On Purpose: w/ Shelby Sapp on #1 Sales Tactic (Transcript)

So to kind of back up, you need to understand somebody’s leverage points and what they specifically want and what will change their day-to-day life by making a decision. And once you find the leverage points, that’s the problem. The solution is whatever you’re selling them, right? Or you know, whether that be a promotion, whether that be, you know, your boyfriend, rolling objections with him, whether that be literally anything.

The world is problem and solution. And if you can build enough value around people’s pain points, there you go, you can solve anything.

JAY SHETTY: So that’s the first skill. What are the other two?

SHELBY SAPP: So leverage and then building value. So if you can provide value to people, you will never be broke again. But you can also just unlock so many different relationships because you can build value with people.

So value looks like you insert their pain points, which is what they want solved. But then you not only provide them a solution and just reading off what’s included or you know, how you’re solving it. I call it “sell the sizzle, not the steak.” Because nobody cares about what you’re selling, they care about what it does for them on a day-to-day basis. So that’s the solution part.

Then we get into the third, which is, I call it the KISS method. But it’s “keeping it simple, stupid.” Life will get so much better for you if you understand that people don’t necessarily say no to you because they don’t want it or they don’t, you know, want you around them or whatever. It’s because you’re not clear, you know.

So if you make your ask clear to where somebody knows exactly when I hand over my credit card, or exactly when I give this person this promotion, or exactly when I give you this job, I know exactly what’s going to happen. You give them clarity.

And then the fourth thing is just ask. You never get anything done if you don’t ask for it. Like I created a career off of being annoying. Literally, like selling people, you have to be a little annoying. Growing a business, you have to be a little annoying. Content, you have to be a little annoying.

But those people that step out of the box and just accept that being annoying or maybe a little pushy or just a little out there, delusional, that is what’s going to put you into rooms that you didn’t really think you deserved. But the plot twist is you do deserve it because you asked for it.

Ethical Sales vs. Manipulation

JAY SHETTY: Yeah, tell me about the people—and I want to speak to the skeptics or the cynical people who are like, “Oh, well, if I’m talking to people’s pain points, then I’m manipulating them, I’m taking advantage of them.” What’s the difference between ethical sales and doing it properly and then taking advantage of other people and manipulating them? How would you talk about the difference?

SHELBY SAPP: For sure. So everybody thinks that sales is manipulation, but it’s actually emotional leadership. So what I mean by that is when you are selling somebody that’s a qualified buyer, which means they’re somewhat interested in what you have to offer, they are here talking to you because they have a problem that they need solved.

So it is your duty to—if they don’t solve their problem, if they don’t, you didn’t do your job, you didn’t help them. So it helps with—this is actually selling something that you believe in. And so if what you’re selling is yourself, like on a job interview or talking to a friend or your boyfriend, you have to believe in your worth. That’s a big thing.

But again, if you’re selling something, you have to believe in the worth of what you’re selling because that comes off in the conviction of your voice. And sales is 80% the conviction of your voice and the energy that you have when you’re talking about your product.

Like I always say people buy your eyes and the way that you have passion coming through when you’re talking about something. So at the end of the day, it’s only manipulation if you don’t believe that you can actually help this person. But when you really step into emotional leadership, where you’re leading people through kind of a hard decision, you know, “Do I buy something? Do I not? Do I change my life? Do I get a new job? Do I join this fitness program or whatever?”

You are helping people make a better decision for them in the long run. And if you do it right, they’ll be thanking you. So it’s very fulfilling.

Learning from Cold Calling

JAY SHETTY: Yeah, absolutely. I’m thinking back. So my first work experience when I was like 16 years old, my mom had asked for a favor from a family friend of ours to get me a job at this company at the Business Design Center. This is an event space in England. And I worked at a company where we’d be selling event space to people for these big events.

So there’d be an event about bikes and we’d have to call up all these bike companies and sell them stands. So there was a car exhibition and we’d have to call up all these car companies. I knew nothing about sales and I remember being trained to cold call like 300 people.

SHELBY SAPP: Okay. So what was your pitch? What was your cold call?

JAY SHETTY: I can’t remember. I can’t remember it fully because I was 16 years old.

SHELBY SAPP: Yeah.

JAY SHETTY: And I’d be on the phone and I remember just the amount of times I’d be like, “Hey, I’m Jay Shetty calling from the Business—” or I think we were called Upper Street Events. I’d be like, “Hey, I’m Jay Shetty calling from Upper Street Events.” The amount of people that just put the phone down immediately.

And it’s what you just said a few moments ago where you just had to get used to the fact—now the Business Design Center was this beautiful event space. I really believe that it was a cool space to have events. It was one of the few places that like there were big fashion shows that took place. It was a really cool space.

And it goes back to what you were saying, that it took me time to A, get comfortable with failure and rejection, B, get some conviction in my voice and then finally get to a point where it was like, “You’re going to be exhibited at the number one exhibition center in the UK,” because you believed in it. And you learn from figuring out what’s actually going to happen. And you’re so right that if you don’t respect the product, you can’t just read a script.

SHELBY SAPP: For sure.

JAY SHETTY: And I think that’s where the energy goes wrong when you just are repeating a script but you don’t believe in it.

Qualified vs. Unqualified Buyers

SHELBY SAPP: Well, you said something interesting. It’s like people will just immediately put the phone down, just, “No, I’m not interested.” Boom. A lot of people think that in sales you have to sell every single person. And when you get a no, that’s an indicator that you’re a bad sales rep. Right?

But in sales you’re talking to unqualified and qualified buyers. So a lot of the times if you’re talking to someone that’s unqualified, you shouldn’t sweat it. Your job if you are cold calling or door knocking or doing any sort of cold approach is just—the way that I like to explain it is you’re almost sifting through the unqualified buyers and you’re more qualifying if they are worth your time.

You’re like, “Okay, you slammed the door in my face. No problem. I’m one step closer to getting somebody that will listen to me,” or “You hung up the phone super quick. Awesome, thank you for not wasting my time because it would have drained my energy on somebody that I actually can help.”

So in life in general too, you will learn not every single person is worth your time. And there’s a difference between somebody that does and doesn’t. It’s unqualified buyers and qualified buyers. So there comes a point in life where you just get some sort of confidence because you know that life is a numbers game.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah.

SHELBY SAPP: And—

JAY SHETTY: Absolutely. And I think the point, going back to my manipulation point, is that if someone doesn’t want it, you’re not trying to convince the person who already put the phone down on you to pick the phone back up to convince them. Because you want to get a good target.

SHELBY SAPP: Right.

JAY SHETTY: You’re accepting the fact that this isn’t the right person, they obviously don’t need this or want this, and that’s okay. Talk to me about what people—you’re in your 20s—what should people in their 20s be doing to have a great financial future?

Building Your Foundation in Your 20s

SHELBY SAPP: Oh, my gosh. Okay, couple things. One, move out. You cannot change yourself if you are still tied to the perceptions that everybody else has around you, like the people that you grew up with. They see you as your old version of yourself. So if you truly want exponential quantum leap change of yourself, you need to almost kind of have a clean slate and not feel bad about presenting yourself a little differently or trying new things out.

So I think old friends, old family members even—not that they’re the problem—but it just makes it a lot easier when you do change your physical surroundings to also change yourself internally.

I would also recommend when you do move, buy the most expensive gym membership, sit in the sauna, and talk to everybody. One connection can literally change your life. And the amount of people that I’ve met just from talking to people in the elevator, sitting in the sauna and just being open, not having a frown on your face all day and being a little bit approachable, it will change your life.

And again, it’s a numbers game. You might have some weirdos, you might have some randos, but that very few people that you do interact in a conversation with, keep them in your back pocket because your network is your net worth.

Obviously, I would say use your credit card like your debit card. I’ve been a big proponent of that. Invest every 20 cents to the dollar is a good one. I wish I knew that a long time ago because I was always just spend, spend, spend. But I would literally shake myself and be like, just throw it into the market. It doesn’t matter. Put it all in Bitcoin, whatever.

And then I would say learn a high income skill because you need to provide value in the marketplace if you want to get paid for it. So mine was obviously sales, but there’s copywriting, tech, AI, content creation, whatever. Your skill is just hone in on it and be the best of the best and try to provide other people value. Because if you become an irreplaceable asset, you’ll never be replaced.

And then the last thing: do the complete opposite of what everybody else around you is doing. If you look left and right and everybody’s doing the same thing, do the opposite. If you want to have a different result, you need to do different things in order to have a different result.

And then also be the best at whatever you’re doing. So whether you are working as a barista, whether you’re a server, whether you’re a teacher, be the best. Take pride in your job, because that’s something that nobody can take away from you. And a lot of that effort and skill set that you’re getting right now is going to translate to what you actually want to do in the future. You just might not see it right now.

JAY SHETTY: That is a great list. Yeah, I love that list.

SHELBY SAPP: I just remember working at a coffee shop. I was a barista. It was one of my first jobs, and I was the best barista ever. I was picking up every extra shift. I was DoorDashing on the side. I loved making money, and I knew it wasn’t my forever job because I would look left and right and everybody was just showing up doing the bare minimum.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah.

SHELBY SAPP: But, I mean, maybe they were smarter because we were getting paid the same amount. But I think that sort of mentality where it’s like, you know, you’re a star, you know, the job that you’re in right now might just be a stepping stone. It’s okay, though, because the skill sets and the work ethic that you have right now are going to pay you dividends throughout your whole life. So maybe you’re getting paid the same amount as someone that’s just showing up right now, but it’s the work ethic that can never be taken away.

The Power of Excellence in Every Role

JAY SHETTY: Yeah. You’re reminding me of—I don’t know if you’ve ever seen this TikToker called Markel Washington.

SHELBY SAPP: No.

JAY SHETTY: So he used to work in Subway and he would sing to the customers as he would make their Subway sandwich. And people loved it.

SHELBY SAPP: Yeah.

JAY SHETTY: And that’s how he got discovered. Someone filmed him, put it up on TikTok, got millions of views, and now he has all these followers. Now he’s left Subway.

SHELBY SAPP: Exactly.

JAY SHETTY: You know, it’s—I couldn’t agree with you more. I always think if you can find a way to even make the job you hate attractive, fun and be passionate about it.

SHELBY SAPP: Exactly.

JAY SHETTY: It’s just a great skill in life and it transforms everything. You talked about building high income skills, high value skills, which I wish was talked about in college. I wish it was talked about earlier in school. I feel like it’s completely missed because you kind of get taught—or at least I don’t want to say generalist—it was like, kind of be good at this, kind of be good at this, kind of be good at that.

