay? This leads to yes/no answers, and kills momentum. Delete those questions from your vocabulary, and your conversations will be a lot more free flowing.

I deserved my loss. I got so caught up in the call, I didn’t check to see the judge’s MAO. Had I done that, I would have locked up that seller at 70k and moved on to the finals. It’s 100% my fault because I wasn’t fully prepared. It’s a reminder: You don’t rise to the occasion. You rise to your level of preparedness. I should’ve gotten a second monitor like Elijah told me to, and because I didn’t listen to him, I lost to him.

Some of you mentioned that I was too calm with Mr. Pottymouth. If you noticed, I was throwing labels at him (see Chris Voss). Most of them missed. But each time one stuck, he calmed down. Could I mirror his aggressiveness? Sure. But in my experience, if you can turn an angry person to your point of view, they’re eating out of your hands. I’m 100% convinced that if I didn’t have a clock, I would have closed him. As a matter of fact, I’ve put him in our followups to lock up this week.

It might look like I posted a lot of negativity and criticisms on my fellow competitors. That could not be further from the truth. Each one of the closers at the Closers Olympics fully deserved to be there. My point is that none of us are perfect. None of us are untouchable.

What separates us from almost everybody else, is that we’ve taken more focused action. Any of you can be successful. All you need to do is spend more time on high income activities, aka income generating activities, aka revenue generating activities. If you’re not sure where to start, start by cold calling! Talk to People!

Anyhow, those are my thoughts from this event. I hope that they’re helpful and provided more insight into why I sounded the way I did on the phones.

If you like what you saw from the 60 minutes I was on the phones this past weekend, or if this post gave you even more clarity on how to close one more deal per year, I invite you to join me and my fellow cold calling assassins as we fine tune our sales skills every week.

Joining us is by invitation only, though. Not everybody is qualified to join us. To see if you qualify, please go to www.disruptors.com