[00:03.0]
Hey, well, this is Greg Voisen and the host of Inside Personal Growth. Luke. I've been doing this show for an, 18 years now. 1250 podcasts, everybody knows me. But they don't know who you are, or at least my listeners know me.

[00:19.1]
You know, you have a lot of listeners on your own. You have your own podcast. So it's Luke Lunkenheimer. Now, that's quite a thing to say. So just think Lunk and Heimer. Luke, how are you doing today? It's good to have you on Inside Personal Growth and to talk to my listeners about, you know, paid to persuade.

[00:38.3]
But your story is way more than paid to persuade. How you doing today? I'm good, man. It is, it's a little more dynamic than just the sales training. You know, and I'm just excited to be here, man. You and I had a good chat pre show and a couple days ago, and I'm just really honored to be here. I'm honored to get access to your audience and try to share some knowledge with them.

[00:56.6]
And I'm, I'm just fired up, man. Well, I'm going to share this with some of the audiences that I work with on doing professional sales training. So they're going to get, a double, dose. So, Luke Lunkenheimer's life reads like a script, but there's nothing, fictional about it.

[01:16.6]
Small town kid with dreams of going pro and football. His future came crashing down after a brutal injury. With no backup plan, he turned to car sales and by his teens was pulling in six figure income.

[01:32.8]
That's pretty amazing, Luke. But success couldn't save him from the chaos that filed followed. A, butch shoulder surgery led to crippling painkilling addiction, and in a moment of desperation, he got caught up in a bank robbery that landed him in prison.

[01:51.3]
So, I mean, look at this guy's story, everybody. I mean, and here he is today, paid to persuade. It was in the cell that Luke hit rock bottom. And he realized he had a choice. Let his mistake define him or fight to rebuild. He then was released.

[02:07.7]
A former boss took a chance on him, loaned him 150k to start a car dealership. Luke poured everything he had into it, scaling his business into three dealerships worth over $12 million 2020.

[02:26.5]
But along the way, discovered that the true passion wasn't cars. It was people. And people buy cars. Well, we don't know about that today because we have tariffs on all these cars, but that's How Paid to Persuade was born. A sales philosophy that ditches the hard to sell and focuses on real connection.

[02:46.7]
Luke's journey taught him that authenticity is the ultimate sales tool. And believe me, you're going to get authentic today. Well, Luke, let's start there. You know, you built a company that, as people, you want to help people find their voice and connect through, authenticity.

[03:06.3]
But your journey here really wasn't traditional by any means. And you've spoken publicly about this throughout your life. The bank robbery, the years, falling all the way to the bottom. Can you take us back to that moment where, you know, not just what happened, but how it ultimately became this huge turning point in your life and your Mission in life?

[03:32.2]
Because, look, when people get to their most despondent selves, that's usually when something is revealed to them. And you got something revealed to you in that jail cell. That was truly a miracle. Yeah, Greg, I.

[03:49.1]
You know, it. It was nothing short of a miracle. You know, and I don't want to get into cliches and get too, prophetic, but here's what I can tell you. I lived a lifestyle that was very aligned with taking. You know, I. I was raised by wolves. I like to say.

[04:05.1]
You know, if we're saying we're not going to use cliches, but there's one for you. You know, I was raised by an Italian family in the car business. And they were just a traditional, you know, buy or die, high pressure and slam and get deals and numbers are everything as a Met store. And, you know, that was very familiar to me because my father was a car dealer.

[04:23.9]
He ran a Ford dealership. It was a very similar mindset. He also sold used cars out of the front yard. And basically, what I can tell you is, through no faults of people acting maliciously, just being who they were and how they were raised. And I. I was in this kind of network, this community of.

[04:39.3]
Of wolves, these takers that, you know, my impression of sales at the outset of my career was swindling. Really, the snake oil salesman. You know, say whatever you got to say to get the job done. You know, I remember a situation where a guy came in, an unsuspecting guy. He was, you know, in the car business, there's a customer, they'll come in that thinks their credit's a little worse off than they are, and that gets exploited oftentimes.

[05:00.1]
So they had me bring around this vehicle and they had. We were in the middle of a credit union sale. They had Me clean the price off the windshield before I brought it around and tell the guy a price. It was four grand higher than that. And I'm like, what are we doing that for if we. I mean, can we get caught for that? Don't worry about that. Just do what you're told, you know?

[05:15.3]
And eventually it was just. Just continued to be reinforced to me that, listen, somebody's going to get these people. It may as well be us, right? These people are going to get had at some point in their life. We should be the lions. We should be the victors in this situation. So don't let these people go down the street and talk somebody into giving them a good deal.

[05:34.3]
Let's strike while the iron's hot. So I could give you a hundred other examples like that, but I say that, to say this. The. The revelation that happened in that jail cell was that I lived my entire life trying to take. I took everything I could possibly get. And really, the precipice or the.

[05:51.0]
The culmination of all that was the bank robbery. In my moment of desperation, when my back was against the wall, you know, most people turn to suicide or to moving or to something. Mine was, well, I just need to take. You know, I'm going to go. Go somewhere where I know there's a lot that I can take to get what I deserve, and then, you know, try to reestablish my life or try to go to a rehab or just get real high for whatever it was.

[06:15.6]
I can tell you subconsciously, I just want it out. I didn't have the, you know, I had the mental willpower, but it was such a physical addiction that you'd get two, three, four days into it, and you just. You can't move. And I'm a sales guy, so laying up in bed and not being able to communicate was just so depressing that I would turn to using again to get healthy, to get back to work.

