128: Uncovering the Secrets of 9-Figure Closers with Randall Grizzle & Deborah Burris

Today, I’m joined by Randall Grizzle and Deborah Burris, the owner and managing partner of Closer Secrets, a sales organization that teaches other businesses the process that has allowed their team to close more than 9-figures in business over the phone.

At Closer Secrets, Randall and Deborah answer a simple question: Why do some sales teams produce, while others struggle? Closer Secrets helps businesses answer this question by teaching how to build a successful sales culture based on systems, execution, and processes.

Before creating Closer Secrets, Randall spent 15 years on the phones and has sold tens of millions of dollars for some of the world’s foremost influential marketers. He has worked closely with Russell Brunson, Frank Kern, the Mikkelsen twins, among many others.

Randall and Deborah’s book, “The Ultimate Playbook for High Performing Sales Teams,” breaks down how their team consistently closes 6-figures in weekly sales.

In today’s episode, you’ll learn about the pros and cons of scripts and role-play trainings, the 5-section sales process, and how to convert your low-ticket clients into high-ticket buyers.

Inspiring Quotes

• “The most successful people make decisions for their money; they have that money work for them. A lot of times people that struggle let money make decisions for them.” – Randall Grizzle

• “The interesting thing is as we’ve really gone deep into this over the last couple of years, the feedback that we’re getting from the students that we’re speaking with on the phone is it seems like [sales calls] are a more real conversation. It seems like it’s more genuine. And in many cases, our conversions have even gone up. And it’s because we’ve been able to just dig deep, have more real conversations, and color within those lines that the FTC has drawn for us.” – Deborah Burris

• “A big part of sales that will never change is listening.” – Randall Grizzle

• “Anybody that’s willing to get out their wallet and invest $1,000 is somebody we definitely feel we’re going to convert at a high level.” – Randall Grizzle

• “We don’t work with anyone that we don’t feel like is massively over-delivering on what they say they’re going to do.” – Deborah Burris

• “You have to be able to provide a ton of value to be able to sell a $1,000 or $2,000 a course on a webinar.” – Randall Grizzle

• “If you’re selling something that you don’t believe in or you’re not able to get 100% behind, then you shouldn’t be selling it.” – Randall Grizzle

• The core elements of the sales process
• How to structure your sales process
• Is role-playing effective in sales training?
• Where scripts work and where they fall short
• How to create scale from leads and buyers
• Upselling existing clients without friction
• Maximizing the show rates on sales calls
• How to set your closers up for success
• The role of the FTC in your sales organization

Brad Weimert: Randall Grizzle, Deborah Burris, I appreciate you carving out time. Thanks so much. It’s great to see you. 

Randall Grizzle: Glad to be here, Brad. 

Deborah Burris: It’s a pleasure to be here.

Brad Weimert: So, I want to dive in. You guys own Closer Secrets and you have either sold offers for people like Russell Brunson, Frank Kern back in the day, or more recently, Alex Hormozi and some of his companies or completely built sales teams and organizations for people like the Mikkelsen Twins, Knowledge Source was a huge company out of Australia, and just a litany of others. Specifically, you kind of look for companies that are doing 1 million or 2 a year and work towards and have evidence of bringing them to 1 million or 2 a week in sales, which is super impressive. And there are lots of lessons there. So, clearly, you’re very good at sales and building sales teams. I want to dig into your specific company and how you run it. But before we do, I want to talk about the basics of sales because every entrepreneur on the planet should have a grip on their sales process and how it works.

I grew up in kind of aggressive door-to-door sales. We were always talking about this before we turned on and hit the record button. There are a million different kinds of frameworks for sales that people learn in different ways to close, different methodologies you can learn. Let’s start with the basics of the sales process and what process you follow to sell. Like, what do you think of as the elements of sales? 

Randall Grizzle: Yeah. With sales, there’s a lot of different ways to kind of get the same result. And really, what I’ve found and you hear a lot of people talking about sort of old school way of selling versus new ways of selling and there’s a lot there but there’s also a lot as far as the fundamentals of the game that will never change. And whether you’re talking about business opportunities or any other sort of business venture, these sort of elements are always going to come into play. And the first thing is really just understanding what it is that people are looking to accomplish, right? And then being able to bridge that gap, this is where they’re at, this is what they want to accomplish, and this is how we’re going to be able to help them do that.

And you hear Tony Robbins talk a lot about how people will either take action based on a couple of different things, either avoid pain or gain pleasure. And that’s true. And those things are never going to change. But as far as how leads are created, the indoctrination from the place where somebody raises their hand until you’re actually getting them into a place where they’re ready to move forward on a 10, $15,000 offer, there’s a lot of different ways to do that. And so, in the beginning, when I first started in this industry, in the biz op sales industry, we were selling coaching on how to build businesses with eBay, on eBay. Okay. So, the leads were created very simple. They were usually a free plus shipping. People opted in and spent maybe $10 for a free plus shipping book.

We had big lists and we had big sales teams, and we did a lot of outbound, and there wasn’t a lot of indoctrination, and it was really take somebody that was a free plus shipping buyer through the sales process and get them in a place where they’re willing to make a $10,000 investment. That’s a big gap, right? And that was the way that I learned how to sell is selling those people that really weren’t committed to anything outside of, “I’ll try this free plus shipping thing.” Now, with the way funnels and everything has evolved over the years, they’re way more indoctrinated. People come in, they sell things on webinars. They do master classes, they do workshops, they do events, they do all these different things to indoctrinate people, and they’ll let people come in anywhere from a dollar to $500 to even $2,000 buyers on courses, and then they’ll indoctrinate them.

