“You become the salesperson that people want to talk to and refer to, rather than salespeople that people run away from. So, that’s what I did. After I took all my experience in sales, I wrote a book, and then I started my company, the Seven Secrets Center for Sales and Marketing, to help people with this.”
Allan Langer is an award-winning sales consultant, best-selling author, sales coach, and trainer, and motivational speaker that has sold over 70-million dollars worth of product in my 22-year sales career. He is the author of The 7 Secrets to Selling More by Selling Less. He helps new salespeople, as well as the most experienced, break free of the age-old sales mold of using the sales “pitch,” and becoming the sales rep that your prospects will love, and refer.
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Growing Your Business By Maximizing Your Sales Team Effectiveness With Allan Langer
Brett: 
Our next guest, he’s going to talk about the 7 Secrets to Selling More by Selling Less. He has a center for sales and marketing. He’s been featured on all kinds of top media and we’re going to dive right in. His name is Allan Langer. Hey Allan, how are you doing today?
Allan:
Great, Brett. I’m doing wonderful. Thanks for having me. This is a unique show for me, so I’m looking excited, a little excited to get into this.
Brett:
Cool. Yeah, absolutely. You can find Allan, by the way, at allanger.com. That’s our allanger.com A-L-L-A-N-G-E-R.com. Al, would you give us a little bit about your background and your current focus?
Allan:
I’ve been in sales, I think I just finished my 27th year. I’ve been in B2B sales, B2C sales,in-home sales. I’ve done it all, and my basic premise is, I learned over time that. Well, here’s a question I’ll ask the audience. Do you ever like meeting or talking with a salesperson? If anyone in the audience answered, yes, they’re lying because no one wants to meet and talk to the salesperson. That was the premise of my book, is why is that? What has caused the … Everyone needs to buy something. Why do people not like to meet with salespeople? It comes down to the sales pitch. They don’t want the pitch. They don’t want data. They don’t trust the salesperson, because the salesperson and the training over the years have always been about making the sale. It’s always been about the salesperson. It’s never been about the customer. So, I’ve honed my skills, and I’ve completely changed my whole philosophy, and I came up with the seven secrets, to concentrate on the customer rather than yourself as a salesperson. By doing that, your sales actually explode. You become the salesperson that people want to talk to and refer to, rather than salespeople that people run away from. So, that’s what I did. After I took all my experience in sales, I wrote a book, and then I started my company, the Seven Secrets Center for Sales and Marketing, to help people with this. Then, on the other side, I help with some marketing as well, for clarifying your messages, so your sales become easier as well.
Brett:
Beautiful. I love that. Before we dive into some of those secrets, I’m curious, who was Al growing up and really more so, what was the gift that you were given? I believe we’re all given these God-given gifts, to be used to bless others, right? So, I’m curious. What is that one gift that really sticks out that you may have found out when you were a kid or a teenager, and how does that help, how you help people today?
Allan:
Well, it’s interesting. I think I found my gift later in life. When I was a kid, I was a very shy kid. I didn’t have a lot of friends, but then as I got to college, and I started doing some presentations and things, and I started taking PR and marketing classes, I realized that I was pretty good in front of an audience. I actually was pretty good at teaching. I’ve taught some college-level courses and I absolutely loved it. That’s when I got into sales because for me, sales are you want to teach the customer what’s going to help solve their problem. You don’t want to just give them a sales pitch. That’s what I’m really good at, and then honed those skills over the years, so now, I mean, my happy place is, I can be in front of 10,000 people. I freaking love it. I have no fear on a stage. I just love public speaking, but I love training and teaching. I love to sit down with a small sales group. I’ve been in front of two, three, 50, and just sit down and get into what we can do to help make their business better, increase their bottom line from a sales standpoint, and then if we have to get into the marketing side as well. So, teaching and training is really my happy place.
Brett:
Love it. When did you become fascinated with helping others achieve sales success?