[06:34.5]
And it was this vicious cycle, and I finally just conceded to, I cannot win this. I'm. You know, most guys, especially from a, standpoint of motivating or coaching, they wouldn't tell this. They wouldn't tell this dark side of their story because they want to keep this Rock of Gibraltar, Captain America Persona.

[06:50.7]
And I can tell you every one of them would have a similar story of weakness. And if they don't, they're not human. But I. I surrendered that I was not strong enough to get through it myself subconsciously. And I knew that if I robbed that bank, either number one, I Would have a large sum of money with which I could try to facilitate some sort of renewal, get my license back, get a rehab.

[07:07.8]
But you know, something. But I also knew the highest likelihood was that I would be caught and that control would be taken from me, and then I would be incarcerated. I would be forced to get sober, and I have to sweat it out and vomit and do all the things that were involved in detox. So I did that. And as far as the transformative moment, I went from a lifestyle of taking to conceding that that was not the right way.

[07:30.4]
I was not built for prison. I didn't want to be here anymore, and that I was going to take a crack at giving. You know, I met some good counselors. I met some good, you know, religious figures. And I. I'm not overly religious in any way. I certainly have faith. But I can tell you that when you go from a, an overall, an overarching mindset or personal theme of going out and grabbing and pulling in and getting what's mine and taking what I can get and what people are willing to give to.

[07:57.6]
Well, let me just see how much value I can provide this individual. And if I can provide them value, maybe they'll have a bag of granola so I could eat lunch today. Or maybe I'll just provide some value to this guy. Maybe when he gets his physical fitness goal, he'll look out for me if a fight ensues, maybe I'll just provide value to the corrections officer and help him clean up the.

[08:16.3]
The room there. Maybe he'll throw me a table scrap and I'll eat good tonight. Or. And when I started this. This fundamental shift of giving value instead of trying to take everything I could get. Yeah. That's when everything changed for me completely. Well, where do you think that scarcity mentality came from, Luke?

[08:33.5]
My parents, My father, you know, my employer, my employers. It was. You got programmed, right? It's interesting how we make shit up and then we believe what we made up, and then we become what we made up. Right, so you made up the story about yourself, that there was scarcity and the only way to get it was to take versus the way in the world that you learned being in that cell from having some good people to speak with and detoxing yourself.

[09:02.0]
It's interesting what alcohol and drugs, the lies it'll tell you, right? And the lies and the paths that you'll go down. It's like, oh, I love being high. And the reality was, well, it's. It's really not helping me as a person grow. It's basically putting me in this endless loop circle.

[09:20.2]
Right? So, I think, you know, the incarceration for you was great. Now you now have taken this and totally flipped the coin to the other side, and you've created this. Paid to persuade. How did that vision evolve from your own transformation?

[09:41.9]
Because you said, okay, I want to give back. I get it. So now you're giving people back what they could claim, which is their own confidence to be a good salesperson, to actually look at sales as a career. Right. Versus a, scam kind of situation.

[10:01.0]
Right. Car sales has been notorious for that. Now, maybe other types of sales, you know, look, everybody, it's the. The. I, remember meeting the guy that did the. The guy on Wall Street. He wrote a book, that scammed all the people out of all the money.

[10:18.3]
Jordan Belfort. Yeah, Belfort. So Belfort was at a conference. We came up, we got to meet. I got his book. We talked. You know, and when you look at it, it's like those guys were scammers, too. You know, I just watched the movie the other night.

[10:33.5]
The Beekeeper. Right, Right. Have you ever seen it? Oh, with the scammers in the call, center. Exactly. Right. Yeah. So, truth be told, I've fallen asleep to that movie 38 minutes in about six times. I haven't.

[10:50.0]
Well, I will tell you. The story is good against evil. Okay? And the point is, is what you've just said is you want to be good. You don't want to be evil. You don't want to take from people. You want to give people value. So tell me how you got to paid, persuade, and what value do you give people if they enter your course?

[11:09.2]
That's a great question, Greg. So I want to make it abundantly clear it's not. It's not just, you know, giving the ability to sell to people. Because people would hear going from a taking to a giving mindset to, well, now he's a giver. Now he gives the. The trade of sales or the skill of sales. No, what I give people is confidence.

[11:25.5]
What I give people is an understanding that the mindset of the salesperson is monumentally, exponentially more important than the skill set. Okay? And what I mean by that is this. If you said to me, luke, I've got a fresh young person who's not super talkative, they're just kind, they've got a great work ethic, and they're motivated, and they don't know their rear end, From a hole in the ground.

[11:49.1]
Or. I've got this veteran over here. He's been trained in three different sales trainings. He's got four different frameworks. He's got all the training in the world. He's been doing this for 20 years. He's really pretty solid, and he's looking to come work here. I would take the green pea, the person who's impressionable, the person who's fresh, the person who hasn't been jaded by an understanding that's lived in the world for a century or better about what sales is over the veteran any day of the week.

[12:14.8]
And it's because I can give that individual something that's a lot more difficult to give the veteran. Now, I can give it to the veteran, too. But if we're speaking from an opportunity standpoint, which one can I make more money with quicker? It's going to be the open mind. Why? Because I give people a confidence and an understanding about sales that they're not going to get anywhere else.

[12:32.0]
And it doesn't, frankly, exist in the marketplace in all the research that I've done. And to unpack. Let me pause one second here. Pardon me. As you know, we. We allow these people to claim it. It's always been there.

[12:48.4]
The. The. The confidence just needs to be built. You actually show people how to claim their confidence. You know, I. I heard you say you give it, and you do. You give great advice and you give support, you give counseling. You're a great coach, you're a great mentor.