And then that’s when we’re able to come in and take a scheduled call, which is a new thing. We never had scheduled calls back in the day, right? So, for people to come into the space that we’re in now, be able to open up their calendar, take scheduled calls from people that have been indoctrinated, it’s evolved a long ways from where I started. 

Brad Weimert: Yeah. So, I want to talk about the specifics of that but if you talk like you kept using the word indoctrination. And so, if we think about the sales process of getting somebody indoctrinated as the beginning of the sales process, once you get them on the call, the elements of sort of rapport and features and benefits, or the value proposition or transitioning into a close, how do you think about the structure of that sales call or that sales process in general? 

Randall Grizzle: Yeah. So, the way that I look at it is I break it down into sections. So, the first part of the sales process is always going to be the introduction. Introduction is setting the tone for the call. This is who I am. This is who we are. This is what we represent. This is sort of the way that the conversation’s going to go. And then from there, it’s really about getting deep into the why. And some people call it probe, right? And that part of the sales process is the most important. This is where I’m identifying the Ws, who I’m talking to, where they’re at professionally, financially, what it is that they’re looking to accomplish, and why now. Okay. So, understanding this part of the sales process is by far the most important thing. So, really getting deep into those things, really understanding who Brad is, really what makes Brad tick, right? Why is Brad motivated now to do something different, to learn something new?

And this part of the sales process, no matter what you’re selling, will always be the most important. So, whether you’re selling a business opportunity where I understand that the reason why this person is going to buy is because he’s been a bus driver for ten years, right? He wants to be able to retire. He doesn’t have money put away for retirement. He maybe has credit card debt, right? His wife, she’s still working her job and understanding really and identifying the pain and the goals is the most important part of the sales process. And then from there, the next bridge is the blast. So, now I set the tone for the call with the introduction. I went through the probe section of the process. I understand who I’m talking to, where they’re at, all these different things, what they’re looking to accomplish, and why now.

And then the last part of the process is where we start to bridge the gap. So, I’m like, “This is where Brad’s at. This is what he wants to accomplish. And these are some different ways that we’re going to be able to help Brad in a short period of time, kind of change your situation.” So, this portion of the sales process, we’re creating some excitement where we’re helping you understand that the vehicle certainly works, right? It can work for you. Maybe this is where we share some case studies of people that were in a sort of similar situation as you. And then also from there just being able to help them understand that this vehicle that we have in the situation that you’re in, this is what we’re going to go out and this is what we’re going to be able to help you accomplish a lot faster than if you’re trying to do something on your own.

So, that’s the blast. And then after the blast, before we get into any sort of presentation about what it is and how we’re going to actually do that, we want to go through some pre-qualification commitments that we’re going to ask. So, the pre-qualification commitments are if you use the example of a business opportunity, if I’m going to be able to help somebody change their situation, these commitments will always come into play. And the first commitment and it’s the same thing with business or even if you’re trying to lose weight or anything else, these commitments always come into play if we want to change our situation. And the first part is the commitment of time. If we’re going to help them learn something new, they have to make the commitment. They’re going to put the time and they’re going to do their part.

And from there, the next portion after the time is really just being open-minded and teachable. So, most of the time what we provide is coaching and training. And I think we’ve all at some point tried to work with a know-it-all. And so, we want them to understand that, “Hey, this is the way we’re going to do things. This is the time commitment. Whether it’s 10, 15, 20 hours a week, I need you to be open-minded and teachable. We’re going to put you with an expert, somebody that understands how to get you where you’re trying to go.” And so, that second portion is just being open-minded and teachable, being coachable. The third commitment is being a decision-maker. So, this is their business. And, ultimately, they’re going to be the one that makes those decisions. And so, there are two types of people really we’ve found. And this is just the truth.

There’s procrastinators and there’s people that are willing to step out of that comfort zone and take action. And procrastinators always figure out a reason why things don’t work and they put things off. And for the most part, people that are successful make commitments, they make decisions, and they follow through and they do their part. And so, we want to work with people that are decisive. And part of being decisive is the other part of that is the most successful people make decisions for their money, right? Like, people have money, they make decisions for their money. They have that money work for them. A lot of times people that struggle let money make decisions for them. So, we want to help people understand that if you’re going to change your situation and start a business, whether it’s a hot dog stand or a restaurant down the street, or heck, even if they wanted to go back to college, all these different things, they’re going to take an investment, a financial commitment. Okay.

So, we want them to understand that we’re going to take the time. We’re going to lay out exactly how all these different things work, but it’s going to come down to them being at a place where it’s black and white. It’s either going to make sense or it doesn’t. And when it does make sense, are they willing to step out of that comfort zone and are they able, are they in a place to be able to step out of that comfort zone and make the commitment and get started? 

Brad Weimert: So, it sounds like the qualification process for you is both qualifying the prospect for you and also sort of pre-framing the close in doing some takeaways to tee up the close so that they’re walking into it wanting it. 

Randall Grizzle: 100%. Yeah. It’s about posturing. It’s about positioning. And that kind of goes back to the roots of sales in general, right? It’s about making them understand that it is an opportunity. It obviously has to be a win-win situation or they’re not going to do it, right? But it’s one of those things where when they come through the process, by the time we get them in a place where we set them up for the close, that it has been postured the right way. The deal is set the right way to the closer to where when they hop on, it’s not us trying to convince them that this is what you should do and this is why you should do it. It’s more of the conversation that’s the real where we understand where you’re at, Brad. We understand who you are. We understand what you want to do. We understand that you’re willing to make these commitments to get different results, right?

And then from there, and it’s only from there that we’re able to be in a place that we can actually help people. And part of that is kind of circling back to after decision making, that next part of the sales process would be the presentation. So, before we get into the presentation, though, on a two-part sale where we use setters and closers, this would be where the setter made the handoff to the closer. And so, from after we go through that decision making, we just kind of want to posture, “Hey, we’re going to have you speak to Brad. He’s going to go through. He’s going to lay out all the details. Make sure that you let him know right upfront how serious you are about doing some things different and getting different results, kind of changing your situation.”