No one ever tells you like, hey, pick something and become incredible at it and pick something that the world’s actually going to value. How do you, now that we’ve all left school, we’re post college, how do you actually build a high income or high value skill? What does the process look like?

How to Build High-Value Skills

SHELBY SAPP: Well, there’s so much free content on social media. We literally live in an age where there’s multiple YouTube videos. I literally just filmed a six hour YouTube video going over every single part of the sales process. If you want to learn, we now live in an age where you can learn. You just have to do the thing that nobody’s willing to do, which is sit down and learn and take notes and practice with yourself, reach out to companies, get some experience and climb the ladder, just like that.

But so I would say learn from social media completely free. So many mentors right now will teach you anything and then step number two is practice. And so when it comes to practicing, obviously we all have a dream job in our head. You know, oh, I would love to sell for this person, I would love to be on this person’s sales team. But in the very beginning, you might need some data, you might need some experience.

So I would challenge people to, yeah, keep that dream job in your head. But more so build your data, build your experience right now with amazing lead quality, with just a good system. That way you can have something in your back pocket when you do go to pitch yourself for that dream job.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah, absolutely. I couldn’t agree with you more. I feel like there’s so much free content out there, but it’s so hard because I think we look at like 30 seconds of a reel and a lot of this is sitting down for a few hours.

I remember when I was first learning social media, I was spending three hours every Saturday and Sunday morning just studying, for hours and hours and hours for weeks on end, three hours, six hours a week on top of my day job. And I feel like if I hadn’t done that, I wouldn’t have understood social media the way I did.

And eventually it became every day after work and I had a full time job at the time. It became five hours a day after work, sometimes up until 2, 3 a.m., just trying to learn and study, only to go back to work next day. I think there’s so much truth to that and it is all out there.

What do you find is the biggest difference between people who have sales skills and people who don’t?

The Mindset That Changes Everything

SHELBY SAPP: Mindset. It’s your ability to give context to a negative in order to turn it into a positive in your own brain. What do I mean by that? So in sales, salespeople develop this skill set that makes them great, which is somebody slams the door in your face or hangs up on you and you kind of tell yourself, you’re like, maybe she just got pulled over this morning and she’s in a bad mood. Maybe he just got served divorce papers. Anyways, not my problem. I’m going to the next person.

Even though that stuff probably isn’t true, you’re almost—I call it being a psycho because you literally have to be some sort of level of psychotic in order to feed yourself a little bit of lies to give context around rejection. That way you can take it a little bit easier because it’s like they’re not rejecting you, they’re rejecting the time or what you’re actually selling.

But it’s your ability to really just play mind games with yourself of saying, hey, maybe they just had a bad day. Anyways, I’m moving on to the next person because there is someone who wants to talk to me. Even though the last 10 people might have told you no, you still have to walk into every conversation expecting that yes.

So that level of skill set that you get from sales, it trickles into everything, into dating, into friendships, into the way that you talk to yourself. Being able to handle rejection will get you anything in life.

JAY SHETTY: What’s fascinating to me is how you need it to get promoted. You need it to convince, like you said, potentially even a partner to know whether they’re committing or not committing. You need it, of course, if you run a sales job. Let’s walk through the sales process. For people who are like, Shelby, I need this advice. I need everything you’re selling right now.

SHELBY SAPP: Yeah, for sure.

JAY SHETTY: Because I need to transform my life. What’s the first step?

The 60-Second Sales Masterclass

SHELBY SAPP: So sales as a skill set. If you want to learn like 60 second sales masterclass right now, here it is. So the first thing that you need to do is to establish frame and ease tension. Because anytime you walk up to a person, their sales resistance is high. They’re like, who are you? Why are you here? Why are you calling me? I feel a little weird.

So a quick little compliment goes a long way. But also just getting straight to the point. People try building so much fake rapport and trying to be a friend at first when it just comes off a little fake because they know why you’re here. You’re trying to sell them. So quick, little compliments, something super easy. And then just getting straight to the point, hey, I’m busy. I want to be very tentative of your time as well. Is it cool if we just kind of jump right in, start the sales process easy.

Then we get into question based selling. So everybody thinks that you just start selling. Yeah, you don’t even know what you’re going into yet. So question based selling is, you know, figuring out what somebody’s leverage is, figuring out those pain points. So like, what made you book a call? What are you going through? Take me through your day. What made you want to figure something out?

Then you will gather a little bit of data, I call it gathering ammo that you’re going to kind of put in your back pocket in order to sell on later. So once you get these pain points from this person, that’s your problem. Then you go into the solution, which is obviously what you are selling. And it’s very, you have to be very careful because what you are selling is different to every sort of person. So you take these specific leverage points and you plug and play with specific solutions that only solve these leverage points, nothing else. Keep it super simple.

And then you pitch the price. Very simple. And when you pitch price, when you initially close someone, it’s all about your energy. If you are almost anticipating an objection or anticipating a no, it’s going to come off in your energy and someone’s going to give you an objection or tell you no.

You know the metaphor of the Starbucks cashier? So when you go up to Starbucks and you’re ordering, you’re like medium vanilla ice latte or I guess grande vanilla ice latte. You go up to the window. What does the cashier rep do? He holds the Apple Pay thing in front of you and he’s like, okay, awesome, it’s going to be $7. And he’s like turning around, doing something else. No option, no like weird vibes. He’s just like, here, this is how much it is. Okay. Awesome. And you’re almost like scrambling around for your credit card. You’re like, oh, sorry, I should have had that out. Here you go.

That’s the energy that you need when you pitch price and when you close people is, hey, you have these problems. Here’s a clear game plan, a clear solution, and here’s how much it’s going to take in order to get you there. Like, it’s very simple. It’s problem solution.

And then I think what a lot of people forget to do is to solidify the sale, you know, because a lot of people will, you know, process a credit card and then just go straight to, you know, filling out paperwork or just acting like a robot, and they stop actually connecting with this person. Meanwhile, after you, like, run somebody’s credit card and after the initial close and they say, yes, now you need to even further connect with people.

So a little trick I have is you can positively future pace someone, which is. I’m so excited for you to get started. A lot of people like to text me when they hit their first 10k months or when they lose their first 4lbs, or whenever you’re selling. Would you mind keeping me in the loop for that transformation? Like, I would love to be a part of your journey now. Somebody’s, like, envisioning themselves not only following through with the process, achieving the transformation, but also they see you as more of, like, an accountability coach rather than just the frame of a sales rep.

We’re Constantly Being Sold To

JAY SHETTY: And it actually motivates them too, for sure, because they’re like, oh, now that I’ve committed to this, I could actually make that change. And I’ve actually committed to the process that makes that happen. What’s fascinating is that we’re constantly being sold to, but we don’t have. So, oh, my God. Everything you buy has been sold to you. And I feel like whether it’s the clothes that you’re wearing, the coffee you drink, the coffee shop you go to, the laptop that you use, the phone that you carry. Like, we’re constantly being sold to, but we find sales so scary. Does that.

SHELBY SAPP: Do you know for sure? I mean, even the videos that you watch on social media, somebody’s selling you on why they are worth your time. Out of every other content creator that you could swipe to whenever you hit the follow button, somebody sold you on why they should be on your for you page every day.

Like, I went to the tanning salon yesterday. The most menial thing ever. Just a simple tanning salon. He sold me on a $200 tan package and I don’t even live here. But I just loved his sales process and I love supporting other sales reps. Like, when you learn sales, you just see life in a completely different way where when you get sold to, you almost appreciate it.

JAY SHETTY: I fully agree. Yeah, you respect it. By the way, I love being sold to. I love being so too. Like, if someone’s. Because I also know when it’s not working right. There are shops that I’ll go into where I’m like, ready to buy.

SHELBY SAPP: Right.

JAY SHETTY: But then the experience is not great and then I won’t buy. And then there are other shops where I’m like, oh, I’m not sure if I want to spend any money today. And someone’s really trying to sell to me. And I’m like, oh, I love this. Like, they’re really great at what they do. I respect it.

SHELBY SAPP: Yeah. Sales is all about, like, you know, making someone feel important and listened to. And that’s why women are so good at sales is because women all day. What do we do? We call our friends, we talk to our friends, we hype our friends up. That’s literally sales. Sales is hyping people up into, you know, pushing them into this higher version of themselves and making them really believe that they can achieve a transformation if they’re given the tools to do so. That’s sales. That’s what you’re doing.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah.

SHELBY SAPP: It’s a whole new life when you learn how to sell.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah. Yeah. What’s the. What’s the best thing you’ve ever been sold?

The Pink G Wagon Story

SHELBY SAPP: My pink G wagon.

JAY SHETTY: Okay, how did. Who sold it to you? How did that process?

SHELBY SAPP: So I was kind of a lay down for it, I’m not going to lie. But I saw videos on it. It was this girl, car sales rep on social media. She’s making videos of it. I get tagged in it a ton of times. I click on it. I’m like, oh, that’s a cool car. But, like, I don’t really need a new car right now.

I’m driving in Arizona, which is where I’m from. I look to my right and it’s in the freaking window. And I’m like, out of all places, this, there’s only one car that existed in the whole United States. I’m like, it’s in Arizona. Like, what are the chances?

So I go in there and the car sales rep, she shouts, Shelby. She’s like, Shelby, I’ve been to so many of your master classes. I love you. I follow you on everything. Like, and I think that initial connection and rapport. And then when she was showing me the vehicle, obviously she let me test drive it, but she was also, you know, telling me, like, you could use this for content. This car has your name written all over it.

And then she sincere closed me, which was turning the no away from the client to the product. And she made me have to say no to her, which I couldn’t. So the sincere close is just like, I know you’re going to buy a car at some point, I’m going to sell this to someone. If it’s not you, it’s someone else. But I want you to have it, and I want to be the one to help you get this dream car. So.

JAY SHETTY: Wow. Are you still friends with her?

SHELBY SAPP: Oh, yeah. She’s awesome. Yeah, she’s great.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah. That’s amazing. Yeah. And it’s. And obviously you’re happy with your purchase, which makes it better. I think that’s. I think that’s the part is, like, when you’re not happy with the value that you received, you’re like, oh, wait a minute, I was. And, you know, I’ve been. I’ve been to some fancy car spots trying to sell you some fancy cars, and they’re not. Some of them. There’s the technique that I read about. Talk to me about this, because I saw this on social media and I’ve experienced it a few times.

SHELBY SAPP: Okay.

JAY SHETTY: Where these fancy places try and make you feel less than so that you buy.