Allan:
As I went through my career, I worked for some different companies and every company is pretty much the same. If it’s a larger organization they’re going to have a sales process that they train, which you need to. You need to have a sales process. It needs to be trained. But the sales process is always focused on making the sale, no matter what. This is how you make the sale. This is how you handle objections. This is how you close it. This is how you do these things, and it never addresses, well, why did you get an objection in the first place? This is how you handle it, but what, wait a minute, let’s look at the actual source of that objection. Where did that come from? So, as I was going through these companies, I would learn the process. I’d usually, in the four different companies I worked for over my career, I finished as the top salesperson at the training classes. Then when I went into the field, I changed into, and morphed into what I did, helping the customer with obviously having the training of the product in my mind. Obviously, you need to know and believe in your product. So, every time I followed a process, I realized the process didn’t work. The process is designed, and especially in a larger company, to produce 30% sales numbers. A company normally thinks that if our guys are closing 30%, we’re successful. We want to produce a 30% closing team. For me, I look at it from the other side of the glass. If you meet 100 people that week and 70 of them tell you no, I think that’s a problem. That’s not successful. Why are 70 out of 100 people saying no to your product or to your salespeople? So, 60 or 70 should be saying yes, not no. So, that’s why I started figuring out, let me try to teach this. Let me come up with actionable, teachable things that people can do tomorrow that will help them increase their sales.
Brett:
Excellent. Let’s dive into those secrets right now. In particular, I want to focus, because I know there’s a lot, that maybe we can get to the conversion part, right? Because right now we’re in the, let’s call it, not the information age, the attention age, and it is capturing leads and bringing people in, right? But now it’s like, okay, people can get distracted and they run off to something else. Or, now they look at you and they go, oh maybe someone does a little bit better. So, let’s focus on conversion. I think that’s really applicable today. So, what’s the best-kept secret for converting someone who’s coming through your funnel or through your pipeline?
Allan:
Just like I do, it’s clarity. It’s the customer or the potential customer who has to look at you and immediately know three things. What do you sell? How do I get it, and how’s it going to make my life better? Whether that’s on your website, whether that’s in your marketing material, if you answer those, if what they’re looking at, if your funnel, if your website, whatever it is, answers those questions immediately, they’re going to be intrigued to keep looking into you and probably contacting you. If I have to figure out what you sell, if I have to go to page four on your website, or flip through, if I get a postcard in the mail and I look at this postcard and I can’t figure out what they’re selling as soon as I look at it, it’s going in the garbage. It’s the same thing. You have to be very clear, crystal clear, as few words as possible. This is what I do. This is what I sell, and this is how it’s going to help you solve your problem. Then, okay, those are the two things. How do I get it? Where’s your call to action? That’s how you’re going to convert people into potential customers. You’re going to get them interested in you with clarity.
Brett:
What’s the biggest mistake when it comes to what I sell, right? For example, whether you’re a commercial real estate broker, or you’re a realtor, you sell your broker’s services. I mean, it seems like it’s pretty straightforward or you’re a commercial real estate syndicator. You sell an opportunity to buy into a partnership and to make money passively, or even like Capital Gains Tax Solutions. We sell a solution to capital gains tax deferral, right? Limitations.
Allan:
Right.
Brett:
So, the product of the tool versus the outcome, do those two sometimes get confused, or walk us through that.
Allan:
You should always try to lead with the problem you solve. So, okay, you’re a capital gains expert. I can help you with your capital gains. I will say this right now. I know nothing about capital gains or taxes, but I know a lot about sales and marketing, and it’s all the same. Just change the product. If you just put it. Let’s just say you have a website or your LinkedIn profile, even better. You’re letting, a lot of people have, everyone on here should have a LinkedIn profile. You shouldn’t have a picture of a mountain on your LinkedIn profile. On your top horizontal page, it should say exactly what you do and how you help someone. So, if it’s just, I help with capital gains, you can maybe say, I take the stress out of your capital gains portfolio. I know that doesn’t make any sense, but tell the customer how you’re going to help them solve their problem, rather than just say, because there’s a million. Help them or how you’re going to help them solve their problem, rather than just say. Because there’s a million. I’m a commercial real estate broker. Big deal. I go to a networking function, I meet five of you. What’s going to make you stand out? Well, I actually can find a building that’s going to help you improve your business as a commercial real estate broker. Now all of a sudden you became the commercial real estate broker that solved the problem, and I’m going to talk to you rather than the other four that I met. So even at a networking function on your website, try to get the solving of the problem is there as well as what you do, and you’ll stand out over everyone else that does the same thing.
Brett:
Yeah, pretty simple, clarifying and connecting it to their problem. And now let’s move to the next stage. So they’re interested, they’re liking what you have, you’re standing out. Now, what are the biggest mistakes that professionals are making not to close that, I guess? Let’s move into maybe the best closing secret that you’ve found.