So, when that’s all teed up and that call comes over to the closer, they hop on and it’s a little bit of the same sort of conversation that they already had on the set. So, obviously, the closer is going to have all the notes. They’re going to kind of circle back a little bit and cover a bit of the same conversation that we had, “I understand this is where you’re at. This is what you want to accomplish. I understand that you’re willing to make the commitments on your end that it’s going to take for us to be able to work together.” And then at that point, going through the presentation. 

Brad Weimert: And for clarity, so here’s what I got. Introduction, probe, blast, qualification, and then sort of presentation/close.

Randall Grizzle: Yeah.

Brad Weimert: And if you’re following that form and I want to dig into a couple of things of that but if you’re following that form, whether it’s a one-call or a two-call so you gave the frame of I’m going to use a setter and then a closer, which is very common in actually a lot of different sales processes these days. Another frame would be software sales where you have an SDR, sales development rep, and then you have an account executive. And it’s the same kind of idea where the SDR is supposed to tee it up and the account exec is supposed to do sort of the more technical nuanced selling. But if you’re doing a one-call close, presumably the steps would be the same and you would still, when you go into a presentation, recap what you got from the probing, the blast, and the qualification before you led into the close. Is that your model? 

Randall Grizzle: Yeah, that’s 100% accurate. I think the sort of as the industry, I guess, some of the changes that have happened in the industry is that now, a lot of times when people are talking about setters, it’s… Let me just explain it this way. You can use the set part of the process a lot of different ways, and a lot of times I think now the way that the industries went, people are using setters more almost from the marketing perspective side of things where they do a lot more cold outreach with messaging on the social platforms and stuff like that. And so, that’s more of a lead creation, almost like a marketing arm cold outreach where the way that setting traditionally was created was to really do what I was talking about where the lead had already come in. They’ve already raised their hand. Right now, it’s about positioning and posturing creating that opportunity for the closer to hop on and close the deal. 

Brad Weimert: Yeah, I love it. The way that it would hit me just now, the way that I thought about that was it should be about setting the stage for the sale, not just setting the appointment. 

Randall Grizzle: Exactly. And that’s exactly the point that I was trying to make because you get a lot of these companies that are doing that outreach. And then when they hop on, if I do this outreach and then I schedule a call for you to speak to somebody else, then we’re still just starting at the beginning stages. And so, in my opinion, you would be better served to still have another setter after that cold outreach to be able to go through pre-qualify. I wouldn’t want to take somebody’s time like to take your time, go through, and have you talk to somebody that was set up on a calendar from cold outreach where they hop on the phone and they’re like, “Okay. Brad, tell me what you got. How does this all work?” And you’re postured, positioning for the way the whole call is going to go is just it’s off track right from the beginning. 

Brad Weimert: Yeah, I love that. So, introduction, which is some rapport, etcetera, setting the stage for the call. Probe is getting to understand the prospect. You said the Ws, which I think is great, who you are, what you’re doing, what role you’re in, why this is important to you, and why now. The blast, which is sort of teeing up the product itself in some version in saying, “Hey, this is what we have in basic form.” Then you go into qualification, which is both making sure that the prospect is actually who you want and you want to invest time in this moving forward. And also sort of this takeaway, posturing, to make them want the sale. And then you move into actual presentation and close to actually make the sale happen. That’s great. So, I mean, there’s a million things that true sales professionals focus on when they’re trying to dial in this process.

One of them is getting salespeople to be effective. And so, there’s this huge can of worms that can be ripped open here around training, management, etcetera. I want to hit on a couple of them. Role-playing is cheesy as f*ck, and there is no actor in the world that would show up on set without rehearsing the hell out of their lines. Where does role-playing fit in and how does it work in your sales organization, if at all? 

Randall Grizzle: Yeah, another great question. So, here’s the thing with role-playing and I know a lot of people are all about it. For us, we come from a place where the people that we bring into our organization are people that we consider them black belts. So, they have 10, 15 years plus experience. And it’s sort of the… What’s the best way to explain it? Well, first of all, everybody has a little bit different personalities. And so, how you respond and how you go through the sales process, even though the content is the same, is going to be a little bit different than the next guy. So, we try to bring in people that we don’t have to share with them how they should use voice fluctuation when they’re doing an introduction. Like, there are people that understand how to make that connection.

And if you’re working with brand new reps, like, I remember doing a lot of roleplay when I first started, right? And if you’re working with people that are new to the industry, I think those things are important. But if I’m working with a seasoned, an actual sales superstar, or an actual sales professional, I shouldn’t have to spend the time with them or a team leader shouldn’t have to spend the time with them, trying to help them understand how to fluctuate their voice the first 30 seconds of a call. They already understand that, right? And so, I mean, really, Brad, we’re not the company that’s big on role-playing and really kind of getting into it. Yeah, it’s not who we are. We try to hire people that understand all that. 

Brad Weimert: Yeah. I would argue, though, that those people are those people because and the reason that you don’t need to force role-playing through an organization of black belt salespeople is because they’re already practicing that sh*t at home or on their own. They’re going through the call and the script or whatever, and learning the pitch and getting the reps themselves, whether they’ve managed to do it or not. 

Randall Grizzle: We call it practical application, I think more so, where they’ve spent 10, 15,000 plus hours on the phone practicing how they do their introductions and that sort of thing. And we do have setters that don’t have 10, 15,000 hours. And some of those people take more training and they will do role-playing and stuff with our team leaders. So, it’s not a thing that we’re opposed to. I guess I’m just trying to make the point that for the most part, we try to hire people that have that experience, that understand the fundamentals of the game. 