SHELBY SAPP: Yes.

JAY SHETTY: I don’t like that because it feels uncomfortable.

The Louis Vuitton Sales Technique

SHELBY SAPP: Right. So it is a real phenomenon. So I call it the Louis Vuitton sales technique. It’s not specific to Louis Vuitton, but it was just a name I picked on. But yeah. So they. One, they hire attractive sales reps, and two, they train those attractive sales reps to be a little bit dismissive to you when you’re in the store.

And this is a true thing because as a client, when you walk in and somebody’s not all over you, hey, what are you in here for? What do you want? Blah, blah. Did you see this jacket? You almost feel a little bit like you’re trying to earn a sales rep’s time because you want to prove that you belong in the store.

And so what are they doing? Well, it’s actually pretty smart, even though I would say that’s slightly manipulative. But what they’re doing it’s smart is they know their brand has weight, and so they know kind of the feeling that they have with the brand and that they are so, you know, up there and sophisticated. So they make you assign yourself to feel like you deserve to be with the brand. How do they do that? By buying a bag.

So you almost feel like, you know, when a sales rep does come up to you, oh, I’m. I promise you, I have money. Like, I am a buyer. And then makes you want to buy more things.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah. And it’s. And it’s sad that we fall for that. Right. I think a lot of this. A lot. Would you say that people will actually spend more mindfully if they understood sales 100. Talk to me about that.

SHELBY SAPP: So when you learn sales, you understand the sales rep’s perspective, so you’re a little bit more cognizant of the techniques that they’re using. And so if it’s something you actually want. And the sales reps. Amazing. Makes you want to buy more stuff because you’re like, okay, I respect the game. I appreciate it, and I do want this. Let’s do it.

But when it’s something that you don’t really want, or maybe it’s something you do want, but a sales rep is being rude to you or trying to make you feel less than you understand the tactics and the way that they’re approaching the sale, and you’re like, like, why would you do that? You know, I. I wanted this. I am a buyer. But the way that you’re being dismissive or the way that you’re just trying too hard turns me off.

And so sales is all about, like, push and pull. And so a buyer’s brain will literally turn off when you try to sell too hard or when you try to use these cringy, pushy, aggressive tactics. Because in their brain, it’s like, if you have to try so hard, obviously what I’m getting sold is not that valuable, because why would you have to try so hard?

So, in fact, the pull method actually works a little bit better, which is when sales reps kind of take a step back and they’re like, well, I mean, I don’t know if you need this right now. Like, tell me about what you’re going through, and we can kind of figure it out together.

Where Does Confidence Come From?

JAY SHETTY: Yeah. Where do you think confidence comes from? You’re so confident. You. You talk about this idea of being able to turn it on. Like, you know, just switch on. How do people access that? Because I think so many people today feel like a smaller version of themselves. We shrink, we get shy, we get scared. Like you said just before you’re about to say the amount you kind of hesitate because you’re scared about it, and it’s not. You do believe in the product. You do care about what you’re doing, but you also kind of care about the other person. Where does that confidence come from?

Building Confidence Through Action

Everybody thinks that you have confidence, and then you do big things. When it’s flip flopped, you do big things, you put yourself out there, you’re scared, and then you build confidence. Like, I know I look like this girl that’s super confident, all these things, whatever. But when I first started, that was literally so opposite from the case.

Like, I had so much anxiety, I could not talk to people, or someone would ask me, you know, how’s your day going? And I would stutter and think about it for the next, like, five to seven business days. Like, I literally hated it. I was just insecure, and I didn’t do enough big things in order to have something to be confident about.

So someone told me, you know, sales will make you confident. I got into sales. I got, literally doors slammed in my face. Cops called on me, the neighborhood watch, like, name it. But going through experiences like that and going through what I call the suck, and coming out on the other side, you know, with monetary things to show, but also confidence. That kind of data points.

Those kinds of data points that you have where you can say, I deserve to be confident because I did this, this, and this. I deserve to be confident because I got told no 10 times in a row and the 11th said yes. Now I’m more confident that every other person I talk to, if they say no, that’s fine. I’m going to go get somebody else to say yes.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah, it’s doing hard things for sure. Yeah, absolutely. I couldn’t agree more. Everyone always thinks you somehow feel confident in your mind, and then you take action. And it’s completely the opposite way around. You’re spot on. It’s take action, do uncomfortable things, do hard things, do big things, do scary things. And then all of a sudden, confidence comes to you.

SHELBY SAPP: Right.

JAY SHETTY: And because you have evidence, you have proof.

SHELBY SAPP: Exactly.

JAY SHETTY: You have a list of things. They’re like, hey, I did all these things. And it’s not the external achievement. It’s the fact that you put yourself in that position. Whether it was getting rejected 10 times, moving out your house, going out there and taking on a job you never did, being out of your comfort zone, like, all of that builds confidence. But you know, when someone’s sitting there and going, like, Shelby, I want to be better at sales. I get you, but, like, I just don’t start. What would you say to that person who says, I don’t know how to start?

SHELBY SAPP: I would say you don’t have to. You don’t have to know how to start. You just have to do it. And by do it, I mean you need to learn everything that you possibly can. And again, good for you. It’s all on social media. It’s right on your phone.

But then number two is start and know that you’re going to suck. Like half of confidence is knowing that it’s going to suck in the beginning and you need to know that you are going to get rejected, you’re going to mess up. But plot twist is if you do that enough time and if you get enough reps in, that’s how you build true confidence.

So it’s not the whole fake it till you make it, but I mean kind of it’s like you have to believe you are the best. And then with enough data like you kind of just said, you can truly, truly know that you are the best when you can look back at your experience.

Common Money Mistakes

JAY SHETTY: Yeah, we found some questions on social media that we think would be good. So I want to hear your take on this. What’s something people struggling with money think is smart but actually keeps them broke?

SHELBY SAPP: Spending money on networking events.

JAY SHETTY: Talk to me about that.

SHELBY SAPP: I should be pro networking, right? No. So I have a very kind of controversial but specific take on networking. So I think, you know, majority of people that show up to random networking events, I’m talking the ones that are just random cocktail hours, random people in your city. A lot of the people that show up to those networking events are looking for people external to cling onto because they don’t have anything to offer.

So I want you instead of to focus all of your energy on networking because I used to be the same. What rooms can I get into? Who can help me with this? Like, look into yourself first. Build up your skill set first. Figure out a way to provide real value to other people and become someone that other people want to network with.

Like I was always the girl dying to be in group chats with people like you or people like my business partners or people like, you know, that I am currently in group chats with right now. I was dying to be in those. But you need to figure out a way to be someone that other people are dying to be in a group chat with.

So instead of focusing too much on putting your energy out into how do I figure out these other people? Put that energy into yourself. And when you truly have, you know, something going for you or you truly solve people’s problems, the right people will reach out to you. Because people that are worth networking for don’t spend every day at different cocktail hours just trying to help people for fun. It’s just not reality.

But that’s different from specified networking, which is if you have a purpose of going to it. You know, if you’re a real estate professional and you’re going to a real estate event, amazing. If you are a closer and you’re going to a closer event, amazing. A life coach going to a life coach event, amazing. But I think the general networking cocktail hours are just a waste of time, money and energy that you should be putting into yourself.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah, I love the idea that your reputation precedes you in the sense of. And I think people often get confused that you have to have some big brand for that. My friend started his content creator journey more recently. He has like 6,000 followers. But the video content he’s creating is so high quality that people are introducing him to people because his level of research, his communication skills, it’s only a matter of time before he gets to 100,000 followers and million and whatever else it may be.

But right now I think people often think, oh yeah, but Shelby, I’ve got to have like a million followers for someone to notice. No, it’s like, no, you could have 5,000 followers, 6,000, maybe 10,000. But because of the content you’re creating and the way you’re communicating, people will look at you and be like, like, oh, you’re the stylist that comes front of mind. You’re the coach that comes front of mind. You’re the car salesperson who comes front of mind. Like, you don’t have to have millions of followers for someone to notice you. And I think that’s a really important part as well.

Being a Pattern Interrupt

SHELBY SAPP: And I think a big thing too. You need to be what we call the pattern interrupt. So in sales, a pattern interrupt means someone that breaks the pattern because 99% of salespeople sound the same. They sound like robots. So if you want a different result than every other salesperson that gets denied, you need to do something different. So AKA break the pattern of the cringy sales rep pitches that people hear.

But in life, you need to break the pattern. You need to be different and do different things than everybody else in order to stand out. Like your friend who made, you know, the most high quality videos. He was probably a lot different than everybody else who’s just putting mass amount of videos out there to where somebody recognized that.

JAY SHETTY: Absolutely. Yeah. He’s really thought about it. It’s very specific. And so people in that specific niche are paying attention to him, even though he’s not got.

SHELBY SAPP: Because he’s an expert.

JAY SHETTY: Exactly, exactly. He’s actually good at what he’s talking about. It’s absolutely it. Okay, what’s the biggest. This is another one. Okay, what’s the biggest mindset difference between someone making $50,000 and someone making $500,000.

SHELBY SAPP: A year or a month?

JAY SHETTY: That’s a Shelby question right there. Let’s start with a year.

The Mindset of High Earners

SHELBY SAPP: I would say exactly that. I would say the $50,000 a month person thinks that they’re on top of the world and that, you know, that’s all there is to life. And I think the $500,000 a month person knows that you’re uncapped. There is no cap on what you can do in this world. None.

And I think that’s the biggest thing that sales teaches you is you eat what you kill. There’s no floor. Right. But that’s also so freeing because there’s no ceiling. Genuinely, if you want to make more money, you just talk to more people and close more deals. Like, that should excite you. That should be like, oh my gosh, there’s all of this money to make in the world and there’s proof of so many people making so much money. Why not me?

That was my biggest thing. I always like, heard of these people on social media making so much money. And I’m like, you, you ain’t got a lot of money. Like, if you can do it, I can do it. And I think that blind level of optimism is what somebody making $500,000 a year or a month has because they stepped outside of the scope and the realm of reality. And they truly just said, I’m not playing by everybody else’s rules. I’m doing my own thing, or I’m doing my own thing on the side or I’m going to pull myself out of this because I know that I can do it.