[13:03.7]
But at some point, they have to claim it. And that's the only difference I want to make is that you're. You're allowing people to claim it. Now, one of the things that you say, your philosophy flips traditional sales on its head.

[13:20.6]
And we all know that the old, traditional way of strong arming somebody is broken. The way that many people were taught to sail. What is it that's broken? And what most are people, being taught wrong today about selling.

[13:37.4]
And what do you think is the right way? But I want to clarify my previous point, though. So I'm not. A human being's confidence is intrinsic within them. Right. It's nothing that I can put on a pendant and put around their neck. Right. So I want to clarify if I misspoke there, what I give them is the ability to be confident through an understanding of sales that they have.

[13:58.3]
Right, Right. This rules. This rolls perfectly into your next question. So the next question, I believe was. Was, re. Ask the question. I just wanted to clarify, your philosophy flips traditional sales on itself, correct? Yep. So, and the re. The way that. Go ahead. And, and I'm saying what is broken about the way most people are taught to sell today?

[14:19.4]
Yeah. It's that they're taught to sell. It's that they're taught that they have this, this, this thing that they need to push on to another human being, this product. And I'm going to talk to you and you're going to understand how good my product is, and you may object to it by the time I'm done, I'm going to overcome every one of those objections and you're going to see it my way.

[14:39.4]
And that is just fundamentally so flawed. And even the people out there that, that really think they've seen the light are saying, oh, no, no, I know, I ask questions, I make sure I give value. It's, you know, the understanding is so much more profound than that. Okay, Consumers are going to make a purchase.

[14:56.0]
There is no human being in the world short of ether and a roofie that's going to get sign up or do something that you don't want to do. A human being simply will not do that. We will not. We will not participate or engage in an activity that we fundamentally are against.

[15:12.0]
And there are sales trainers out there that would like you to believe that I'm going to give you the ability to sell ice to an Eskimo. No, you're not. Unless the Eskimo is a psychopath or is mentally ill, all due respect to anybody that may be that way. There's no Eskimo that's going to sit and look at the ice and go, well, you know what?

[15:27.6]
You've convinced me. I need more of that. So that's just a logical fallacy. When we understand sales to be something that we're doing to somebody or a product that we're selling to somebody, you know, it's fundamentally flawed. Then you have people that say, well, we don't teach you to sell, we teach you to problem solve.

[15:44.0]
There's all these little different variations of it, but the reality of the situation is what you're doing is you're simply having a conversation with an individual and you're discovering through a process we coin compassionate interrogation. And really that's just giving a crap.

[16:00.1]
Okay? Actually caring about the conversation and for the individuals out there that are the cutthroat salespeople. And I don't need to care. I need to get paid. Well, if you understand, brother, that the more you do care, the more you will get paid. Because there's something that exists in conversation that is, it is literally a frequency.

[16:15.9]
It is an authenticity frequency. And they've studied this. They've put human beings in a Faraday cage and they've measured emotional states. They actually have waveforms. Human beings emit wavelengths. We have a frequency to us. And when we receive authentic communication, even if we don't like the person, even if we're not supremely fond of what's being said, but if we receive it in an authentic way, where we go, you know what, Regardless of how I feel about that, I believe it's the truth because they're saying it with conviction.

[16:42.3]
There's just something that feels right about this, that human being will receive that conversation at a four times greater rate. So as far as flipping selling on its head, we don't go in and teach people words to say and word tracks and scripts, right? We teach them how to discover their own confidence, how to conversationally interrogate a customer.

[17:03.5]
So really it's just we're, we're working upon a framework and it's a very, very simple framework. And once it's taught to the individual, the best, the best thing I can tell you, Greg, is that when people receive this training and we connect with them and they're open minded, right, they have a fundamentally different understanding of what their job is.

[17:22.3]
And it no longer includes talking anybody into anything. It includes an enjoyable process where they make a friend, they make a hell of a lot more gross than they were before and it's a far, much more friction free situation. And they feel aligned with the customer instead of the salesperson that walks away going, oh God, just barely was able to sew that up.

[17:43.3]
I hope it doesn't cancel. Versus not only is that guy gonna keep, he's gonna come back for another one. And I'm supremely confident of that. So as far as a simple answer to your question, it's a fundamentally different understanding. And when somebody actually it. And you'll notice too, Greg, when we, when we train this way, it can be frustrating because you can say these things and say these things and say, and you'll watch an individual and they're just not getting it.

[18:07.1]
And then as a trainer, you figure out the right pill or the right vehicle to deliver to that one individual. And then once they get it, you just watch this. It's like this calm that over overtakes them and they understand. Now I think you've probably heard this saying before, but I'll repeat it because it's Worth saying right now?

[18:26.1]
Sure. People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. Okay. And the point that you're saying here is that you're giving, you're helping people find their empathy, their compassion, their understanding. You're also at, you're teaching them how to open, how to ask open ended questions, how to go down an area where they can find out more about that prospect.

[18:52.5]
Because they are inquiring about the needs of the prospect whether they're buying a car or they're buying landscaping or whatever it might be. So you emphasize the emotional and psychological elements of persuasion.

[19:09.2]
Your company is called Paid to Persuade. And I remember once writing a guy who did all this, studies on and studied persuasion. He was a professor at San Francisco State University. And it's interesting, you know, Luke, when we're given choices, just let's just look like you go to the grocery store and you see five different jams, right?

[19:37.6]
You got a choice. You go to a car lot, you see five different cars, right? And I like this one, I like that one, I like the features of this one. But I don't know, it's too expensive. I can't get those wheels, I can't get the, it, whatever it is that's on the car. It's interesting how people change when there's less choice.