Brad Weimert: Yeah. Well, so there are two big things that I’m focused on through this conversation. One is the fundamental elements of sales and building the process and how to do that from somebody that is very, very good at it, clearly. The other is your organization specifically, which will get to you, but you kind of hit on both, which is your organization. You just want to hire badass people. But you also said, “Look, if you’ve got new salespeople, absolutely. Scripting, coaching, that’s part of the management process.” Similar question but a variant here, let’s start with if you’re building a new sales team, specific scripts or talk tracks, which direction do you lean in terms of training salespeople? 

Randall Grizzle: Yeah. We do scripts. So, we definitely want to keep everybody going through the same process. There’s a lot of different reasons for it. One of the main things with scripting, even if you have a bunch of really good salespeople, if you don’t have everybody going through the same process, then things are unpredictable. So, once you get a process dialed in and you know that it’s converting really well, it’s about everybody taking their personality and plugging their personality into that process. But the talk tracks are the same or the script is the same. A lot of times, though, with scripting, it’s super important also to be able to understand how to go deeper and to understand that a big part of sales that will never change is listening. And when I go through a sales script or the sales process, you’re going to answer questions a different way than the next guy or the next gal.

So, it’s important for me to be able to use the sales script, the outline, and stay on track but also important for me to be able to understand how to listen, like, actually listen and ask follow-up questions based on how you respond. So, there are portions of the script that give us that allow the reps the opportunity to dig deeper behind the why. So, when you tell me whatever you do for a living, there’s no exact formula for how I respond because everybody that I’m talking to is in different places. They’re answering the questions a different way. And that’s the reason why there’s no such thing, in my opinion, as a perfect script. You can have a really good process in your script but the reason why we have salespeople that are professionals is because still to this day, it’s super challenging to be able to just read a script word for word.

And the reason for that is being able to actually listen, understand who I’m talking to, and go deeper and make that connection more on a personal level. And that only happens by the questions that I ask, how you respond to those questions, and me having the opportunity to go deeper into those things. 

Brad Weimert: Yet you always create a script to be the guideline. 

Randall Grizzle: That’s right. 

Brad Weimert: Yeah. I love that. I think in more technical sales, my experience in more technical sales is that if you don’t have a script, new people are very likely to use the wrong words inadvertently and that translates to a ridiculous message. It’s like so they say something that’s totally wrong and they don’t get it because they’re just new and the lexicon is new. And then as people get indoctrinated into your own sales process, they can deviate from script with their own language but they need to be indoctrinated before they can do that. 

Randall Grizzle: Yeah.

Deborah Burris: Yeah.

Randall Grizzle: Yeah. Sorry. Go ahead, Deborah. 

Deborah Burris: Oh, I just wanted to interject a couple of things here. One of the assets that we’ve put together, Brad, for each account is we put together a game plan for them. So, it gives them the complete view of how the lead is created up until all the way through fulfillment so the whole sales process through fulfillment. So, that helps them have that lexicon that you referred to so that they know the words that are used because we view ourselves as a seamless extension of each brand that we take on. And I also wanted to add the most successful reps, even if they’re black belts, they go through and they do a lot of preparation with this game plan that we give them to prepare to take calls. So, as Randall said, the experience that they’ve had for decades before, they’re able to plug this lexicon and they’re able to like review the script.

We also build in multiple questions. I mean, there are key elements of the script that everybody needs to make sure that they cover, that we make sure that we build in flexibility in that script for questions to ask, reminding them to go deeper, “Why? Tell me a little bit more about that,” so that we can get to that pain or pleasure that they’re seeking and build that into the commitments and the things that Randall’s already spoken about. And then as far as people that do come in, I mean, we have team leaders that oversee each account, and they’re constantly listening to calls in addition to we have a whole department that listens to calls, and we actually record things that were successful in overcoming certain objections so that we can share those things with the team, different analogies that people are resonating with to overcome those objections. So, we provide ongoing assets for our team to just consistently level up for each specific offer. 

Brad Weimert: I love that. That’s a good bridge here to talk about the specifics of your company. So, I want to talk about KPIs also because what you measure and track, how you manage to those measurements is a lot of the glue that holds sales teams together. And it’s kind of how you create the roadmap for somebody to sit in as a manager to effectively manage a sales team. I have a very, I’m always looking for specific examples when I’m trying to drill into somebody’s process because I think there’s a time and a place for strategy, and there’s a time and a place for tactics. And in sales, for me, it’s very helpful to have both. So, let’s transition to your company and then we’ll look at kind of the tactics you use and the approach you use in the specifics here. And correct me if I get any of this wrong, but you basically have two different models that you’re running here.

Well, first and foremost, you’re looking for companies that already have some established history that are generating leads. Typically, that’s 50 leads a week I think is what we had talked about previously but you’re looking for people that have an established business maybe doing 1 million or 2 a year, could be more and you sell into that company one of two ways. Either you want the clients to drive leads straight to a book-a-call so they’re scheduling a call with your salespeople or you’re taking leads that the client has already sold something to. And then you are getting on the phone with them. Your salespeople are getting on the phone with them to sell them an 8 or $10,000 package. In both cases, you’re trying to sell this high-ticket offer to them. Either directly sell the high ticket or looking at somebody who has already spent a thousand bucks to sell the high ticket to. Is that accurate? 