Allan:
One of the best questions you can ask. The biggest mistake people make is they pitch immediately. They start pitching right away. When someone contacts you, you can’t just say, “Hey, I do this.” You actually don’t pitch, still, ask questions. You need to have them tell you what the problem is first. So someone contacts me about my sales training. I’m not going to say, “Well, here are my three packages and this is what I offer.” My first conversation with them is, “All right, tell me what you’re struggling with. Tell me what your closing numbers are. Let’s talk about that. Tell me what you’re looking for. What are your goals? Do you want to double your sales, triple your sales? Do you want your sales team to close 40%?” It’s all about the customer. Let them tell you everything, and they will indicate to you when they’re ready to hear your products. If you go into your products right away, you’re going to come across as the sales guy right away. You’re not going to come across as the person who cares about them. You’ve got to come across as the person who cares about them, and then they will automatically want to know how you can help them, and then you get into your products and services.
Brett:
When do you know that they’re ready to hear the pitch or hear the solutions?
Allan:
They’ll actually probably tell you, or you’ll get to the point where they’re going to ask you, “How can you help me?” Or, “What do you have?” But if they’re shy and you’re just talking, then you can say something a little, not direct, but, “So I can send you some information or we can. Based on what we talked about, I can send you a proposal with these three options. We can make it a la carte and you can choose what you want.” Again, about them. They can actually choose how they want me to help them. And what’ll happen is, especially if people, they’ve got a budget, they’re scared to spend money, all that stuff happens, if you send them some a la carte stuff, they’ll usually start with some small things and then you can show your value. And then all of a sudden, boom, they’re going, “You know what, let me just …” It happens all the time. I’ll help people with their website copy, and then all of a sudden, ” You know what, can you redo my whole website? Can you do an email funnel for me? Can you train my sales team?” So that’s what you want to start with the relationship. Just say, “Listen, these are some things that I feel will help you based on our conversation.”
Brett:
Absolutely. That makes sense. Yep. And taking the pressure off. We’re more in the Amazon age, in the sense, or the Netflix, on-demand, at your own pace. 90% of the research is done now before the buying decision is made online through videos, education, right?
Allan:
Absolutely.
Growing Your Business By Maximizing Your Sales Team Effectiveness: “Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out” – Robert Collier
Brett:
Versus 15, 20 years ago where you didn’t have access to that as easily, and the sales rep was really providing 90% of that information. So would you talk about that shift and what the best sales professionals that you’re training are doing today to make sure that they’re maximizing their effectiveness?
Allan:
Well, if you’re a professional, I mentioned this earlier, you need to be on LinkedIn. LinkedIn is really one of the greatest tools you can be as someone who’s selling a product or service because you need to put yourself out there as an expert. As you said, people are doing their research. They’re looking into things that’ll help them. And if someone is in need of sales training, they’re not just going to type in sales training and Google and call the first guy they see. Normally they’re going to do some research, and they’re probably going to go on LinkedIn, a lot of people, and they’re going to start devouring content. And your content on LinkedIn, you have to be a content creator where you’re providing value. You’re not pitching. You’re just saying, “I post on LinkedIn at least twice a week in a video, and I provide valuable content.” And I use that where, if people see me on a consistent basis and then they’re like, “You know what? I think this guy can really help me,” or, “I think this guy can really help my company or my team. I’m going to contact him.” And again, that’s where I start doing an evaluation and we have a general conversation. So you absolutely need to be online on LinkedIn, on social media. And if it’s a real professional, make sure you know who your audience is. If your audience is not on Instagram, don’t go on Instagram. If your audience is not on Facebook, if you’re a high C-level individual and you just want to deal with C-level individuals, you can really specifically hone that on LinkedIn. LinkedIn is really the place for professionals. You can have a Facebook page, you can have an Instagram page. I have all of it, but I get 90% of my clients from LinkedIn and from referrals, because I’m on there consistently, I’m posting content, people perceive me as the expert in what I do. And eventually, they’re going to want to say hello and contact me to see if I can help them.
Brett:
Excellent. Let’s walk through an average video, for example, because you are in sales and marketing, or in coaching to help sales and marketing. So it’s even more so. I remember, as a salesman, you walk in, say, a Best Buy or you walk into some kind of shop or even a car dealership. If you walk in you’re like, “Oh my gosh, I’m a professional salesperson and they’re trying to sell me.” You really back off. So how are you, as a coach of salespeople, making videos that are really content and don’t feel so sales?