[19:55.9]
Okay, Right. So it's like, hey, if there was only one model in one car and that's all I had, it might be a lot easier to persuade. So how does empathy and authenticity play into what you refer to as high performance sales?

[20:12.9]
Is a very simple answer. And when you understand that a decision that a human being makes on whether or not to engage and make a purchase is true is strictly an emotional decision. And when I say an emotional decision, I don't mean they go and they go, oh my God, if I don't have the red one, I'm just gonna live a terrible life. It's the foundation of the decision.

[20:29.2]
Right? And there's been to, to your point about the science behind it, there's been studies where they've, they've studied people who've received traumatic brain injury to the part of their brain that handles emotion. And you know, they, they, they put them back, they reunite them with their spouse and it's a devastating moment because they don't have that, that kinship with the spouse anymore.

[20:47.4]
They don't have that emotional connection. They reunite them with their canine and there's just. Yeah, I remember. But there's nothing really special there. And then they bring them in a lunch tray, and there's a ham sandwich and a turkey sandwich. It's like, well, what do you want for lunch? And they've studied these people that have received these traumatic brain injuries, and the poor guys can't make a choice between a ham sandwich or a turkey sandwich.

[21:07.2]
And they don't understand why. It's because the emotional driver is eliminated. Right. So to the. To the point of your question, realistically, when you understand that all you're doing is guiding an emotional decision, your. Your process becomes a lot simpler. Re. Ask the question again. So I want to make sure I answer it correct.

[21:23.7]
Well, I think you did, actually. You know, you. You're talking about empathy and authenticity. Right. You asked how empathy and authenticity play into high performance selling. So, the second level to that, and I appreciate you restating it, because I want to make sure I make this clear, is understanding that the most, and I stated this previously, the most effective way to communicate with somebody is authentically.

[21:46.9]
So let's take two salespeople, and you will use your example, the car business. You got one salesperson who's asked, would you buy this truck? You know, customer test drives a truck, comes back, sees the price, sees the payment, looks at the salesperson, says, would you buy this truck? Salesperson goes, oh, yeah, yeah, it's a great truck.

[22:01.9]
I mean, it's beautiful. It's got the 5.7 liter hemi, and they got a great warranty. I mean, the payments just where you wanted to be. Yeah, I do it all day long. If that is not the truth, there is a. There is a part of your brain. There's your mirror neurons in your empathy center, which I'm sure you've probably educated your audience about, where for some reason, we just know that's poppycock.

[22:20.2]
We don't know why we know it, but we know. Okay. And we don't necessarily take it as A malicious thing. We just. Okay, you're. You're just putting me on. Okay, on to the next question. There's no connection. That happens. However, salesperson number two, would you buy this truck? Me? No. No, not that one. Right.

[22:35.4]
Why not? Well. Well, number one, I don't like black. Number two, you like leather interior. I got dogs, so they'd be poking holes in every part of the sea. Number three, you're towing a camper. I'm not. Number four, they're not the greatest on gas. It's a Hemi. It's tremendously powerful, but they're not the Greatest on gas. If you're asking me if I think it's a good choice for you, I mean, brother checks every box.

[22:53.2]
And based on your smile on the test drive, I think, I think if you leave without this truck, you're not going to be too happy. But I mean, if you want me to lie to you and say, oh, yeah, I'd buy the truck, I could do that, but would I buy that truck? No. If I was you, would I buy that truck? Listen, man, as long as it makes sense financially, I wouldn't leave here without it.

[23:08.5]
That second salesperson resisting the urge to just agree. And that's what most untrained salespeople do. They, they hear that they should be in as much of an agreement state as possible and never get adversary with a customer and continue to push the yes and the head nod. That's just bad sales training because there are times when you have to push back.

[23:26.9]
It's like asking a guy, if you go on a date with a girl and you ask her a question, is every question going to be a yes? Can I have a kiss? Can I take you upstairs? Do you want to go to dessert? Do you want to go on another date? If you were to presume that every answer is going to be yes, you're an idiot. Right? So at the end of the day, for your customer to think that your customer is going to receive you, saying yes and agreeing to everything they say is authentic conversation is poppycock as well.

[23:50.3]
So I think that has a lot to do with it. Well, you make a good point there. And I think you emphasize this in your sales training, and that is people don't buy what you do, they buy why you do it. Okay, this is important. So how do you help your students?

[24:08.4]
Or your, I should say your students find and articulate their why? Because really this is their purpose. It's like, why am I in the sales business? Why do I do what I do? And the answer, Greg, is ruthless authenticity. And it's very difficult to get some people to engage in that because they have this understanding that there needs to be this facade or this Persona of the salesman, this part that they have to play.

[24:32.6]
When, I train salespeople, I, I never forget this one example and I use. His name's Ricky. Ricky came in here and he was being trained on how to sell cars. And Ricky, when I met him, you know, I brought him up on the stage and I said, hey, Ricky, what's your name? What do you like to do? And as he talked, you know, his vocal Cadence was, well, I like to skateboard.

[24:48.0]
And if I'm being honest, I smoke a little marijuana. And, you know, I like to play video games, and I love my baby daughter, and I this and that. Okay, Ricky. All right, man. Start off with your pitch. Well, hey, hey, sir. How are you? Welcome to ABC Motors. My name's Ricky, and you are. And I looked at Ricky and I said, ricky, what the hell was that?