Randall Grizzle: Yeah. Sort of the overview, I guess, of the evolution of this is like so in the beginning, it was this is somebody that raised their hand. I mentioned the free plus shipping or an ebook, these different things and it was a lot of outbounds from setters trying to connect with people. And then from there, the book-a-call thing came in, right? And then everybody was running funnels to high ticket sales process through book-a-call. So, non-buyer lead, just somebody that booked a call that was interested. And we have done some exciting things, some big things with book-a-call over the course of the last…

Brad Weimert: Let me pause you for one second because you said non-buyer lead and I know what that means but I also know that if you’re not running sales funnels, it’s worth clarifying. And that’s what I was trying to get you as I stumbled through your model here is that there are two things. There’s either buyer leads or non-buyer leads. And buyer leads are people that have bought something already and you’re going to sell more to them. And non-buyer leads are somebody that basically just opted in and said, “Hey, I want to talk to somebody,” and so they’re booking a call to talk to functionally a salesperson. 

Randall Grizzle: Exactly. So, we’ll start with the non-buyer leads. Those people, they don’t have anything invested into the conversation. So, they could be interested, they could or could not be qualified. A lot of times with the non-buyer leads, we’ll run them through an application process before. So, we understand when they book a call more about who we’re talking to and kind of eliminate ones that are definitely bad apples or just not qualified for what we’re trying to sell. So, those non-buyer leads that are booking a call, the thing with those is, first of all, just getting them to show up. Okay. The second thing is with those and sometimes they’ll go through a full webinar. They’ll watch a three, four-hour webinar and so they’re indoctrinated.

Sometimes creating those leads can get expensive for marketing companies so they’ll retreat to ten minutes, five minutes into the webinar. Let’s just throw a link up and let them start booking calls. And what happens with the non-buyer leads? The first obstacle typically that’s in the way is getting them to show up for a sales call. So, a lot of times on those non-buyer book-a-call funnels, maybe you’ll get a 50% show-up rate. Sometimes it’s a little bit better and sometimes it’s worse. And then when you do get them to show up, depending on how much of the webinar that they watched or the VSL that they watched, they may or may not know a whole lot about the opportunity or the brand behind that opportunity.

Now, what we’ve found and the way that we’ve been able to do some really super exciting things is people that are able to create a buyer lead on a webinar, somebody that spent $1,000 or $2,000 on that webinar, and then from the time that buyer lead is created, running them through our proprietary process where we indoctrinate them more, we end up scheduling another call with them. We used to call it a goal-setting call. Now, we call it a success call. But then we hop on and that’s the set call. So, back in the day, as a company, we used to be in a place where we would say, “How can we help Brad sell his stuff? Or how can we help so-and-so sell whatever opportunity that they had?” Maybe it’s a book-a-call, whatever the case may be.

Now, we say from a company perspective, “How do we find people that we know and are confident that we can plug into our model that we know already works really well?” So, the majority of our clients now, their whole goal is to be able to break even on a webinar with a $1,000 or $2,000 buyer, and they might even go backwards. And a lot of times, they do on that to sell that $1,000 or $2,000 thing but then we take those buyer leads and convert those buyer leads into an upsell at a really high percentage. And so, that’s where the scalability comes into play. And those are the clients that we’ve been able to seven-figure plus weeks on the back end of those $1,000, $2,000 buyer leads. So, I always tell people whenever we’re talking to potentially new clients, if we come across somebody that’s really good at selling things on a webinar, then we’re going to be able to really help that company grow in a fast way if they can scale their fulfillment. It’s really that simple. 

Brad Weimert: So, let’s talk about the buyer lead specifically here because in you’re using your specific frame of selling the front-end offer on a webinar. And you set a 3 or a 4-hour webinar, which is f*cking bananas. I don’t know who sits through a four-hour webinar but, yes, if they got through a four-hour webinar, they’re motivated in some capacity to learn more. So, that’s like best-case scenario, right? But, does it work? I mean, presumably, not all buyer leads are created equal but if somebody has still spent $1,000 or $2,000 but not sat through a webinar, does this model still work? 

Randall Grizzle: Absolutely. Anybody that’s willing and at a place where they’re getting out their wallet and investing $1,000 is somebody that we definitely feel we’re going to convert at a high level and a high percentage of those people in a higher ticket offer. It’s kind of like back in the day, Brad, everybody doing these live events and at the end of the live event, a lot of them would sell. Sometimes people would sell a $10,000 or $30,000 or $50,000 thing, and they’d get some buyers and it would be successful. But then everybody went from there to selling a whole bunch of $5,000 things. So, they would just do this irresistible offer. They get 100 people in a room. They convert super high on a $5,000 offer, right? And then those $5,000 buyers would get a phone call right after the event, and those $5,000 buyers would have an opportunity to invest into a higher ticket offer that’s 30,000 or 50,000.

And a lot of people did a lot of big things from the live event situations where selling that $5,000 offer up front and then upselling them into the super high ticket stuff was really profitable. So, it’s the same exact model, except for now, it’s just to the masses on a webinar and getting those $1,000 or $2,000 buyers and then taking all those buyers and upselling them. 

Brad Weimert: Okay. I have to dig in a little bit deeper on this one. There is if you just spent $5,000 on something or $2,000 on something to then find yourself in a situation where somebody gets you on the phone and says, “Yeah. Do you want to spend 10 or do you want to spend 20?” There has to be, there is something to be overcome there so that the person that just spent $2,000 doesn’t feel like, “Well, what the f*ck did I spend the $2,000 for? I have to spend $10,000 to get the full product.”

Randall Grizzle: Yeah.

Brad Weimert: What are the elements that make that smooth and frictionless and actually make sense for the buyer? 

Randall Grizzle: I love that you brought that up because you are spot on. The obstacle in the way of a buyer lead is people saying exactly what Brad just said. “I already bought this. Let me go through this. I thought this had everything that I needed to be successful.” And so, the reality though is this: As long as you have enough of a differentiator between what they bought on a webinar and another offer that’s going to be able to help them accomplish whatever it is that they’re looking to a lot faster, then there’s a conversation to be had. So, on the real, if somebody comes in on a webinar and they spend $1,000 or $2000, but at the same time, their goal is to put together a business and position themselves to be able to walk away from a job, there’s the course there.