Allan:
Because the content is always about something that’s going to help them. It’s going to give them value. So for example, the latest video I just did, I posted it, what’s today, Tuesday? I posted it yesterday on LinkedIn. I actually told a story about how sales are not about numbers. So many sales managers and VPs of sales are like, “Oh, sales is about numbers. You see enough people, you’ll make enough sales.” Sales are not about numbers. One of my sayings is that sales is not a numbers game, sales is a human game. So that story I told, I just told the story. And at the end of it, it just has a call to action at the end of the video, “If you liked what you saw here, DM me or contact me for help.” And then you can start, then you’ll see the comments, you’ll see the likes. And here’s the important thing, is once you start seeing people who like you or make a comment on your video, and they’re your target audience, they’re your customer, you have to say hello. You have to say, “Thanks for liking my video. Have a great day.” That’s it. Don’t say, “Thanks for liking my video. Hey, let’s hop on a call.” Again, you can’t go right into the pitch. I’m sure you’re on LinkedIn, Brett. And how many times you get this person who connects, you connect, and all of a sudden, boom, they send you an eight-paragraph sales pitch? Drives you crazy. I don’t even know who this person is. You can’t do that. So your content has to be valuable, and then once they see the value, that’s going to hopefully encourage them to contact you.
Brett:
It’s really actually simple, because here in real life, you walk into a room with 100 business professionals, you wouldn’t just walk up and just show them, “Hey, this is my flyer, this is what I do,” right? You would get to know them. You would say “Hello,” and, “Where are you from?” And we have these normal social things that we’ve learned, but for whatever reason, on LinkedIn or social media, it’s retraining us to be patient, be kind, be courteous, value the other person, add value. And if something comes of it, great, but not to push it so hard. Is that a fair summary?
Allan:
That’s a fair summary, but you also can make sure you’re spending your time with your right audience. So if you see someone who liked your information and you say hello and they keep engaging, then you can start saying, “How can I help you?” Then they’re showing some interest. They may not say it, but they’re showing some interest. If there’s no engagement back, then it’s fine. And then they see another post you did, and I try to keep track of people who engage consistently. And then I’ll just say hello. And here’s another tip for folks. Never, ever, if you have to engage with someone or someone sends you a request, don’t just type in, “Hey, thanks for the connection.” Those are a dime a dozen. Send a voice message, or better yet, a video DM. I think the last statistic I saw was that less than 1/2 of 1% of people on LinkedIn are actually sending video DMs. You will get 100% of the time people saying, “Wow, thanks for the video hello,” or, “Thanks for that message. I didn’t expect it from a video. I didn’t even know you could do that on LinkedIn.” It’ll just, boom, you’ll move right to the top of the pile if you do that. So that’s one of my DM tips for LinkedIn.
Brett:
I love that. It’s a great point. Because yeah, sometimes you feel like, “Am I talking to a robot or am I talking to a real person here with the canned messages and the canned responses?” So I think that’s wise. Okay, great. So we talked about converting, we’ve talked about connecting well on LinkedIn. Maybe give us the biggest mistake, maybe, that you see right now, maybe even COVID-19, with what’s happening. What’s the biggest mistake you’re going, “Oh my gosh, if they just did this one thing right now,” besides anything else we just said, what would that be for the sales professional?
Allan:
Well, the one thing that popped in my head when you said that we’ve kind of talked about is stop pitching right away. If I get a pitch on LinkedIn, I actually write them back and say, “If you need help, this is the wrong way. This is the wrong way to get my business. If you want me to show you the right way …” That’s how I respond to them. I think the mistake, especially with COVID, was people going into their shells or burying their heads in the sand. I think when COVID started, you actually had to work harder than just wait it out. I think there are some people that are in the wait-it-out mode still, and now they’re waking up and saying, “Oh crap, I’ve got to figure out how to get some business here.” And they kind of missed the boat about. You got some business here and they kind of missed the boat about joining some networking groups or making some relationships during COVID. So the biggest mistake people are making, here’s what I’ll say, is not being intentional in what they’re doing. I can say a hundred times, go on social media, post content. That’s great, you can do that. But if you don’t have any intention, any goals behind it, if you don’t write down, ” I’m going to have two clients by the end of this week.” And that’s your goal. If you just float around, you’re just going to continue to float around and you’ll be 35% closer. And you might be comfortable, but if you want to take it to the next level, you absolutely have to be intentional. These are my goals for the year, for the quarter, for the month, for the week. And this is what I’m doing tomorrow. I actually have a whole worksheet I worked out and I fill that out every week. And it’s amazing what it does because it makes you laser-focused on, I have to get this done. I wrote down… I use that example of two clients because I wrote that down. “I’m going to get two clients by the end of this week.” And it makes you figure out, what do I need to do to do that? And turns my activity during that day into getting a client rather than surfing Facebook or doing something that’s not going to get a client or not going to make me money. So being intentional and being very specific with your goals.