[25:06.0]
And he goes, what? I said, I didn't ask you to announce tonight's baseball game. I asked you to greet me at a parking lot. What in the heck is this? Well, that's just, that's just my, that's just who I am, right? And I, and I had explained to him and to many salespeople that the, the frequency of authenticity, just being able to communicate effectively is night and day gonna be, you know, as far as a fundamental step in getting better and exponentially better, just understanding your, your ability to better is housed in just being exactly who the hell you are.

[25:38.0]
And. Greg, I lost the question again. You got me all fired up here. What was the root of the question? Well, no, you, you know, you get fired up about everything, but that's great. Well, I just love this. It's, it's the why. And, you know, you were, you were getting there. It's like, Ricky, I, I, you were using the example of Ricky and how he greeted a potential customer on the car lot.

[25:57.2]
Right. I think you did get to the answer of what? What is the why? I didn't, I was close. But the why is the ruthless and ruthless. Excuse me, authenticity. Here's what I say that I did, and I wanted to expand upon that. And here's what I mean by that. If the audience hasn't yet realized that I have terrible add, they now know.

[26:15.8]
Right? So it comes from, I had to explain to Ricky, ricky, you are a pot smoking, video game playing, rusty, pickup truck driving, redneck boy, aren't you? Well, yeah, it's exactly what I am. I said, so be that guy, man. Just be that guy.

[26:31.8]
Why are you here selling cars? Well, because I was watching monitors at the hospital for 80 hours a week as a securitas, security guard, and I wasn't making enough hardly to feed my family. And somebody told me that I could sell cars and make like the same money working 40 hours a week.

[26:47.2]
And if I did really good and somehow figured it out, that I could make six figures out of college degree. I said, is that why you're doing this? He goes, yeah. I said, so tell that to your customer. Well, they're gonna think I'm some. They're gonna think you're exactly who you are. Well, yeah. So don't be ashamed to be that guy.

[27:03.3]
That guy is on a quest to get better. Your customer can align with that. You know what they're not gonna align with? Hey, sir, welcome to ABC Motors. I'm Ricky. Because you sound like. That's not. It looks like you're wearing a mask. Okay. When you can be okay with being who you are and being okay with your mission.

[27:21.0]
Do you know how many people are gonna come in to buy a car and go, go. You're what? You. You're just a guy. Oh. And you got a little baby daughter and you like to play. So does my nephew, Remus, and he's the nicest guy in the world. He wouldn't hurt a fly, man. You seem pretty harmless. You seem like you're pretty honorable in your intentions.

[27:37.4]
Yeah. If I was you, I'd like to make 100 grand a year, too. And the fact that you don't have a college degree, that doesn't harm me in any way because I don't think you can outsmart me at this point. You know what? I actually feel a little safer. Ricky, show me a car. And they just don't under. Most people don't understand how important the authenticity factor is to selling.

[27:54.2]
People see salesperson as a suit and tie, jockey with a briefcase, saying all the right things, whipping open his coat and having the selection of Rolexes. This Persona, this facade that we need to put on. The best sales people I know are some of the goofiest, Greg.

[28:10.5]
They really are. I've got Poindexter, suit wearing polished shoes, salespeople that do insane numbers. And I know guys that have one shirt, tail hanging out, they got the wrong color belt with their shoes, they don't brush their teeth as diligently as they should, but they're putting up the same numbers as the other guy.

[28:26.6]
Why? Because they have a confidence. Because they understand the communication that's supposed to happen. They understand that they're free to be exactly who they are and that a conversation is what sells something. Not. Not a snake oil salesman or a slick tongue or a late night FM dj.

[28:43.0]
That's a better answer to your question. I'll add to it that the knowledge of the products or services they sell is extremely important. Absolutely. I've was relayed a case where, a company, I won't say the name.

[28:59.2]
I was buying solar panels for the house. And they Send out the first guy. And then the second guy was different and he came in in shorts and he was, quite a bit overweight and didn't know his product. And I, I said to the people at this company, I said, this is unacceptable, you know, because, any person who's done any studying at all about solar wants to have somebody who knows more than you do.

[29:25.0]
Right. And so it, it is, an important thing. Now I just did a, public speech around mindset, and Carol Dweck's book on mindset is probably one of the, the most important books that ever been written.

[29:41.8]
So how important is mental fitness in becoming truly persuasive? And where do most people fall short now? I mean, when you look at mindset, it's really a mindset of grit, determination, being focused, knowing your product, I mean, all the things that you want to do.

[30:01.3]
How do you help your salespeople get a growth mindset? Because that's where they've got to be. Personal growth is it. If you're always on the learning line, you're doing good. I would agree with that. That rings true, not just in sales, but in, you know, in personal betterment, self development.

[30:21.3]
There's kind of a, there's, there's two pieces to that for me, and one of them is the understanding that you're. How do I ask the question one more time? I want to make sure I hit it. Well, you're, you, you focus a huge focus on mindset.

[30:36.4]
So I said, how important is mental fitness? I mean, look, you're a real fit, buff guy. In truly becoming persuasive and why, why do most people fall short part. And just so the audience knows, the reason I continue re asking the questions is because I watch a lot of podcasts and I watch a lot of guys feel the need to sound, you know, cohesive and slick.

[30:59.5]
And I'll listen to them answer the question. And it sounds good. Like, like, the, the audio sounds good to hear. It sounds good. But when you actually dissect the meat and the potatoes of what was said, it's like, okay, you just kind of rolled from the last thing into the next thing thing.

[31:15.0]
But the question that you're asking is incredibly important. Okay. And the mental fitness thing, there's two pieces of it. The, the first and most important, I believe, beyond a shadow of a doubt, is your emotional intelligence and understanding what your personal triggers are.