So, for example, if you’re talking in years perspective, I think the $50,000 a year type of person just sees money as a side thing, or they see, you know, they are not the business they are working for someone versus the $500,000 a year person. They know that they are the business and they know that whatever they do in this life, it will turn to gold because they are good. So that’s why you need high income skills in order to be that person that you can step into anything and produce.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah. And I think the truth is that high income skill matters. Even when you’re an employee, if you have a high income skill, that person never wants to lose you. And therefore they’re going to keep investing in you and keep giving you promotions and raises because they know they can’t live without you. So even if you’re not an entrepreneur, if you’re part of someone’s team and you have a high income skill and you add lots of value to that place, people are never, ever going to take a risk. I mean, you’re an employer, I’m an employer. It’s like, I don’t want to lose my best people. Like, I would never take that risk.

SHELBY SAPP: Replacing people sucks.

JAY SHETTY: It’s so hard. Yeah. When you find someone who’s really amazing.

SHELBY SAPP: What they do, you want to pour into them.

JAY SHETTY: Exactly. Yeah. You want to invest in them, you want them to grow with you. You’re excited about it just as you are in love. In one sense where it’s like, yeah, I want to see what we could achieve together.

SHELBY SAPP: Exactly. But I think that goes back to like the person who’s making $50,000 a year and is completely fine with that. They just see it as a job and they won’t go above and beyond versus the person that maybe their paycheck doesn’t reflect $500,000 a year, but they believe that they are in a $500,000 a year opportunity if they act like it.

And so when you go above and beyond, people notice that. So every single ounce of hard work that you put into yourself right now, maybe it might not benefit you now, but it will benefit you. Dividends in the future. It’s just you have to put it in in order to get it out.

JAY SHETTY: Absolutely. Great answers. All right. If someone wants to go from making 100k to 300k in one year. What?

SHELBY SAPP: Specify the year.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah. What’s the 30, 60, 90 day plan?

SHELBY SAPP: From 100k to 300k?

JAY SHETTY: Yeah. In one year.

SHELBY SAPP: Are they working for someone or working for themselves?

JAY SHETTY: Let’s do both examples. So let’s do someone who’s working for someone and then let’s do someone who’s working for themselves.

Strategies for Income Growth

SHELBY SAPP: Someone who’s working for someone. So I would say that you need to job hop. You’re never going to have, you know, a $200,000 raise in three years. Like, it’s just not going to happen. So the way that you would do it is you would go to different employers and you would kind of like pin them between each other. So the company that you’re working for now versus another one. Right.

You go to their competitor or somebody in a different niche and you show them the value that you provided for the other company because you have data points behind it. For example, I helped X company grow to X revenue in X amount of time given these tools. But I feel like I can go even farther given these right tools. Lend me the ability in order to do it. I would job hop if you are in a company.

JAY SHETTY: I think it’s very sound advice actually.

The Mindset Shift from $100K to $300K

SHELBY SAPP: For sure. Yeah. But if you are on your own, if you want to go from 100 to 300, the very first thing is mindset. Because $300,000 a year, that’s a completely different mindset than somebody making just a hundred. So you need to, I would say, be the best and get paid to be the best. That’s how you’re going to do it.

But also look at scaling yourself. If you have your own business, you know, create mini me’s of you or hire employees, which is hard, you know, going from 100 to 300, trusting other people to do the quality work that you do. But you need to hire superstars, pay them very well. And the time that you get back from hiring other people and duplicating them, work on growing your business, growing different avenues of it.

And then I would also say content plays into both of them. I think content can amplify anything you do. If you work in a job, you can make content around that to where other companies want to hire you. Because you now have value as distribution because of your content, because you’re selling yourself through your content. And if you own your own business, I don’t have to explain that content will help no matter what you are pushing in your content.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah, I think that’s really sound advice for both of them. I think you’re spot on that you’re not going to suddenly catapult inside of an organization that much. And if you are running your own thing, it’s what you said earlier as well. Sometimes you have to triple your output. Like you will have to find ways to. If you’re trying to go from 100 to 300k, that means you’ve got to look at how many people you’ve sold to, how many customers or clients you have. You’re going to have to find a way of tripling your failure rate because that’s going to get you that same success rate. That could mean more people, it could mean more hours yourself as well, right?

SHELBY SAPP: So like a good example is like you don’t have to start a business in order to be on your own and do, you know, $300,000 a year. There are so many side hustle type jobs that you can do without taking a risk, you know, of starting your own business, pouring a ton of money into it and also without posting content.

High-Income Sales Opportunities

JAY SHETTY: What other examples of jobs are there in sales that you think are giving people opportunity to really take their finances into their control?

SHELBY SAPP: So door to door sales is where I started out and it’s amazing. You will walk out with the best sales skill set because you’re in person, you’re getting rejected to your face. It is more gritty, it is more rejection based because you are the first person they see and you’re also closing the deal. You have to be outside and you know, 100 degree heat every single day. It’s you know, not the best for lifestyle wise. But if you’re young like a college person, I would definitely think about door to door sales.

There’s also insurance sales. I would say that’s good if you want to recruit. They make a lot of their money from recruiting other people to do it. There’s also med sales, tech sales, marketing agencies have sales teams, there’s software sales, there’s a bunch of different sales industry. So I would just urge people to think about like what their lifestyle is and what would be best according to your lifestyle.

So there’s you know, the gritty in person, you know, grind sales like door to door and insurance. But then there’s also the more corporate which is like office job type sales where you work for a larger company, you have quotas, you have minimums, all these things. But then there’s freelance sales which is like setting and closing. And this is where you are your own closing business. And you can talk to someone for 30 minutes and they want to buy, you get a commission off of it.

JAY SHETTY: If people can make this much money in sales, why isn’t everyone doing it?

Breaking Through Limiting Beliefs

SHELBY SAPP: One, because it’s a limiting belief that you have to do the right thing in life in order to have success. Like people brainwash you from a young age that you need to go to school for 16 years, you know, go to college, get you know, a general education degree. Then you get into the workforce which is a general job because you have general education. And then you’re working a job because you have debt to pay off, let alone being, you know, maybe you don’t even get to get a job or you might be replaced by AI soon. So a lot of people think that that’s like the normal path. But I think people are kind of starting to get more keen to the idea of doing other things.

But then I would also say it’s mindset. Sales has taught me that 80% of people’s mindsets just suck. They’re very self limiting. Like a lot of people won’t even put themselves in the position to do something on their own because they’re afraid that they’re not going to be able to do it. And so that mindset itself is proof that you won’t be able to do it. So that’s when I say you have to change the mindset first before you actually do it.

And then also rejection. People aren’t, you know, used to getting told no. Nowadays it’s very, you know, instant gratification. If you want to look something up, you can have it on your phone, right? Then if you want to order something, it’s at your door in two days. But sales is a game that you play over a long period of time because in the very beginning, you’re putting so much hard work into it, but you’re still building the skill set. So you might not see it reflected in your paychecks for a couple days, maybe, you know, a week or two, but at some point, all of the work that you did in the beginning will compound results for you over time. But you have to go through that period of the suck.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah. What are the mindsets you’re seeing that are holding women back?

SHELBY SAPP: Especially, they don’t believe that they deserve to do something different. And that can get deep. And no one will come out and say, you know, “I don’t believe that I can do this.” But it’s on a more subconscious level where people do not believe that they could achieve something. Maybe it’s because of what their friends tell them or what their boyfriend tells them, or, you know, maybe you got fired from your last couple jobs.

Like, you can focus on negative data points in order to pull a negative story, but what you need to do is you need to pull the positive data points, even if there’s only a few. But focus on the positive data points of your life that pushes a positive story of, “No, no, I do deserve this. And I deserve this because of all of the data points that I can look back at.”

So everything that happens to you in your life, if you’re wanting more like tangible advice from this, everything that happens in your life, not just in sales, just life. You can pull a negative story from it, or you can pull a positive story from it. Focus on the positive data points in order to believe a positive story.

Choosing Your Story

JAY SHETTY: Yeah, yeah. I always say everyone can tell two stories of their life. They could be like, “I got all these opportunities. My life changed. I met the love of my life. Like, look at where it is now.” Or at the same time, and it’s equally true, you could say, “This person screwed me over. This person tried to sue me. This person, whatever it may be.” And both are true. Both happen.

SHELBY SAPP: Oh, for sure.

JAY SHETTY: But it’s like, which one am I going to focus on?

SHELBY SAPP: And even some of the most, you know, horrific things that have happened in my life are very scary. I always think to myself, right then and there, “This is going to be a great story to tell my kids one day,” or “There’s going to be something great that I’m going to be able to talk about on a podcast or on stage.” You know, so everything that you go through, you have to believe that it is not happening to you, it’s happening for you. And maybe it’s a negative in the moment, but it could be a positive in the future.

And this is not, you know, something big like getting sued or getting broken up with. It could be you’re driving on the freeway and you miss your exit. You know, it’s, “Oh, I miss my exit. I’m so stupid. I’m going to be late. People are going to hate me. I always do this.” No, it’s, “Hey, I missed my exit. Thank God. Because maybe I would have gotten into a car crash or gotten pulled over, but because I missed that exit, now I’m just going to add on two more minutes to my time. I’d rather take two minutes of redirection than, you know, what could have happened.” So.

Sales Skills in Action

JAY SHETTY: Yeah, absolutely. Shelby, we wanted to put your sales skills to the test in the room.

SHELBY SAPP: Okay.

JAY SHETTY: So I’m going to ask you to sell a few things to me, and I’m also doing research for myself. So the first thing I’m going to ask you to sell to me is mine and my wife’s tea. This is ours. She can grab it. The drink. And so I’d love for you to sell this to me so that we can learn how to sell it better.

SHELBY SAPP: Okay. Try it for me.

JAY SHETTY: Oh, yeah. Okay.

SHELBY SAPP: What do you think?

JAY SHETTY: It’s very tasty.

SHELBY SAPP: Okay.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah.

SHELBY SAPP: Why would you even want. What is this, an energy drink?

JAY SHETTY: It’s a calming drink, like it’s a balancing drink.

SHELBY SAPP: Okay. And what does it do for you?

JAY SHETTY: It helps you de-stress your mind. It helps you bring back your body into regulation. It helps calm you.

SHELBY SAPP: Okay, when do you crack one of these open? When do you need that?

JAY SHETTY: I probably open it midday. Like, probably like my midday pick me up. Like around 3, 4pm when you start hearing that slump. It’s got enough same caffeine in it as the amount of natural amount in tea.

SHELBY SAPP: Okay.

JAY SHETTY: So it’s not energy. It’s not like 200 milligrams of caffeine. It’s only like 24, 25.

SHELBY SAPP: I saw somewhere, you know, tea reminds you of talking with your mom.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah.