Brett:
Absolutely. Again, back into the attention age versus the information age is absolute, I think, a struggle for anybody and that’s why I think it takes good coaching, good accountability, right mastermind. However, you’re making sure that you are staying intentional, staying focused on those goals will make all the difference. So I was listening to another podcast you were on, which is an amazing podcast, and you guys are talking about pricing. And so it was very fascinating, so I want you just to dive in a little bit with us, with the psychology of pricing certain things, and how that applies to a sales professional, how he might be able to increase his effectiveness.
Allan:
So pricing is one of my favorite things. I love it because pricing is all psychological. Pricing is not arbitrary and pricing should not be done by an app or a computer algorithm. Pricing should be done to sell the product or the service. And what I mean by that is, there are so many things that are done and we see it every day, especially in the retail market, especially online. Smart marketing people price their products to sell, rather than just price it to price. I go into so many companies and they’ll sell, let’s say a roofing product, they sell roofing. “How do you come up with your price?” “Oh, well we plug it into this algorithm where it’s 2.3 factor. And then the roof is $6,471.16.” From a pricing standpoint, that may be the price but psychologically, it does nothing for me as the customer. I want to know that that price feels good to me. So if the price is $6,997, that’s going to feel better to me than $6,914.16. There are a lot of different psychological ways to do that. And again, I can spend an hour talking about pricing, but I’ll give you a couple of examples. One, you see it in retail all the time, the number nine and the number seven psychologically feel better to customers to purchase than not. Now we’ve all seen $9.99 versus $10 okay. People are not buying it because it’s a penny difference. They’re buying it because $9.99 feels better. They proved this theory that the number nine is not… It’s not because it’s less than 10 it’s because the number nine has a psychological effect on the human brain. So for example, they did this study where there were three blouses, three women’s blouses in a store. They priced one for $34, they priced one for $39 and they priced one for $40. Put it out there. And you would automatically think that the $34 blouse, the same exact blouse would sell the most. Not even close, the $39 blouses were 85% of the sales. Simply because the number nine was there, not because it was cheaper. And then the $40 blouse, no one bought the $40 blouse. And then some people bought the $34. But if you can price your products that end in a nine or even a seven, but nine is a little more powerful. You will just sell more, period. And here’s the funny thing is like, they’ve done a thousand studies on the number nine and how effective it is. They still don’t know why the brain works that way. They’re still trying to figure that out. They don’t know that. So that’s tip number one, use the number nine.
Brett:
Focus on that for a second. So that’s really fascinating. So a lot of our business specialists listening to the show are financial advisors or commercial real estate brokers, or syndicators. Or luxury realtors. And so they’re commission-based or fee-based. So, apply that. Let’s say it’s a financial advisor who usually charges 1% to manage money. Are you saying charge 0.97%? Walk us through that part of it.
Allan:
Well, that’s a little bit different. Because if they’re charging a percentage of the deal, then that’s fine. A percentage is… At that point, you’re buying the customer. You’re not buying the percentage really. I mean, I guess if someone charges 2% versus 1% and you’re money conscious you may want to hire the 1% guy. But this is really more of the real estate broker, you see it all the time in real estate, the house that’s listed for 250 is not going to be looked at as much as the house is listed for 249. It’s only a thousand dollars difference. But the real estate brokers do that all the time because they know, and they don’t know why. They just know that 249 is going to get more traction than 250. I’ve never thought… That’s a great point, I’d have to think about that a little bit, the 1%. I don’t think I would do 0.9%, but if they charge 2%, maybe 1.9% would look better than the broker who’s charging two. That would actually work. If you’re competing with a broker that you know is charging 2% or 3% and you put 2.9%, you’re probably going to get that business. I wouldn’t go 0.9. I wouldn’t go under one. So I don’t know… Again, I don’t know the industry at all. I don’t know if 1% if that’s a common number. But if you’re up above one and you’re competing with someone, yeah I would definitely do that come to think of it.