[31:30.1]
We have a big component of our sales training that is understanding yourself. Okay. And well before understanding Your strengths. We teach and train knowing your weaknesses. And here's why this is so important. Important. I've seen so many salespeople lose a deal because in this kind of piggybacks off of the last thing that you said about knowing your product.

[31:51.0]
And I want to make a very important point there. When you're a salesperson and you're, you know, in car sales, and I referenced that a lot because I had a lot to do with that industry for a while. There's, you know, they come the walk around king. He's the guy that would win the Chrysler or the Ford competition for the most product knowledge and giving the best walk around.

[32:08.4]
And it's important that I emphasize that what you said is. Is correct. You got to have good product knowledge and you have to be able to answer your questions. You should absolutely, Norm. Know more about your product and your customer. But what you need to be able to do is identify if that's not an opportune circumstance. And here's what I mean by that. I've seen salespeople, let's say a solar salesperson goes into the house and the customer says, well, I need at least, and I'm speaking literally off the cuff, so don't take any of these things as industry standards, right?

[32:31.7]
But I need a. Probably going to need a 1200 kilowatt, generator for this house to deal with these panels. Now that salesperson knows. No, no, no. You only need a 500 kilowatt generator. You don't need that much. It's not necessary. It's overkill. Might even be too much load on the house. That guy, most times is going to go, oh, no, no, sir.

[32:48.2]
No, definitely don't need. No. 1200 kilos will freaking shake the roof off this place, man. Now you only need about 500. Okay, that is so damaging to a sales conversation. The salesperson that's so proud of what he knows and has studied his product knowledge so in depth can do 10 times more harm than good.

[33:04.0]
What that guy needs to understand at that point is that he needs to maintain an agreement state and just. Yeah, 1200, man. That's, That sounds like quite a bit. You're confident you're going to need that much? Yes, I am perfect. Perfect makes perfect sense. You seem like you have a very good reason to say that. Let me just do the math real quick because I want to make sure I'm on the same page with you.

[33:19.9]
So 1200 kilos backs down to how many. How many panels? Okay. And we're Going to be converting. How much? Gotcha. And. And so the square footage of your roof is, is, you know, 110,000. Whatever. No, no, it's only 50. Oh. Were you. Were you using the McQuade equation?

[33:35.1]
Well, no. What's that? Oh, no, it's no problem. It's just a little industry secret they give us. Then you slowly educate the customer. You allow them to be right the entire time. Most salespeople, man, that's. That's the most common area that I see a good salesperson not get from 60 to 100 is that they are too damn proud to admit that their customer is right when they're wrong.

[33:57.2]
Your customer. And you say, oh, the customer is always right. No, he doesn't. He's not right. He's wrong. But there's a way to show him. And it's not that he's wrong, it's that, hey, there might be another way to consider this. And I want to politely ask you to consider maybe looking at this one way. And, hey, if it makes sense to you, great. If it doesn't make sense to you, we'll do it your way.

[34:14.5]
But then bring forward the information where it's irrefutable. They absolutely have to take it your way. And that guy who's a proud alpha, works hard, did his research, can now say, yeah, I'm okay, conceding and going your way because you allowed me to be right. You took what I had to say into consideration.

[34:31.6]
You showed me a pathway that I wasn't familiar with. And you know what? I'm okay with the fact that an industry specialist just showed me a new pathway because it looks like it'll benefit. Yeah, there's cohesion here. I'm okay, let's move forward. Versus the last guy that. It's like nails on a chalkboard to a customer.

[34:47.5]
Oh, no, no, sir. You don't need such and such like, that customer starts to flip out. Well, there's a difference between educating a customer, which is what you're talking about, and doing it in a, a civil manner versus putting up resistance.

[35:03.6]
Like, hey, you're wrong. No good salesperson is going to do that. So let's talk about, if you would, Luke, transformational selling. You know, you talk about it. What does it actually look like for someone in a sales conversation or coaching session?

[35:19.5]
Because I think it's a term that many people listening to this podcast, they've never heard. Transformational selling before? But it is part of your lingo, and I think people would like to know what you mean by it. So it's a great question and I'll kind of finish on my last point and flow right into that because the other thing I wanted to speak on was the, the emotional intelligence and the.

[35:43.2]
In the mental fitness is the understanding of what your emotional drivers are. There's too many salespeople that are unaware of how they behave. They've never sat back and audited their own sales calls because they would be embarrassed to see some of the friction that they create, some of the embarrassing things they say to the customer that they're not even aware of.

[35:59.8]
Of. Because there's a staunch difference between in the moment and reacting versus standing above it a few stories and looking down. And if a salesperson does not understand their emotional triggers when they go into a sale, if they haven't gone, if they haven't taken a deep dive into self discovery and knowing what their most likely emotional triggers are and, and how they lose emotional control in a sale, then they're missing again what we call that 60 to 100 aspect.

[36:24.1]
They're missing a good 40% of what their productivity could be. And it usually comes from arrogance. And if that's why I said at the beginning, I take the fresh guy, a veteran guy, because it's so difficult sometimes to show a guy who's producing well that he's not anywhere near where he needs to be. Because that guy could be setting industry standards and records, but he's just too damn proud to get there.

[36:43.9]
So that other piece is the emotional intelligence and understanding your own emotional drivers. Now to the, the transformational selling thing. It's what we're talking about. It's being able to completely strip. And I say this to, to salespeople when I train them, okay? You need to be able to emotionally strip yourself naked in front of a room full of people.