SHELBY SAPP: Or something. Tell me more about that.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah, so tea was, when I used to get back from school, my mom would sit me down and she’d pour me a cup of tea, but it would be like a hot cup of tea. And she’d ask me how my day was. And so, like every day, that was our ritual. She was super busy, but that was a moment that we sat down together and had that moment.

SHELBY SAPP: Okay, so tomorrow comes around, like, three, four when you have your little crash. If you don’t have one of these, what are you doing?

JAY SHETTY: I’m…

SHELBY SAPP: What’s the substitute?

JAY SHETTY: I’m like, well, it’ll be something unhealthy. Like, this is only 5, this is only, what is it? 0. It’s 5 calories and 0 grams of sugar. I would usually have reached for something sugar, sugary, and put sugar into my body, which…

SHELBY SAPP: Lots of caffeine.

JAY SHETTY: I try and stay off of refined sugars, caffeine, and heavy sugars.

SHELBY SAPP: And when you do that, what’s the result?

JAY SHETTY: Less energy, less motivation. Like, you know, it’s like you feel like you’ve been in the gym all week, but what’s the point? Because you’re just, like, putting rubbish into your body. Maybe more sugar spikes and then low moods and down points.

SHELBY SAPP: So what does that, like, mean for you, though, if you’re not able to show up with the energy or with, you know, knowing that what you’re putting in your body isn’t necessarily the best? Like, what does the crash actually mean? If you were to go through that tomorrow?

JAY SHETTY: I mean, in one sense, you could argue that it’s like, it is whatever it is. But I think I really appreciate being alert all the time, being focused and making sure that my snacks are not unhealthy.

SHELBY SAPP: Right. You don’t want to live a life that just is whatever it is. You want to live a life where you’re at your best, right?

JAY SHETTY: Yeah, exactly.

The Art of Selling Through Questions

SHELBY SAPP: So that’s kind of what I’m getting at. It’s not about, you know, this is an energy drink or an adaptogenic tea. It’s about the result that it can have for you on a day to day basis. When someone like you, you need to be on, right?

So my question to you is if you tomorrow could show up your best self for podcasts, for your work, for your clients, what would that be worth to you to show up as the best version of yourself? Probably everything, right?

JAY SHETTY: Absolutely.

SHELBY SAPP: Okay, well I’m not asking for everything. I’m just asking for five bucks. There you go.

JAY SHETTY: That was really good. I love it. I love how personal it was.

SHELBY SAPP: Yeah. So it’s, and I’m glad that we did that because I want a lot of people to understand selling something. The wrong thing to do would have been okay, awesome, Jay. So this is obviously the can, super pretty. I’m reading that it has 150 milligrams of this. It’s manufactured here. It is the best quality drink that you could have right now. Buy it.

Yeah, I didn’t know what I was walking into in this context. I don’t know anything about your day to day life. I don’t know anything about what you would substitute if you didn’t do this. And I didn’t know obviously this is going to give you energy, but it’s what that energy does for you, which in your case prevents crashes when you’re trying to show up as your best self.

So you really need to step back and gather context and ask questions. That’s literally all sales is. It’s what I just did. It’s just asking questions about what somebody actually wants and if it fits into it. And I knew exactly when it fit into it because you said, you know, I would crash and I don’t want to crash when I’m trying to run a high level lifestyle, right? When I’m running a business, having family, right?

So that’s what people buy. They don’t buy what it is. They buy the transformation. So your job, couple different steps is one, be the pattern interrupt, which is instead of getting straight to selling, just ask, have a conversation. And then it’s figure out the leverage points, which I did that by asking you questions. Then it’s provide value and provide a clear solution, which is this. And then it’s also, you know, anchoring someone before you price drop.

So what did I ask? I said what would that be worth to you? It’d probably be worth everything, right? To show up as your best self. Well, I’m not asking for everything. I’m just asking for five bucks.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah.

SHELBY SAPP: And so it makes it a little bit more attainable.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah. It’s such a good demonstration. Let’s do that with something that I know less about. I want people to see that version.

SHELBY SAPP: Okay.

JAY SHETTY: So, like, maybe you got a pen? Oh, yeah. There you go.

SHELBY SAPP: Okay.

JAY SHETTY: Someone’s, hopefully someone’s not chewed on that. Yeah, not me. Not me.

SHELBY SAPP: Is this the only pen you have around you?

JAY SHETTY: Do you want a nicer one?

SHELBY SAPP: Give me every pen.

JAY SHETTY: Can I go find a nice one? We did it with a product that I know a lot about.

SHELBY SAPP: Right. And that’s my product you want, right? Obviously you want this product, right? Yeah, exactly.

JAY SHETTY: Exactly. No, no. But I think the way you, I still think what you did was brilliant. I’m just saying you’ll be good too.

SHELBY SAPP: I know. Yeah.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah. Let’s do it again. Yeah, let’s do it again.

SHELBY SAPP: Okay. Yeah. Do you have any other pens in the room or is the same it?

JAY SHETTY: That’s it.

SHELBY SAPP: Okay.

JAY SHETTY: Is that bad? Do you want nicer one?

SHELBY SAPP: This is fine. This is every pen though, right? There’s no other hiding?

JAY SHETTY: No, no.

SHELBY SAPP: Okay, awesome. Step number one, create a need. No, I’m kidding.

JAY SHETTY: Oh, yeah.

SHELBY SAPP: But let’s see.

JAY SHETTY: That’s good. That’s funny.

SHELBY SAPP: Okay.

JAY SHETTY: Do you want paper? I don’t. You’d have to write one.

The Tic Tac Toe Sales Technique

SHELBY SAPP: No, no, no. This is fine. Want to play tic tac toe? If you win, I’ll Venmo you $100.

JAY SHETTY: Okay.

SHELBY SAPP: If you lose, nothing happens and I just give you all your pens back.

JAY SHETTY: Okay.

SHELBY SAPP: The only trick is, where’s your pen?

JAY SHETTY: I don’t have one.

SHELBY SAPP: Well, I’m selling all of these pens for five dollars each. I will let you choose, basically five dollar entry fee in order to only have an upside in order to win a hundred dollars. Which one would you like?

JAY SHETTY: The red or the white one?

SHELBY SAPP: Obviously this is a joke, you guys, right? So it’s obviously a joke. But what it is is it’s another concept of a pattern interrupt. And sometimes when you’re selling something, you know, people expect you just to try to sell a pen when that, that’s the whole trick.

So the whole trick of it is, and I’ll show you a little bit of a more tangible way to sell a pen after this, but the trick with the time old “sell me this pen” is everybody wants you just to start selling the pen, right? Oh, this pen is so amazing. It’s all black monochrome signature engraving right here. It never runs out of ink. It’ll look nice on your desk. Nobody cares about your pen, right? Literally nobody cares.

So what you would do is you would one, break the pattern, be different. What I just did is obviously a little bit of a joke, but it is different. And then number two with this is I’m selling an experience. I’m like, hey, play me. The upside is I’ll literally right now Venmo you 100 bucks. Yeah, but the entry fee, I created a need by gathering all your pens, even in the other room, the entry fee is $5. Do you want to play or not?

Well, obviously someone would probably take a $5 to get a hundred dollars. And then the other thing is too, if you just create something that’s clear, super simple, a lot of people try to over complicate the sales process. It’s just problem solution.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah.

SHELBY SAPP: Your problem was, you know, you probably wanted to play, but you didn’t have any pens.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah.

SHELBY SAPP: And my solution was giving you back one of your pens. So the right way to actually sell the pen though, right? If anybody ever asks someone that’s watching, how do you sell the pen? It’s a trick to see if you are a trained sales rep. So don’t do this. This is just a joke, right?

But what you would do is you would hold the pen and you’d be like, I mean, why would you even want a pen? What do you do for work? Yeah, what do you do for work?

JAY SHETTY: I have a podcast. I write books and I coach people.

SHELBY SAPP: Okay, do you write books? Probably on a laptop though, right? Everything’s online.

JAY SHETTY: I have a laptop.

SHELBY SAPP: So what would you even use a pen for?

JAY SHETTY: Yeah, barely use a pen. Maybe randomly to sign checks, but very rarely.

SHELBY SAPP: Oh, to sign checks.

JAY SHETTY: Very rarely. Because now it’s DocuSign and for sure.

SHELBY SAPP: Yeah, yeah. So take me through signing a check. Is that someone’s paycheck or is that to pay for something?

JAY SHETTY: Maybe it’s to pay for something, but so rare I can’t even remember the last time I did it.

SHELBY SAPP: And it’s always one of those things where it’s like, you don’t need a pen until you need a pen, right?

JAY SHETTY: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Or maybe I doodle while I’m on the phone. Yeah, sometimes I’m just playing around.

SHELBY SAPP: So on the phone with someone where you’re trying to write down notes about a conversation.

JAY SHETTY: I still like writing down notes. Yeah. By hand, probably.

SHELBY SAPP: Yeah. Okay, so somebody calls you up and they give you amazing, tangible advice for your podcast or your next book. And in that moment, you don’t want to go on your notes app because you’re trying to stay focused, stay concerned, right? You reach over for a pen, kind of like how we just did, and this guy pops up.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah.

SHELBY SAPP: It looks like this. Yeah.

JAY SHETTY: Going that fast.

SHELBY SAPP: How do you feel writing down million dollar advice with this pen? Probably not the best, right?

JAY SHETTY: Because I’m thinking someone’s, someone in the office is chewed on it.

Selling Peace of Mind, Not Products

SHELBY SAPP: Chewing on it, right? Do you want to take down million dollar advice with a 50 cent Sharpie pen that’s been chewed on? Probably not, right? But then this pen is on your table instead, you know, instead of that one reaching for it, maybe it has gum on it because it’s been in the bottom of a backpack instead.

This pen always stays on your office no matter what, even though you’ll probably never use it because everything’s on DocuSign. But when you do need it, it’ll be right there. It’s not about the pen, it’s about peace of mind that when that one person does call you, you won’t be frantic trying to search for another pen. It’ll just be right there. And you can just write down all the advice.

So I would sell, basically your leverage point was I don’t need a pen, but I could, right? It’s like I don’t really use. So I did the leverage of insurance. You know, it’s like you might not need one tomorrow, but when you do need one, you’re going to really need one and you want to have the peace of mind that it will be there.

So what did I do? So I asked questions in order to understand context of what you do for work, why you would even want it, what the scenario would be if you had a pen that you didn’t like versus a pen that you loved and just looked at it and felt super confident about writing, you know, that next book or writing somebody’s advice down or, you know, signing someone’s paycheck is a big deal as well. Hiring someone, first impressions matter.