Brett:
Okay, I like it. Maybe go on to number two, before I cut you off, you had another thought going on pricing there.
Allan:
Yeah. So number two is if you’re a service-based person and you have packages. Let’s say package one is… Whatever it is, it’s a thousand dollars. Package two is 1,500, package three is 3,000. First of all, end your packages and nines. But here’s the thing you need to understand. Usually, your best package is the package that’s going to help the customer the most. That’s how it should be. That’s how it should be done. The best package shouldn’t be the one that you’re going to make the money the most. It should be the one that helps your customer the most. But it’s usually your most expensive because they get the most out of it. You need to position that package as the one that psychologically looks like it’s not only the best one in content, but it’s the best one pricing-wise. So you’ll see this online as well. You’ll see companies do it both ways. They’ll try to guide you toward a price that they want to sell. So let’s say subscription services for example. I saw a music thing. I think it was a music thing or a video thing where it said, the annual fee was $999, a thousand bucks annual fee. But the monthly fee was… I don’t know, $149 or something. So one-time fee of a thousand or the monthly fee, they were clearly guiding me toward the monthly fee because it just makes a lot more sense. They probably are not going to have a lot of people spending the thousand dollars. And you see that on sites all the time, they try to guide you toward that monthly fee because it makes more sense psychologically. It doesn’t make more sense financially. You’re going to spend more money at the end of the day, but you just feel better because you’re doing it that way. I’ll use the example I used on that other podcast because it’s very relatable. So there was a movie theater and they were selling popcorn. And the manager was wanting to have two offerings of popcorn. One was small for $5 and the large was $9. The popcorn sales were always, 97% of them were small popcorn, just because it was $5. So the movie theater guy was like, how do I get more popcorn sales to the larger? Because number one, it’s a better deal for the customer. And it’s a better profit margin for the theater so everybody wins. So he added a medium option, which you would think would be like $5, $7, $9, just right up the board. He didn’t make the medium $7 he made the medium $8.25. So now you had a $5 small, $8.25 medium, and $9 large. Now psychologically, wow that $9, that large is a great buy, look at that. I can get large for only 75 cents more. And you’re going to basically buy the small for a little kid. But after that point, this is sort of like a pricing urban myth. But after that point, 98% of his popcorn sales went to the large. Nobody bought a medium ever because why would you? And then the small is like 3% for the kids. So if you can position your pricing that way, where that larger option, which is better for the customer feels like the best price, the best deal, then that’s it. That’s how you should do it.
Brett:
That is really fascinating and makes a ton of sense. I want you to try to apply this now to apartment owners who own an apartment complex. And they’re trying to rent out their units. Let’s say, instead of renting for $1,500, would you do $1,497?
Allan:
Yep.
Growing Your Business By Maximizing Your Sales Team Effectiveness: “The only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not taking risks.”
— Mark Zuckerberg
Brett:
That you think would be something where someones. They just feel better about writing $1,497 as a check for rent versus $1,500 bucks?
Allan:
Absolutely. And especially when they’re looking for apartments, if there’s an apartment for $1,500, the same exact department or very similar and yours is $1,497, they’re going to rent your apartment for the $3 difference.
Brett:
Love it. Now, the other side of things, I guess it would be, if you’re trying to buy something, you’re trying to outbid somebody, would you make sure not to use 97 either? So let’s say I’m trying to buy a $15 million property. Would I not offer $14,970,000? Would I offer 15 million? I mean, of course, the higher is going to be better for the seller, but is there any psychological play there or $15,000,001 or something along those lines?
Allan:
Well, yeah from a purchasing standpoint, in that regard, I would probably use the numbers. Probably use the numbers to your advantage. So if there’s a $15 million property, you may want to offer $15,199,000. Put the nine in there because the nine just psychologically feels better. If you’re going to come in lower, if you want to come in lower and say the property is only worth 14 million, then you don’t want the seller to think that they’re getting a lower price, which would mean that you went in at 13,999, 000. The seller’s going to think that that deal is not as good as a $14 million offer. So it’s working in reverse. So you want to end those numbers in a nine, but make sure the seller feels like they’re getting the best deal. So you don’t want to come in under that because that means that if he’s got two offers, one is 13,999,000 and one is 14 million, he’s going to take the 14 million.