[37:03.3]
Meaning it is the, it is the, the mental, it is a mental equivalent of standing in a room full of people and just taking all your clothes off and standing there and just arms up like, this is me, right? Because if you cannot be comfortable with every square inch of your brain and your soul and your being and who you are and understand that it is a flawed state date every human being is imperfect.

[37:28.6]
There's not a single one of us who, who have it all figured out. So the transformational thing is understanding we're not this solid foundation that we're built. And this is how I think most people picture it. I'm this solid foundation and I gotta read a few books and take a Few I get this solid foundation.

[37:43.9]
And as the years go on, I will continue to build up and up and up. And that's how most people view their journey. And I think it's tremendously flawed, okay? I think the way we should look at it is we have a foundation, okay? And we need to build up from it. But what we need to do, even as we're adding layers, is we need to go way back down to the bottom and reassess because there's termites chewing through the foundation and we need to kill the termites and plug the holes so we can continue to build up.

[38:10.4]
Because what will happen as your foundation is crumbling and getting eaten by termites, you build all these layers on top of it. Eventually. Doesn't matter how beautiful of a building you've created, it will eventually tumble and fall or it'll never be strong enough enough to receive all the additional levels that you can put on it.

[38:26.4]
Fundamentally, as a human being, we are flawed. And even as we learn new things, you know. So one would say, okay, well I've patched all the holes in the foundation, I've fixed all my flaws of character, so I'm good now, I can just build up. And the answer is no, my friend, because as you build up, you're stressing the foundation, there will be other cracks and holes to fix.

[38:45.2]
It's a constant cyclical pattern of self discovery, reaffirmation, and then building up. And the transformational part is when somebody is allows themselves to be perfectly okay with the fact that they're always going to find something wrong with themselves.

[39:02.6]
So it's not just about adding layers. It's about constantly doing a self audit and figuring out where the mistakes are and where the cracks are and patching those and building those as we go forward. So as far as transformational goes, it's, it's a transformation in the mindset. We have to understand that it's not just adding layers, that we must constantly re evaluate the entire process.

[39:22.5]
And sometimes we even need to fix the framework moving forward. Well, that's a great explanation. I mean, framework that you just ended on. Look, I used to teach the Dale Carnegie sales course. So this goes way back, I'm a lot older than you are.

[39:38.4]
But the, this basic framework in which you work now, you work on yourself personally and then you work on a framework, right? So they always used to, to teach and I think it was still fundamentally, still good today.

[39:54.2]
Attention. Interest. Conviction. Desire. Close. Now closing was always natural because if you had those four steps prior to close, you knew you caught the person's attention, you got their interest. There was a conviction, and then there was a strong desire.

[40:11.5]
If they had a strong desire, they were going to move forward. If the car was red and it had the wheels and it did whatever, it was a natural part. You didn't have to close anybody. So that was the easy part of it. So what, you know, based on what you've told our listeners so far, what's one thing somebody listening right now can start doing today to communicate with more clarity, confidence and connection?

[40:40.6]
Because that's the key here is how do I communicate clearly? How do I do this with confidence? And how do I connect with my prospect? So I love that question because we, we have something that we teach, and it kind of augments traditional teachings and it literally hits all of those on the head.

[41:00.9]
It's something that we call the active listening response. Right. ALR is what we call it. And, and you know, we know that active listening is. You tell me that you're looking for, you know, what are you looking for? Well, I'm looking for a, one, carat princess cut diamond ring because I'm going to be asking my wife to my, fiance to marry me or I'm going to be looking to get engaged to my girlfriend.

[41:20.8]
Okay, great. So you said one carrot. Yep. Okay, and then princess cut. Yep. And you want an engagement style. Got it. That's active listening. Okay. The active listening response is taking what you said and then iterating upon it for a moment, making sure that I comprehend what you're saying, and then giving it back to you in my own words, my own vocal cadence, and adding a little bit of my own flare to it to show you that I've understood you, I've iterated upon it and that we're locked in.

[41:46.8]
And the most important component of that is asking to make sure that we're synchronous. So I would say to you, okay, Greg, So it's not okay. So if I got you right, man, you're, you're getting ready to get down on one knee here pretty soon. I see that's probably why half your fingernails are gone. Princess cut. Okay.

[42:01.9]
So she's looking for something traditional, something with some sharp edges and looks like we don't want to go too crazy and, and have her with a, you know, a fishing sinker on her hand. But we want to go something that's certainly loud enough to, to show that you love. Right. I think I'm aligned. Does that Does it Sound like I got you. Yeah, that's exactly what I'm looking to do.

[42:18.6]
Right. So what that shows you. If I just re. Repeat back to you what you said, it shows I've heard you. If I repeat back to you what you said, I put my own spin on it. It shows you that I've heard you, I've understood you, we are aligned. And then when I ask you for confirmation, hey, man, am I on the same page as you?

[42:34.3]
You. Then you give me confirmation that we're in alignment and we actually progress the sale. So that's clarity. That's the clarity. Yep. Now, confidence. The confidence is in showing you that I've got it. And it's in when you can repeat it back to your customer in a way that says, hey, I put this in my own words.

[42:50.2]
I think. I think I'm looking. I think I understand what you're trying to do. This is the way I see what you're trying to have. I got that locked in. Yes, you do. Okay. Boom. It increases the confidence that you asked me for one thing, and I'm trying to give the most simple nugget that somebody could go do right now in the next five minutes that would.

[43:06.9]
That would move the needle for them. Yeah, definitely. And then obviously, the connection would be showing them a couple of rings that they could choose. Well, the connection is showing you that I didn't just go, okay, princess cut, one carrot. Gotcha. Right over here. I went, wait a minute. You're getting down on one knee.