So you kind of extrapolate whatever you are selling from the actual object and you broaden it out into something that somebody actually cares about. Which for you, it’s peace of mind in order to be prepared at every point in time.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah. What’s impressive is at no point did you sell me the pen.

SHELBY SAPP: No, none.

JAY SHETTY: At no point were you like, look at the color. Look how it will make you. You didn’t even try and sell me the prestige of it. You weren’t like, oh, if you hold this pen, everyone’s going to think you’re fat. Because I don’t care about that.

SHELBY SAPP: Because nobody cares.

JAY SHETTY: Because nobody cares. And it’s so interesting because I think we’re constantly trying to think we know what the other person wants. So if someone like me walks in to wherever you’re assuming I want to be certain things, or if someone sees you walking and they assume that, oh, well, Shelby’s character profile must be this, this, and this. It’s like, I don’t know until I talk to you. Yeah.

SHELBY SAPP: There are so many times. And this is actually my biggest pet peeve when I’m getting sold is somebody will look at you and make a stereotype out of it. It’s like, I walk into a car dealership, and people think, I don’t know what I’m talking about. They think that daddy’s just going to swipe, you know, I’m going to use my dad’s credit card to buy some vehicle. Or, you know, they can charge me a bunch because I know nothing about the sales process.

When in reality, if a sales rep, instead of making assumptions, just stopped and just asked, you would actually get to know people, and then you can help them through simple problem and solutions. That’s why everybody thinks sales is manipulation and trying to push things on people. It’s not. It’s literally just taking a step back, asking questions, getting to know somebody. And if it works, then you can plug and play your solution and empower them in order to make a decision that will genuinely change their life.

Recognizing Brush-Off Objections

JAY SHETTY: When you’re actually in practice with it, when you see it, what you were just doing, you’re like, yeah, no point did I feel forced. At no point did I feel like. And if I had said to you, no, I never use a pen, I don’t need it at all, you probably would.

SHELBY SAPP: I would be like, okay, awesome. You’re not a qualified.

JAY SHETTY: Exactly. Yeah. And I think that’s partly as well, where it’s like, yeah, if I would have closed the conversation. Whereas I was actually thinking, I mean.

SHELBY SAPP: I probably roll that objection a couple times.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah. Yeah.

SHELBY SAPP: Well, when somebody gives you, straight off the bat, not interested, what they’re doing is, it’s called a brush off objection. It’s not a true objection. What do you mean? You’re not interested. You haven’t even seen what we have to offer, so I wouldn’t say that, but that’s what I’m thinking. Right.

Obviously they’re not interested, but they’re not interested in the time spent with you rather than what you have to offer. So when they brush you off, you brush it right back off. Yeah. Know for sure I’ll just take two seconds out of your day to talk about X, Y, Z. You literally just keep going.

And if somebody is a qualified buyer, they will take the time to actually talk to you, and you can roll that objection into more time, which then you can sell. Can I have a drink of that one?

JAY SHETTY: Of course. Yeah, of course you can. Do you like that flavor? Would you like another thing?

SHELBY SAPP: I think it’s a blue one that you gave me or blue.

JAY SHETTY: Was it blue?

SHELBY SAPP: Peach. Oh, no, we have a. We don’t have any blueberry anymore. We have.

JAY SHETTY: I don’t think it was blueberry. It was, like, some berry.

SHELBY SAPP: It was a raspberry or cherry. Lime.

JAY SHETTY: It was raspberry.

SHELBY SAPP: Should we get you that one?

JAY SHETTY: I think this will be good.

SHELBY SAPP: Okay, fine. If you want that one, I can get you that one.

JAY SHETTY: But they’re really good.

SHELBY SAPP: Thank you. You’re the best.

JAY SHETTY: Do they not have caffeine in them?

SHELBY SAPP: They do have caffeine with the same amount of cup of tea. So there is caffeine in it, but it’s a natural amount. That’s a decaf one, though.

JAY SHETTY: Oh, yeah.

SHELBY SAPP: You want one with caffeine?

JAY SHETTY: Yeah, yeah.

SHELBY SAPP: So we need to get you the raspberry one. That’s the one that has. That’s the one that has a caffeine.

JAY SHETTY: Okay. Okay.

SHELBY SAPP: Yeah. You’re like, I need to.

JAY SHETTY: I’m like, oh, never mind.

SHELBY SAPP: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

JAY SHETTY: No purpose.

SHELBY SAPP: We have caffeine and decaf.

JAY SHETTY: Okay. Okay. That’s cool. Yeah.

SHELBY SAPP: All right, so we’re going to test you on the objections.

JAY SHETTY: You got to know them.

Handling Common Sales Objections

SHELBY SAPP: Okay. The first one is it’s too expensive.

JAY SHETTY: So a lot of people think that, you know, you’re comparing a price versus nothing. Right. But the price is what you pay today. The cost is what you pay years down the line when you don’t solve the issue. So you said your business is bleeding $15,000 a month revenue, right?

SHELBY SAPP: Yeah.

JAY SHETTY: So you don’t just walk away and just, you know, pay nothing. It’s actually comparing, you know, a $5,000 solution to your problem versus a cost of, you know, 60 grand down the line over a couple months. So which one are you more comfortable paying, the price or the cost?

SHELBY SAPP: Right? Yeah.

JAY SHETTY: You just reframe it.

SHELBY SAPP: Yeah, yeah. And it is good because half the time that person hasn’t done that reframe either. All right. I need some time to think about it.

JAY SHETTY: Do you need quantity of time or quality of time?

SHELBY SAPP: Quality. It’s like, I really need to digest what you’ve told me to do.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah, I’m glad you said that. A lot of people think they just need quantity of time, which is, you know, a couple days, weeks, whatever, but few people actually understand, which I’m glad you do, that you need quality time, which is the quality of information that’s in front of you, but also quality time to sit down and make a well thought out decision. Right.

I’m literally the same way. But like I said, we have 20 minutes left of intentional time on this call. You’re busy. I know. As soon as you shut this laptop off, it’s like, you got kids, you got to run the business, all the things. So we have 20 minutes left of intentional time, and I’ve got all of the information right here in front of us in order to make a well decision.

SHELBY SAPP: I need to check with my wife.

JAY SHETTY: And you will. You’re either going to come to her, though, with a problem or a solution. You know, a problem of, hey, honey, I really want to do this, but I don’t know if I should. Or, hey, honey, I found somebody that can really help me solve my problem that I’ve been wanting. I really trust it and I thank you for your support. Which one do you think would go over better with your wife? Probably the solution. Right.

Also another one I love for that, and I’ve never talked about this either, is the flip flop up. So, for example, if somebody tells me, you know, I need to talk to my husband or my wife, I’ll just be like, no problem. Can I challenge that? Yeah. Okay, awesome.

So if instead of it being me and you talking, what if it was me and your wife, you know, and she came to me and she’s saying, I’m going through this, this and that, and I finally found someone that I think can solve my problem, and I really want to do it, but I want to check with my husband first. Would you support her in making that decision? You probably would, right? So is it fair to say that she’d probably support you in the same way that you support her?

SHELBY SAPP: Right.

JAY SHETTY: And this works really well if you’re talking to a woman. If you, instead of saying the husband thing because she’ll be like, why want him to talk to me? You know, it works really well if you flip it and you’re like, let’s say it’s your best friend, you know, and she’s sitting here going through this, going through the same thoughts, would you tell her to do it? You know, probably would. Right.

Well, is it fair to say other people would probably tell you to do it too. So putting people kind of outside of themselves and looking at the situation from an unbiased third party perspective and being like, what would you tell that person to do right now? Because you’re saying to me that you really want to do it. You’d probably say to do it. Right, let’s do it. So, yeah, I gave you two on that one.

SHELBY SAPP: Yeah, yeah, I appreciate it. And now’s not a good time.

JAY SHETTY: To talk or to make a decision about something.

SHELBY SAPP: I’ve just got so much going on. Like, I’ve got family stuff. I’m exhausted. I just know for sure. I just don’t think that was a good time.

JAY SHETTY: Can I challenge that?

SHELBY SAPP: I don’t know, I just, I don’t know if I have the bandwidth for right now.

JAY SHETTY: No, for sure. And I’ll just make it easier for you because you know the bandwidth to think about things over a long period of time by yourself, it just, that’s how stress gets created. Right. So I’ll just clear that up for you.

So when you say you don’t have the time, you know, to think about it and process the bandwidth, a lot of people think that they need to be in a situation where they have every single ounce of intentional time. But in fact, the best decisions are made in the gray area. Some of the best companies were started in the recession. It’s because while everybody else is moving forward, you need to be the person that maybe takes a step back, but while everybody else is sleeping, you need to be the person that makes a decision in order to get better.

So what do you want to be right now? Someone that just follows along with what everybody else is doing or someone that actually moves forward when everybody else is kind of just moving along? Are you going to wait for life to happen to you or are you going to make your life happen for you right now?

SHELBY SAPP: And sometimes people may even take them be like, I still need time, but you’ve helped them think about it in a different way.

JAY SHETTY: So I always start every objection with I hear you. Can I challenge that thought? Because it allows you to separate the objection from you. I’m not saying can I challenge you? You know, it’s not me versus you. It’s like, hey, can I challenge that thinking for a second? And it’s like a lot of people think this, but it’s actually, this will help you get one step closer to your goal.

How to Ask for a Raise

SHELBY SAPP: Yeah, I love that. These were some other things that came in from social, of people, of things they’re struggling with. So how should this, we’re moving away from the objections. How should someone approach a conversation to ask for a raise?

JAY SHETTY: Oh, so step number one is you have to have some sort of experience behind you and some sort of numbers in order to deserve a raise. You can’t just get hired the first day and ask for a raise, or you can’t be the worst employee ever and ask for a raise. So you have to have a reason to ask for a raise. So that means be the best at your job. Right. Have some sort of reason in order to ask for a raise.

Then when you ask for a raise, have other competitors’ data in order to compare to. So for example, if I want to ask for a raise from you, I would go to one of your competitors and say, hey, I’ve been working for Jay Shetty for a while. We’ve done X amount of revenue with him. What is the offer that you have for me?

Then I would take it back to you and I would say, hey, Jay, I love working for you and I’m really sold on the long game with you. Like, I want to grow with this company and I want to stay here, but I need to make it make sense for me just on a monetary standpoint, because I have other competitors, such as this guy and this guy offering me a little bit more. So I want to stay with you. That’s why I want to have this conversation be, you know, grounded with it. But I just need it to make a little bit more sense on the financial side in order to grow with you long term.