So, the biggest differentiator that we want to provide for people is giving them the actual one-on-one support that they need to be able to accomplish their goals faster. So, when somebody comes on a webinar, we don’t want to be talking about the same things on that $1,000 course or $2,000 course that we’re going to talk about on the back end of that when we want to upsell them. So, the biggest differentiator between what people typically buy upfront on that course is the course has everything that they need to be successful because that’s the first thing is you got to be able to provide a ton of value to be able to sell a $1,000 or $2,000 course on a webinar. So, obviously, everything’s there for them to be able to get results in whatever space that may be. All the knowledge is there, but the pitch is pretty simple.

It’s like there’s a reason why there’s a teacher in the front of the classroom like all the information is there for people to go through all the content in the books, and some people learn better or learn well with books and tapes and audio and all that, that sort of thing. But the reality is a lot of the people that buy these courses after they buy these courses, they’ll reach out to the marketing company or the influencer and they’ll say, “I want more help. Is there any way for me to get more support?” because they want more like they’re super excited about it. So, the thing is with these upfront opportunities is when you spend 1,000 or 2,000, everything’s there for you but we just explain it like people come in, we give them everything that they need, but when we did that, people started reaching back out saying they wanted more support. So, we put together a program for those people.

And so, maybe it is for you or maybe it’s not but the reality is that the people that come in at this thousand-dollar level and buy the course, those people that upgrade to the one-on-one coaching are going to get a lot more hand-holding. They’re going to get a lot more of the attention. They’re going to get actually access to the influencer himself once a week on a group call for Q&A. And so, being able to differentiate between what they originally bought and the offer that we’re going to try to upsell to them is super important. And also, the indoctrination that happens from the time that lead they buy until that scheduled call. So, originally, if people buy a $1,000 thing and then I just caught you off guard and I’m like, “Hey, Brad, I’m just giving you a call because I see that you purchased this thousand-dollar course and I just wanted to chat with you about an opportunity that we have for you to…” 

Brad Weimert: To sell you more sh*t. 

Randall Grizzle: Yeah, right. That’s where you’re going to get a bunch of that disconnect. 

Brad Weimert: That makes sense. 

Randall Grizzle: But when I’m talking about indoctrinating a buyer lead, I’m talking about running them through when you put them in a group on a quick start call, planting the seeds that lead to that call. So, that indoctrination I’m talking about is the buyer leads created. We want to start planting the seeds on that orientation or that quick start call that there may be another opportunity for certain people and let it be their idea. 

Brad Weimert: Yeah, I love that. Internally, we do everything through the lens of what we refer to as the client experience. And we do that both for the clients and for how the staff facilitates the client experience, right, so the EPD staff experience in the back end. And a big part of that is that each member of the team needs to make sure that they’re hitting on certain things to set the stage for the next person in the process. Because if they don’t do it, it’s almost impossible for somebody to jump in and try to engage a business owner to do something if they don’t expect it, right, if it hasn’t been laid out as an expectation ahead of time. So, tell me about, Deborah, I know that I’ve watched you pick apart metrics from one stage of the process to the next. And it was actually kind of the catalyst of wanting to talk more because it was both super interesting to see how each stage of the process amplified the end close rate and the dollars sold. And impressive that you’re tracking it granularly.

One of my least favorite types of salespeople or sales managers are the super charismatic ones that are completely incapable of duplicating themselves and might be great on their own, but no f*cking way are they going to build a team because you have to have and, Randall, you mentioned this earlier, but you have to have the ability to replicate the process and you need something that you can stamp out again for everybody to be on the same page. So, Deborah, tell me about kind of the stages and the metrics that you track from end-to-end in the sales process. 

Deborah Burris: Yeah, absolutely. So, I think just as kind of an overview, I mean, there are just key elements that we do that we have set up at Closer Secrets that are replicable. Number one is specific. We put everybody that comes into our ecosystem through a Closer Secrets university. So, it lets them know how we do business and that’s across any account that they’re on. Secondly, we create a specific game plan for each individual client so that they understand the client experience from beginning to end, which is super helpful. And then the third thing that we do is we’ve built out these custom scoreboards for each account. And again, it’s replicable. We plug every account into it. So, our team leaders understand those metrics.

So, the key things that we measure are, and I’ll give you some screenshots of this spread, but we measure what happens with every lead from the very beginning to the end. So, we have and we use Power BI for this. So, that’s the gold standard in measuring business intelligence and analytics but we’ve customized this for our clients. So, we have a complete funnel view where they can see this is how many leads were booked. This is how they filtered out through the set process, through the closed process all the way down to the close. And we can do that granularly for every single lead time that the customer has. We also measure the dollar per lead for each lead type and by each rep. So, we can tell who are the reps that are the most profitable, what lead types are the most profitable, what’s the conversion rate.

We measure the conversion rate of each closer, the conversion rate of each setter, how many sets is this seller getting through. We have those numbers so that we can measure all of that. And as we enhance these dashboards, we do ongoing training with our team leaders and then also our clients so that they understand what they’re looking at when they see these metrics. 

Brad Weimert: So, a lot of that data, a lot of the things that you just mentioned are, you have to accumulate that data, right? You have to wait until the process has gone through to get some of those numbers. And some of those numbers are lagging indicators and some of them are on the front end, right, are telling. And so, one of the things that we should all be aware of but is easy to forget is your show rate on appointments or on calls. So, people are booking calls and you have an 80% show rate versus 90 versus 30. There’s a radical impact to even if you have the best close rate in the world later, there’s a radical impact in how much you’re actually selling because nobody showing up for the f*cking call. 