Brett:
Right. And sometimes there are terms too. It’s not always just price.
Allan:
Of course, right.
Brett:
It’s the contingency period, it’s the quality of the buyer, it’s a number of things.
Allan:
Sure.
Brett:
But that’s fascinating. If you can use a nine, without being so low before the other buddy, it’s going to feel better for the seller as well. They’re feeling like they’re getting a better deal too, is what you’re saying.
Allan:
Yeah.
Brett:
Good. Excellent.
Allan:
And it’s also, if you’re multiple offers and yours ends in a nine, psychologically again, they don’t know why it feels better, but it feels better. But also to me, it’s probably going to look like you spent a little more time figuring out what number you should offer, rather than saying here’s 15 million, I’m offering this. Ending in a nine, just makes my offer feel better because it looks like I put some time into it as well.
Brett:
Yeah, it’s more precise. It’s more accurate. It’s not just a flat number. Yeah.
Allan:
Exactly.
Brett:
It just feels like they really did their due diligence and they really thought about it. It’s a thoughtful offer, right? Which means a lot.
Allan:
Exactly.
Brett:
Excellent. So we’re going to shift to lightning round. Are you ready?
Allan:
I’m ready.
Brett:
All right.
Allan:
Lightning round. I didn’t know that was coming, but I’m ready.
Brett:
By the way, Allan Langer here. Seven Secrets Center for Sales and Marketing. He’s a coach for sales professionals, business professionals. You can find him at allanger.com@Allinger.com. But Al, here we go for the lightning round. Knowing what you know now, Allan, if you could go back to your 25-year-old self, what’s the one golden nugget you’d make sure you did, or something you’d make sure you knew?
Allan:
I’d get into sales earlier. I wasn’t into sales when I was 25 years old. I was in fundraising, so that was a form of sales. But I tell everyone I meet, if you want to feel good about what you do and like what you do and make a lot of money doing it, get into sales.
Brett:
Love it. What’s the one book you’ve recommended or gifted the most in the past year?
Allan: 
There are two of them. One is Donald Miller Story Brand Concept, the Story Brand book. And the other one is by Bob Burg called Go-Givers Sell More. Go-Givers Sell More is a book about, again, it really is aligned with my philosophy that the more you give, the more you’re going to receive. And the more you’re about your customer, the more sales you’re going to make.
Brett:
Love it. Give me the digital or mobile resources you recommend for your business.
Allan: 
LinkedIn. You got to be on LinkedIn. 100%. You have to be on LinkedIn, you have to be engaged on LinkedIn, and you have to be intentional on LinkedIn.
Brett:
And to that point, I just started using a thing called Octopus. It’s a LinkedIn extension that allows you to automate a little bit more, and reach out more to a target audience. That might be, again, as long as you’re doing Allan’s ways where it’s genuine and you’re connecting with people, it’s called Octopus. Might want to check that out too.
Allan:
I’m going to check that out.
Brett:
Favorite leadership quote or theme that you try to live by.
Allan:
Favorite leadership quote. Well, I have a couple of quotes that pop in my head. The one I’ve always liked, it’s about statistics and how statistics can be skewed. So the quote is, “Statistics has always reminded me of the man who drowned in the lake, whose average depth was only three feet.” So you have to be careful with your numbers. Sales numbers can be skewed and things like that. You got to look at your numbers really. A lot of people look at numbers and pretend they make themself feel better. They look at them and say, “Oh, well this means this when it really doesn’t.” So that’s one quote. Obviously, the famous quote by Maya Angelou is, “People will never remember what you said to them, they’ll never remember what you did for them, they’ll always remember how you made them feel.” You got to make sure you’re making people feel like you’re interested in them.
Brett:
Love it. Beautiful. What are you curious about right now Allan?
Allan:
I’m curious about when we’re going to stop wearing masks. I’m curious … I don’t know when this is going to come out. Maybe when it comes out we won’t be wearing masks, but at the recording of this, we’re still all wearing masks and we’re still deep into COVID, and I’m curious on when it’s over, what the new normal is going to look like. I have an idea of what it’s going to look like because I think we’re there, but I have a feeling there’s going to be. It’s been a terrible, terrible thing that’s happened. But I also think out of terrible things come positivity. And I think there’ll be a lot of positive things coming out of COVID when it’s all over.