So even if you don’t believe that you’re going to be with this company long term, you need to sell the long game and sell the vision to your employer. Because like you said, that’s the leverage point that an employer has, is they want to invest in people for the long game. So, hey, I want to be here for a long time, but in order for me to put all of my resources here, I need a little bit back because other people are recognizing my value. And I’m not saying you don’t, but I need it to make it make a little bit more sense for me.

Preparing for Job Interviews

SHELBY SAPP: What about if someone’s going to interview with a company, what are the top three things they need to show?

JAY SHETTY: Numbers, what you’ve done for the company. I would say audit what you can do better and have a mathematical easy game plan way to show what you can do with the company given the raise. So you can’t just ask for a raise just because you deserve it. Corporate America does not like entitlement. Right.

But people will pay you if they think there’s an upside. So this is creating value, right? It’s, hey, if you pay me $20,000 more, I’m going to generate $800,000 a year more for the company, and I’m willing to do this, this, and this for it.

It’s just like in sales, you can’t drop the price when negotiating with someone for no reason. Right. You need to actually have a reason and justify a price drop in order to not sound salesy. Right. So data. And then also have a clear game plan. And you want to make it super easy for someone to say yes to you and say, hey, if I give this girl a promotion, this is exactly what we’re going to get for her. Okay, awesome. Let’s do it.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah. How do you deal with it when you don’t get what you want? Like, what’s the right response?

SHELBY SAPP: Never burn the bridge. That’s a very good question that not a lot of people talk about. You never burn the bridge because a no isn’t a no forever. It could be just maybe later. It could be, you know, a little bit of insight to where you need to improve a couple things and then ask again when you have more leverage there. So just know that a no isn’t forever. It’s just not right now.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah, I think it comes back to what we’ve been talking about, this whole conversation where it’s like when you deal with rejection badly, it starts to affect everything because then you’re like, you know, it could go in multiple ways. You’re shrinking yourself. Your mood’s a bit dull. You’re not walking in with that smile and with that confidence that you had, and all of a sudden, it’s affecting everything.

SHELBY SAPP: Yeah, for sure.

Interviewing for a Job: What Employers Really Look For

JAY SHETTY: It’s crazy how quickly we kind of shut the door on ourselves. What about if you’re going to interview for a job for the first time? So what are interviewers looking for when you’re interviewing for a job?

SHELBY SAPP: Right. So they’re looking for people that are bought in on the long term vision. Exactly. But they’re looking for people that ask really good questions, that show that you kind of know what you’re doing through the questions that you ask.

So for example, if you want to become a remote closer and you get on an interview with someone and they’re like, so what made you apply? And you’re like, I just really want to make more money. I just want sales experience. What is that? That’s all about me. Nobody cares about what you want. Right. They care about what you can do for them in the context of the situation.

So instead of, oh, I really want to make money, blah, blah, it’s, hey, I’ve been following X creator, X mentor for so long. I have this sales background and I would, I’ve been closing for other offers, right. But I would love to close for her offer because I have true conviction in what she’s selling and I want to help you guys grow your business. So it’s all about making the game plan clear, but also using the leverage points of the other person, not yourself.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah, absolutely. I think the amount of people that interview these days and they don’t have that.

SHELBY SAPP: It’s entitlement.

JAY SHETTY: It’s, yeah. The answer’s just, it shocks you sometimes you’re like, someone, I’ve interviewed people and they’ve said things to me like, yeah, I just didn’t like what I was doing.

SHELBY SAPP: Right.

JAY SHETTY: And it’s like, yeah, I’m like, cool. Like, that’s fair. Like, I get it. I’ve not liked certain jobs that I have.

SHELBY SAPP: Right.

JAY SHETTY: But you don’t want to be here.

SHELBY SAPP: You want to come off as someone that is ready to do the most, ready to go above and beyond and doesn’t just see it as a position. Because from an employer’s perspective, we don’t want someone who just wants to show up and do the bare minimum. We want someone who sees the value so much in themselves and takes pride in their work and is bought in on the long term vision.

So if you embody that, you should be good to go for an interview and asking questions that relate to, you know, the business, you know, what’s your guys’s close rate? What’s your guys’s lead flow? Tell me about the offer. When you make the interviewer sell themselves on why you should work for them. Yeah, you want that in that sales, it’s taking a step back and saying, well, I mean, I’m interviewing for a few positions, but I just wanted to know a little bit more about how you guys do this, what your process is, what it would look like if I did get hired, what your salary is like, and then I can come back to you with a decision.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah. And I think there’s a lot of test of your worth, too. Like, for example, if you’re going to be confident enough to say, I’ve got these offers and I’m doing that, that you better back it up because that person may also just go, yeah, good for you. Like, we don’t need you either. And I feel like sometimes if it’s all a story, then it doesn’t always play well.

I do a lot of corporate coaching work. That’s where most of our coaching is in me working with large organizations. And I have, there’s a few experiences I’ve had. The first time I had an experience, when I first began, this was maybe, I don’t know, 10 years ago, maybe even 12 years ago. Before the brand and, yeah, so maybe even longer. And I remember being in an office and I asked all the questions, and before I was about to give my solution to their problem, I realized that my solution did solve their problem. And so I remember just going.

SHELBY SAPP: You were?

JAY SHETTY: Yeah. I literally just went, all right, great, thank you. And I walked in and I was like, thank you so much. I just want to be honest with you. I don’t think I have what you need, but really grateful. And I hope we can keep this conversation open. And fast forward five years from that point, I went back and sold a really great contract to this client.

SHELBY SAPP: There you go.

JAY SHETTY: Because they could see the honesty too. Where I was, I was happy to be like, guys, you know what? Actually, I don’t have anything you need, but I will come back.

Ethical Sales and Long-Term Thinking

SHELBY SAPP: Exactly. And that’s ethical sales, because you can sell someone and then walk away from the conversation, and both of you guys don’t feel good about it, and that doesn’t do any good at all. So it’s when you sell someone or when you apply for an interview and you are really trying to sell yourself, do you genuinely believe that you can provide this business value? Because that doesn’t just come off in the words that you say, that comes off in your energy.

And I’m sure you could feel when you kind of felt like, oh, I might not be ready for this right now, your energy was probably like, oh, wait, I don’t know what I got myself into. But that’s why you really need to build the data points in order to have conviction in yourself or whatever you’re selling in order to show up that way and energetically be like, I’m here. I deserve this. Let’s go cancel all the other interviews, because I’m your person. And until then, I like how you just kept the bridge open.

JAY SHETTY: You didn’t burn it, and it worked out. And I’ve had that with so many things that we’re doing right now, where I got rejected from something seven years ago, and this year, it will become one of the most exciting parts of our business. And it’s like there’s just seven years of relearning, patience, figuring it out, developing new skills.

And I just think that long game is so healthy for everyone to always play, because your current employer may write you a reference one day. Your current employer maybe end up being one of your biggest clients. You just have no idea. I worked at a company called Accenture, and Accenture was a place that invited me back to do so many keynotes when my career took off. But if I hadn’t had a good relationship with them, we’re left on good terms. To your point of burning again. Well, then that wouldn’t have been the case.

SHELBY SAPP: Exactly.

JAY SHETTY: And I feel like there’s too much shortsightedness now because we think there’s lots of opportunities, but at the top, everyone knows each other.

SHELBY SAPP: Exactly. But I think what you’re saying is exactly what someone listening should take away from it, which is it’s not a yes or a no. It’s a yes or a lesson. And so sometimes the lessons are more valuable than if you got that contract or you got that client years ago, because the lesson taught you to never walk into a situation like that again. And so sometimes that lesson can be way more valuable than getting what you want in the moment.

Talking About Your Strengths Without Ego

JAY SHETTY: Yeah. Couple more of these before we go to the final five. This one’s great. What’s the right way to talk about your strengths without overselling or apologizing?

SHELBY SAPP: So I like to sprinkle in, you can call them testimonials or subtle ways to flex. Right. I subtly threw it in there, but then extrapolated a lesson from it that pertains to the other person. Because people don’t care about your flex. They care about what your flex can do for them. So you can use it, but use it as a lesson in order to provide value to somebody else.

JAY SHETTY: Ego just always is such a turn off. I don’t know, I generally just struggle so much when someone I feel is egotistical. And the way I think about the difference between confidence and ego is evidence and reflection. So it’s like if someone can give me evidence and they can reflect on the evidence to prove that it’s real experience. Now it doesn’t feel like a name drop and doesn’t feel like a number drop, which just feels like it’s a bit disgusting.

SHELBY SAPP: I hate when people name drop. It’s my least favorite thing.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah.

SHELBY SAPP: When somebody name drops or says, you know, all these different numbers, it is a literal indicator that they probably don’t have the skills in order to do what I need them to do because they feel like they have to name drop or they feel like they have to, you know, show their numbers.

I would also challenge that, though, because it is a very fine line with when you’re, you know, new to a space, there’s a lot of people that might not know who you are. So sometimes, you know, the numbers that you’ve done for a company or your experience will speak volumes. And so nobody’s going to sell yourself like you will. So sometimes it’s a fine line of not having ego, but it’s also a line of being loud about your accomplishments when they are valid and shouting it from the rooftop because you deserved it if you worked for it. But it is a very fine line.

The Most Challenging Sales Call

JAY SHETTY: Yeah. Which sales call or sales deal challenged you the most?

SHELBY SAPP: Oh, that’s a great question. Okay, so I was talking to a gay guy. Okay. Love talking to gay guys. So fun. It was very girls girl vibe, energy. He was awesome. Okay. He keeps giving me the spouse objection. I keep rolling it, blah, blah, blah. Keeps giving me the spouse objection. I’m like, okay, fine, we keep rolling it.

Then his spouse walks in the frame, sits down. I’m talking to spouse and spouse again, okay? So I’m like, okay, awesome. Now I know the other spouse is the decision maker. Kind of turn the attention of the sale towards him because I know the decision lies in his hands. Right. That’s what you need to do.

Then I’m talking to him. He goes, I need to talk to my husband. So I look at this guy and I’m like, you brat. I thought it was him, not you. We could have had this done a long time ago. What’s the issue. And so I, you know, direct to him. He says, I need to talk to my husband. I redirect to him. He goes, no, I really need to talk to my husband. He’s not here right now. And I go, is there three of you?

JAY SHETTY: No.