Deborah Burris: Right. Yeah. 

Brad Weimert: So, through that process… Go ahead. 

Deborah Burris: Yeah, 100%. I mean, and that’s one thing that’s shown in the funnel view that we have in the dashboards. We can see at every stage where people are falling off what the conversions are. We can see how many people are showing up for the set call, how many people are showing up for the close call, where they drop off along that whole process because you’re absolutely right. I mean, it’s huge. And we have certain processes in place to make sure that we maximize those show rates with our sales team. There are very specific things that the setters do, very specific things that the closers do to make sure that people are showing up for those calls. So, if we see one rep that’s not, that’s below average, we can go back through an audit, “Hey, are you following this process exactly?”

Because we already know that it works. We’ve done this so many times. It’s not a guessing game as to what works and what doesn’t work. So, we can easily identify where the breakdown could be and resolve it quickly. 

Brad Weimert: So, let’s talk a couple of tactics here. So, you mentioned set calls and close calls. So, the setter calls basically setting the stage for the close. And the closer is, “Hey, I’m actually going to pitch you on the product, the stage has already been set, pitch you on the product and close you.” What are the key things that are done to make sure people show up for the initial set call? And so, those are people that have expressed interest and maybe bought something before. How do you make sure that they show up for those calls? 

Deborah Burris: Yeah. So, that’s a great question. So, initially, when the call is booked, we’ll have the influencer on the thank you page when the call is booked, record a short video just explaining, “Hey, this is the next step in the process. It’s really important that you’re here.” They give them a few little nuggets on key things that got them piqued their interest in the offer in the first place. And then immediately, once the call is booked, they get an automation going up from the scheduling software saying your call is booked. They get an SMS. They also get an email. And then they get a direct, personalized email from the setter that will be calling them so that they can have that personalized connection right from the beginning. 

Brad Weimert: Love that. 

Deborah Burris: So, for the set, that’s the basic process between the set and the close. 

Brad Weimert: Let me clarify something on that real quick because the notion of influencer, I don’t want to get conflated for people listening or watching.

Deborah Burris: Sure.

Brad Weimert: In this case, your clients are typically influencers. They’re typically people that have a large brand. But this translates to any business. If you’re setting an appointment, don’t have a dead thank you page. On the thank you page, resell the message, right? Resell into the experience of what the next step is. That was one of the big things there. The other big thing was immediately put a human to who’s going to be on the call. Don’t say, “Hey, you’ve got a call with Easy Pay Direct in a week and a half.” Say, “Hey, Roger Clemente is your rep,” or, “Hey, I am Roger Clemente. I’ve been scheduled to talk to you in a week and a half. Here’s my number if you want to connect before then but I’m planning on seeing you then.” 

Deborah Burris: Yeah, absolutely. When the centers reach out, they give them their direct number, let them know, “Hey, this is the line that I’m going to be calling you from.” And in most cases, we’ll take what was on the thank you page, that video on the thank you page, and put it in the body of that text message that’s personalized because a lot of times when people book an appointment, they don’t take the time to watch the video that’s on there. So, we remind them, “Hey, listen, I’m going to be calling you from this number. Please watch this before we jump on the call. I’m really excited to speak with you. Write down any questions that you have and we’ll connect at your appointment time.” 

Brad Weimert: Got it. Love it. So, let’s move to a couple of things you can do to make sure people show up for the close call or like the pitch and opportunity to actually sell. 

Deborah Burris: Yeah. I think one of the big things is, is the setters, they leave a little bit of the mystery, right? I mean, as Randall talked, he did a great job of going through talking about the posturing and the positioning that the setters do to get them and prepare for the close. So, the setters don’t tell them everything. They get them in a position to where they validated with the person that they have the ability to move forward, that the person believes that the vehicle is the right vehicle for them to accomplish what they’re looking to accomplish. And then a lot of times between the set and the close too, we send them out a further indoctrination video from the business owner or the influencer to get them even more excited about the possibility of working directly with that influencer and their team. So, most…

Randall Grizzle: Yeah. And… I’m sorry. Go ahead.

Deborah Burris: I was going to say, I mean, when this is done properly, the person that’s coming on to the close call, once they get on the phone with the closer, they’re talking to the closer. They’re trying to convince the closer why they should be a part of it, why they should be allowed to be on these calls with the influencers, with their team, so that they can go faster. 

Randall Grizzle: Yeah. So, a couple of things just to kind of add what Deborah mentioned there with the set process or getting people to show up, and getting the people to show up that are buyers is easy. Like the buyer lead is like, “We’ll get in 90% plus those people that show up when they run them through the quick start and those calls and everything.” But a non-buyer webinar attendee, the application lead, there’s a balance because like what Deborah said, you have to have these contacts with them but you also can’t be desperate. So, there’s a fine line because sometimes when you have low show-up rates, what companies will do is they’ll just go crazy. They’ll be sending all these automations. They’re like, “We’re going to fix this no-show problem. We’re just going to overwhelm them with reminders.”

And it’s kind of like if you meet a new girl and you’re the guy, it’s like over, out of control, right? Like, that’s the way people just are. As soon as you start feeling desperate, you lose. And so, it’s important to be really precise and really make that connection but also we call it hold the possession arrow like you’re the one that’s trying to help them, not vice versa. So, we’re not trying to beg them to show up to the call. We’re trying to give them things to do so that when they show up to the call, it can be effective and we can potentially help them. And then one of the things Deborah also mentioned with the close and getting people from between the set and the close, for the most part, that’s usually once they show up on a set and they go through that whole process, the majority of those they’ll show up for a close. The close percentage will be pretty high.