[43:23.0]
You're chewing those fingernail, man, you're. Good for you, man. That's a huge thing, man. Right? Not in a. In a sleazy, cliche, way way, but in a way that just, you know. For instance, someone says, yeah, I'm looking for a pickup truck. I need a four wheel drive. It gets awfully snowy where we are. Okay, gotcha. So you said pickup trucks. You definitely want something that you got some bed space and you do a little, you know, hauling.

[43:40.7]
Yeah, we move some lumber. Okay, cool. Four wheel drive gets awfully snowy where you are. You pulling a boat out of the water? No, it gets snowy where we are. Okay, gotcha. So four wheel drive pickup truck need a little bit of utility. Also need to be able to fight some pretty bad snow. Am I on the same page? Yeah, got it, sir. Let's go look at these. It shows that I'm understanding.

[43:56.7]
I'm actually thinking about what you're saying to me. I'm processing it. I'm not just hearing it, Regurgitating. It back to you and then walking you over to the red pickup truck section. It shows you I've heard what you said, I care what you've said. I put my own little spin on it. So you know that I understand what you're saying and that I've, you know, that we can progress the sale because we are in alignment, we're in an agreement state.

[44:15.1]
Yeah, that's perfect. I mean it gives our listeners the obviously paid to persuade, if you want to call it, formula. But the reality is I can see already how coming to you to actually do one of your online courses or meet with you or go to your webinars would really be beneficial.

[44:33.9]
And, and the, the best place that they can go. Right. Is going to be your website. And you've got so much. It's a training.paidtopersuade.com. right. Well, the website is paid paidtopersuade.com.

[44:50.2]
okay. But there's also one here I see that says training.paidtopersua.com so we just want them to go paid to persuade.com. they get paid on LinkedIn. Yeah. Training. Paid to persuade.com is actually how they can directly engage and certainly we'd encourage them to do that. But if they, if they've heard this show and they want to get a little, you know, we, we train B2C and B2B.

[45:10.0]
So if they want to get a little bit more information, get a little bit more familiar with me, that will give them the opportunity to do so and then of course, engage if they'd like to. The training.paid to persuade.com goes right to the online sales training platform. But what I want to call out if, if I may, is that our, our sales training is, is based in something we call the three Cs, which is content, confidence and cadence.

[45:31.7]
And I believe that you would appreciate this, especially somebody who's been doing it as long as you. You know that when salespeople engage in sales training that 90 of that stuff is gone by day 90, unless they reiterate, you know, Forester Research, HubSpot, these guys have all done these studies and the numbers range from, from 78 to 95 depending on who you ask where 88 to 90 is the average 90th day after sales training, that's all forgotten.

[45:55.8]
They've retained about 10 of that. Whatever part of the sales training spoke the loudest to them and gave them the biggest shot in the arm of confidence is, was what they're taking away with them. And the reason is because it's not even about what they've consumed as far as the training is concerned. It's about they've got a new asset, they've got a new thing that they can do and it gives them that shot in the arm of confidence.

[46:13.6]
So content is the sales training framework that we teach. It's called the big three. And what we do is we teach what we call non objectionable selling, meaning we flush out all the objections at the outset of the conversation. You're never getting any smokescreen objections. Anything that you're going to have to deal with is going to be industry specific and product specific, which you're to your point, it's incredibly important to be well read on product knowledge.

[46:34.0]
The second thing is confidence, which you emphasize is incredibly important. Right. And this is the foundation of what we teach. It's to create confident salespeople that don't believe they have the right words to say, say they believe they have the right framework and the right mindset. Meaning this.

[46:49.7]
It's not that I've got just when I need to go into that situation and sell that car, or I've got just what I need to go into real estate sales and convert a real estate sale. It's that, you can drop me anywhere in the world into a sales job and as long as you give me a little bit of guidance and product knowledge, I'm going to be the best in that scenario because I have the confidence, because I understand what selling is now.

[47:10.3]
And then the third C is case cadence, which is ongoing practice. So we don't just sell training, we don't just give you our course and there you go. Any of our online learning and in person learning comes with ongoing training, that is, I, I could tell you the prep, you wouldn't believe me. It's incredibly reasonable.

[47:26.3]
Okay. Most people, it's about half their cell phone bill to continue ongoing training with us. And we're the only sales training company as far as I know. And you could potentially shed some light on that with your experience. But we give an actual guarantee. Guarantee. If we don't give you a monetary increase, we give you a full refund. I was going to tell people they go to Luke Lunk.

[47:44.5]
L U K E L U N K That's the Instagram page and it says you found the only sales trainer who guarantees results. So if you don't get the results, you get your money back. He's got 19,000, over 19,000 followers. So follow him on, Instagram, check him out at paid to persuade.com Luke, pleasure having you on Inside Personal Growth, talking about Paid to Persuade about your personal journey that got you here, which I think is just as interesting because it talks about who the man is, how he got where he is, about your the person's.

[48:22.9]
Why I think that's another important thing is why is it that you're in sales? What is it that you want to accomplish? I think you give people well rounded, fundamentally good sales training. So for all my listeners, go to Luke Lunk on Instagram or go to Paid to Persuade to learn more about him.

[48:42.9]
Hey, namaste, man. Thanks for being on the show. Thanks for spending some time with our with our listeners and teaching, them about what it's like to be an authentic salesperson. I appreciate, Rose, an honor to be here, truly.

[48:59.7]
Thank you. Thank you.