Brett:
Well said, and this is our last question and then we’ll let you go, and we’ll remind our listeners where they can find you. But after all your success, Allan, and after all of what you’ve learned and all the people you’re coaching, and becoming a sales mastermind and coach, how do you stay centered in your values? And then how do you stay encouraged, Allan, to reach for new heights?
Allan:
I’m going to go, I’ll end with a little story. Okay, I’ll end with a little story. So before I wrote my book, it was January of 2018 where I started writing my book. I had the book in my head for many years. I had an outline done, I threw it away. I just was not, again, I wasn’t intentional about it. And I had a pretty, for my standards, I had a lousy 2017. So January 3rd of 2018, I was driving to my normal coffee shop. I’m in East Greenwich, Rhode Island. I was going to go to the coffee shop I go to every day, and on the street, a car was parking in front of me. So I stopped and I looked to my left and I saw a new coffee shop, a little tiny one called The Nook. And I’m like, “You know what? I’m going to go into a different coffee shop today.” I walk into the coffee shop, I get to the counter, and on the counter, the owner there, Shannon, who’s an amazing woman, had a wooden box. In the box were these black cards, they were called cue cards. That was a big cue on one side and you flipped it over, and it had a prompt question on the back. What is the last nicest thing you did for your family? Whatever the questions were. So out of this box of 300 cards, I pulled out one and on it, it said, “What would you like your legacy to be?” And that punched me in the gut because my legacy wasn’t what I was doing at that point. My legacy for me was teaching and writing, and I wanted it to write my book, and I bought my coffee and I sat down that day and I started writing my book on January 3rd, 2018, and I finished on May 31st in the same coffee shop that year. I wrote the entire book in that coffee shop. So that’s what keeps me grounded. Anytime you get caught up in life and all this stuff’s happening, you’re kind of spinning around and you’re wondering what you’re doing, I go back to that. I actually have that cue card now in my car. What would I like my legacy to be? And that kind of points me back in the right direction.
You become the salesperson that people want to talk to and refer to, rather than salespeople that people run away from. Click To TweetBrett:
Absolutely love it. Thank you for sharing. Thank you for sharing your inspiration and the stories and the techniques and strategies to help all business professionals become more effective at what they’re doing. Encourage you to keep using that gift of teaching and coaching others, to be a blessing to others in this world. And with that, would you give our listeners where they could find you, and then we’ll call it a wrap.
Allan:
Yeah. So just go to my website, allanger.com. So it’s A-L and then L-A-N-G-E-R.com. You can send me a note there. You can buy my book there on Amazon. And also, I also like to offer the first two people who send me an email from my website, and it’s allan@allanger.com, I will send you a free book. Just mention this podcast, I’ll send you a free autographed book for the first two people that reach out to me.
Brett:
Beautiful. And so thank you again, Allan. That’s a cool gift for them. And I want to thank our listeners for listening to another episode of the Capital Gains Tax Solutions podcast. As always, we believe the highest net worth individuals and those who help them struggle with clarifying their capital gains tax deferral options, not having a clear plan is the enemy, and using a proven tax referral strategy is the best way for you to grow your wealth, and/or hiring a coach like Allan to coach you, teach you, encourage you, and to clarify your message and to increase your sales efficiency and productivity by serving your clients better. With that, have a great day, and please rate, review, subscribe, and share this with somebody that it could help. Thanks so much.
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About Allan Langer
I help sales professionals and teams execute the customer-centered, science-backed sales system that brought me success for almost 30 years, so they can:
* Escape the “used-car salesman” perception that every salesperson faces daily
* Do what’s right for their customers and without sacrificing their integrity or personality
* Feel secure in their job and their ability to provide for the people they care about
* Sell more than they ever have in their career and feel great doing it
I turned this process into an Amazon Best Selling Book, The 7 Secrets to Selling More by Selling Less. In addition to training sales teams across the globe, I host the popular Marketing and Sales, over Cocktails Podcast, share my knowledge through webinars, and have been featured as a lead speaker at multiple summits and conferences.
Whether you’re a sales manager eager to help your team reach their full potential or a sales professional who wants more from their job than missed quotas and how to handle objections, I can help you implement a sales system that will improve everything. Schedule a meeting to get started!