So, the question is, how do we not only get them to show up but how do we get them to show up and be in a place where, like she said, they’re trying to convince us that we should consider working with them? And she mentioned the influencer sending some video and kind of posture and position. You can even set things up with the influencer where they do videos for each closer and they say, “Hey, I understand that you’re going to be speaking with my associate here with Brad, and Brad’s amazing. We’ve kind of entrusted him to make sure that the people that we’re bringing in are a good fit and all that. So, just kind of let Brad know who you are and let him know right upfront how serious you are about being a part of what we’re doing.” And having that little piece with the influencer position on the call definitely helps as well. 

Brad Weimert: I love that. That’s great. Well, I know we’re coming up on time here but I have a couple quick ones I want to ask you. The first is a big topic, the FTC. The FTC seems a little bipolar. Sometimes they are super cool, and sometimes they seem like a kid that got beat up when they were little and now they’re lashing back and trying to gain control of the situation again. We are in the latter era right now, so they are full-court press trying to pursue people for violations, and they are notorious for operating antithetical to what I look at as our justice system, which is innocent until proven guilty. They routinely make announcements on their page that are condemning businesses, and then businesses really need a fight to clear their name.

And don’t get me wrong. They do lots of great things in the name of getting sh*tty businesses out of the way for consumers. But a lot of legit businesses get caught in the crossfire as well because there are very specific things that you should be doing when you are selling and marketing online that just honestly, most business owners have no idea what they should be doing. How does the FTC play into building a sales organization today in 2024? 

Randall Grizzle: Yeah, that’s a great question. And you’re right. Like, the FTC, I mean, there’s a lot of companies out there that just right from the beginning from the get-go aren’t doing things the right way. And I’m grateful that there’s a government agency that’s out there that’s looking out for them. That’s a good thing. And to your second point, a lot of times these influencers, these companies, they really don’t know what they don’t know. But the problem with that is that it’s their responsibility or it’s our responsibility to know, right? And so, for us, and I’ll let Deborah talk about this a little bit but for us, we know that, number one, making sure that whatever companies that we’re working with, that they have really good fulfillment. So, it’s pretty simple that we know that these companies and whatever we’re selling on the back end, that people like it, like that’s the most important.

If you’re selling something that you just can’t really or you don’t believe in or you’re just really not able to get 100% in behind then you shouldn’t be selling it. So, that’s the main thing is that we make sure that we have clients that have good offers. But then also the way that we do our part in the piece is up to us to know what we can and we can’t do. And some of the things that we can’t do like it’s hard to believe. Like, it makes things challenging. And so, we made the decision. It’s been a couple of years back now that we were going to go all in on making sure that everything that we do is compliant. And some companies, they worry that if I were to do that, then I wouldn’t be able to sell anything. I think for us, it’s a differentiator between us and everybody else that even comes close to doing something similar to what we do.

So, we have a full-time attorney on retainer that meets with our team every week. We have a compliance department that oversees all of our calls, reviews all the calls, make sure that we don’t have any rogue reps going out and saying whatever they like. And so, yeah, it’s super important to us but, Deborah, you want to add to that? 

Deborah Burris: Yeah. I think the biggest thing is, just to underscore, we don’t work with anyone that we don’t feel like is massively over-delivering on fulfillment, doing what they say they’re going to do. And then we have the things in place. As Randall said, we’ve got the attorney, we’ve got a whole department that oversees this, and we give our reps the tools to be able to speak to clients with integrity, to be able to still find out why they’re doing something, why they want this change in their life, but use language and the words and the lexicon, as you mentioned earlier, to where it’s not going to raise any red flags with the FTC, but we’re still able to have just incredible conversations with the students that come in to see if this is the right vehicle to get them to where they want to go and do it compliantly and our conversions are really high.

And the interesting thing is as we’ve really gone deep into this over the last couple of years, the feedback that we’re getting from the students that we’re speaking with on the phone is it seems like it’s a more real conversation. It seems like it’s more genuine. And so, in many cases, our conversions have even gone up. And our feedback scores, we have feedback scores for every conversation that either a setter or a closer has with a client. And it’s great to see the feedback come in. Our feedback is super high. It’s super high and they have a chance to have free form fill things in and they just express a lot of gratitude like, “This was amazing. I got like massive value, helped me get a lot of clarity on where I want to go.” And it’s because we’ve been able to just dig deep, have more real conversations, and color within those lines that the FTC has drawn for us. 

Brad Weimert: Yeah. Well, I can tell you from experience with clients, you want to avoid FTC interaction if you can. And there is not a client that we’ve had that has been entangled with the FTC that thought they were doing something wrong. Said another way, these are totally legitimate companies that are delivering that people seem to love, that have raving fans but weren’t doing things to the letter of the law and were totally unaware of it. And sometimes even worse. Sometimes they won the suits and the FTC still pursued. So, I think it makes a lot of sense. Randall Grizzle, Deborah Burris, Closer Secrets, I appreciate carving out time. If you want to point people somewhere, do it now. Where do you want to send people? What do you want them to know about you? 

Randall Grizzle: Yeah. I think the main thing is if you’re somebody that is looking for a sales team to grow your company, if you’re somebody that we talked about is creating buyer leads and wants to put together fulfillment for a high ticket offer, maybe have fulfillment for a high ticket offer. Maybe you have an internal team but you’d like to figure out if there’s other options for you to do things other ways then we’d love to have that conversation. You can book a call with Deborah and I at CloserSecrets.com, and you can hop on our calendar. Even if you just want to chat and see if there are some different ways that we can help you with different ideas, we’ll hop on and see if we can provide some value for you. 

Brad Weimert: Awesome. Well, I’ve got a bunch of other questions but for another time. I appreciate you both carving out time. It’s always good to see you. 

Deborah Burris: Great. Thank you. Brad. 

Randall Grizzle: Thank you, Brad