SHELBY SAPP: And it was a throuple. No, it was a gay throuple. But let me tell you, the way that I closed this deal, I sincere closed them. And I go, you guys, this is one for the books. I was like, I’ve never been in this situation and you guys are going to use someone, probably the next person that comes up, you’re going to have to buy something at some point because you do have some issues. I want that person to be me. I’ve never sold a throuple before in my life. I would die to be able to go tell my boss and my co workers that I just had this experience. Would you guys please allow me just the glory of having, you know, my first throuple sale and they still send me Christmas cards to this day.

JAY SHETTY: I love that it’s kind of a.

SHELBY SAPP: Funny sale, but it was just funny. I was so backwards. I was mad at them because I was like, I thought you were the decision maker, but it’s you. But it’s you. But it’s you. Wait, they’re not here with us, are they?

JAY SHETTY: That’s incredible. That’s wild.

SHELBY SAPP: It was pretty crazy. I was actually speechless.

JAY SHETTY: So you’re pretty much prepared, because obviously that’s something you’d never prepare for. You’re pretty much prepared.

SHELBY SAPP: Oh yeah.

JAY SHETTY: For any direction it can go in. And when you’re training people, you’re training them in sales, training for every scenario possible.

Training for Every Possible Scenario

SHELBY SAPP: Yeah. So you have to train like things are going to go wrong. You have to train for payment links not working. You have to train for your Zoom maybe crashing. You have to train for different objections, different scenarios if they need to call their bank, like different things. You just need to preempt them rather than waiting for some monstrosity to happen and then you attack it then and there.

Like you always need to preempt every sort of objection. And so then the follow up question is probably like, how do you preempt objections? Well, you kind of get key indicators from someone you’re talking about. So if I’m talking to a girl, we’ll call her Stacy. And Stacy’s wearing like a fat rock on her finger. I know Stacy’s married, right? So later on into the call, she might give me the spouse objection. Or she might be saying words like “we” when we did this, “us.” Okay, there’s probably someone else in the picture that’s not on the call.

I might ask Stacy, like, have you ever signed up for something like this in the past? And if she did, okay, were you the one that made the decision? Or is there anyone else you know in the picture for that? If there is anyone else in the picture, you got to get them on the call. But if not, easy, you just preempted the objection.

So you always plan for things, and that’s just, that’s how a well funneled sale works. Everybody thinks that sales is overcoming every objection in the book ten times over with every client. And it’s not. It’s just creating a trusted buying atmosphere and true rapport with someone and just a good energy around the sale that makes it so easy for someone to say yes.

Why We Invest in Things But Not Ourselves

JAY SHETTY: Yeah. Why do you think we’re all so, like, ready to save up for a month to buy a bag but struggle to invest in ourselves?

SHELBY SAPP: Right. It’s because you’re worried about what everybody else thinks. You’re shifting perception from how do I feel about myself to how do other things, other people feel about me? Because buying a bag, I mean, if you want to buy a bag, you can do that, right? Like, if it makes you feel good. Like, I love buying designer. Like, if it makes you feel good. But buying it just for other people when you have other priorities is where it becomes an issue.

Like, I never bought designer until maybe like a year ago.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah.

SHELBY SAPP: Even though I could. It’s just I had so many other things I wanted to check off. I wanted to do rental properties, networking events, hire mentors, move. Like, there were so many other things that mattered to me more than just worrying about other people’s perceptions. Because nobody’s really thinking about you as much as you think.

It’s a, there’s a metaphor. It’s called, like, the invisible guest at a wedding. Like, you show up to a wedding and you want your hair to be perfect. You’re worried about what dress to wear. You’re worried about the conversations that you’re having with people when everybody’s thinking that. Yeah. And you’ll probably never see a lot of these people again. So you’re so in your head, but so is everybody else.

And so in somebody else’s perception, you are just the invisible wedding guest. They won’t remember you. So why worry about if every single word is going to be perfect? And you can carry that into everything in sales. Nobody knows what you’re supposed to say. They don’t know your script. If you mess up, you just roll with it. You keep going like this podcast.

I don’t want to be perfect. If I was perfect, I would be AI and I wouldn’t be relatable to people. So just know that, you know, some sort of respect of I don’t have to be perfect. In fact, it’s better if I’m not perfect. That is what makes you human and that is what makes your story so amazing to inspire other people.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And, and also, I just feel like, I guess what I was getting at was this idea of we don’t even know we’re being sold by most of the people that are selling to us. Like, there are just certain life choices we feel we made independently, but we were all sold on what it meant.

SHELBY SAPP: Oh, yeah.

JAY SHETTY: And, and it’s like, but when it comes to investing in ourselves, building our skills, learning, it’s almost like we’re scared to part with our hard earned money because it feels in some way like we’re being sold to.

SHELBY SAPP: Well, investing into yourself is one of the most freeing things that you can do. If it’s something that will give you an ROI. There’s obviously a lot of things that you probably shouldn’t invest into, but if you have a clear goal, you should feel super confident in investing in yourself if it qualifies for ROI. Return on investment.

If you can be super clear about, if I put this amount of money in, what will I get out and what doors will that unlock for me? If you can feel good about that, give and take, then you should make the decision for yourself. And I think the tables are kind of turning in a lot of ways with younger people because I think a lot of people love investing in themselves. They love buying an outfit to wear to an interview because it makes them feel a little bit more confident.

Like, I think we’re kind of shifting away from, you know, the stigma around, oh, you shouldn’t spend money on yourself. Right. I think we’re kind of shifting away from that. So I’m very happy for that era.

The Final Five

JAY SHETTY: Yeah, absolutely. Shelby, you’re awesome. This is so much fun. I learned so much. I think my audience learned so much. And I know, like you just said, you just recorded a six hour sales training for free for YouTube. So I’m excited for people to go subscribe to your channels, follow you on Instagram, on YouTube, everywhere else.

We end every episode of On Purpose with a final five. These have to be answered in one word or one sentence maximum. Okay, so, Shelby, these are your final five. Question number one. What is the best advice you’ve ever heard or received?

SHELBY SAPP: To go as fast as possible. Never slow down.

JAY SHETTY: I like that. No one’s ever said that before.

SHELBY SAPP: I can’t elaborate.

JAY SHETTY: You can. Go on. I’ll let you. I’ll let you. I’ll let you.

SHELBY SAPP: Everybody always says, you know, take it slow. You have time. You deserve a break. Like, just chill. When in reality, you don’t. You literally have no time. There is urgency. You need to use every single waking moment to strategize what you want out of this life. And then as soon as you’re clear on it, work yourself backwards.

And the cool thing is, when you’re clear on your goal, that urgency does kick in. If you’re like, I don’t have the urgency. When you know exactly what you want, the urgency kicks in because you’re like, well, how fast can I get there? And don’t go with other people’s timelines. Just because some people have what you want by 45 doesn’t mean you have to wait till you’re 45 to have it. You can literally give it to yourself now if you just work really hard and go fast.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah. Well said. Yeah. I feel like that idea of moving fast, you will break things. But if you didn’t move fast, you wouldn’t have had the progress and the growth. And I can relate to that. I was 28 when I started all of this, and, and we moved extremely fast in the last 10 years. And when you’re doing that, certain things.

SHELBY SAPP: Chaotic and it’s messy, but you learn as you go. That’s the only way to do it.

JAY SHETTY: Absolutely. And I think if we tried to go any slower, we wouldn’t exist.

SHELBY SAPP: Exactly. Yeah.

JAY SHETTY: Be around. Yeah, I love that.

SHELBY SAPP: I think the same for myself. In college, everybody told me to slow down or, why are you doing this? And that. Like, I got an accelerated master’s degree and an honors finance degree, which don’t use either of those. But again, like, every single ounce of hard work that you put into yourself never goes to waste. Right. I learned work ethic and whatever, but every summer that I was doing that, I was knocking doors, selling pest control in Minnesota heat to strangers.

So it’s like I was going so fast, I never had a second that I was just bored. And maybe that comes from trauma or whatever, but I think that also just builds some sort of work ethic where you’re like, there’s so much urgency. Like, I need to go. Like, there is nobody else that, that’s going to save me right now. Nobody’s going to come in and build your life for you. You need to go, and everybody in your life is going to tell you, slow down, take a break. Oh, you’re doing so good. Why don’t you just be happy here?

It’s because your speed and your growth makes their lack of growth and lack of speed feel inferior. That’s the only thing it means. And you’re making them feel uncomfortable because of how much you’re doing in such a short amount of time. So you need to be able to filter out, like, what other people are saying about you and why they’re saying that. Take it for face value. You know, you don’t need to attack it. But just know if you have goals and priorities, why have it take 10 years? If you could have it take two, literally, why you might as well do it now.

And especially if, like, a woman’s watching this that doesn’t have kids yet, you need to go now. Your day is all about you. You know, if you don’t have other kids, other people in your life to tend to, you have so much free time that you can put into yourself and go as fast as possible and speedrun it. Because as soon as, like, if you want to grow a family one day, you’ve got a lot of other stuff to do, and you’re probably going to be like, damn, why didn’t I do all this side hustle things or extra learning on the side when I had the free time to do so? So it’s a very finite amount of time where you can go fast and you need to take advantage of it.

JAY SHETTY: Absolutely. Wow. That was, that was a very motivational.

SHELBY SAPP: Thank you. You’re like, what am I going to do tonight?

JAY SHETTY: This is, like, amazing. Like, I’m not, I’m not even a woman. And that was like, that got me right there.

SHELBY SAPP: Men and women.

JAY SHETTY: It’s like, no, but I know you were. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I agree, I agree. My mentor, who, and I forget how old he is now, but he was like, that’s not good. That’s not like that. I was, what. But when I was 28, he was like, 55, so I’m 10 years older. So he’s like 65. And he used to always told me, he was like, Jay, before you have kids, you can move 200% for sure. Put your foot down on the pedal, like, do everything for sure. And he was absolutely right. Like, he’s absolutely right. Like, it was just for the past 10 years I’ve had my foot down on the gas and I don’t regret a second.

SHELBY SAPP: Exactly.

JAY SHETTY: It’s been the best thing ever.

SHELBY SAPP: You’ve built a foundation. We built more than just a foundation. But you built it. And so now like when you, you are able to have kids, you can like enjoy that and be a little bit more present and not have to work out of survival.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah. Question number two. What is the worst advice you’ve ever heard or received?

SHELBY SAPP: Finish your master’s program.

JAY SHETTY: Did you finish it?

SHELBY SAPP: Yeah, I got a master’s degree by 22.

JAY SHETTY: What was your master’s in?

SHELBY SAPP: Business.

JAY SHETTY: Wow.

Recognizing When You Don’t Belong (In a Good Way)

SHELBY SAPP: Yeah, so it was in business development, but it didn’t really do much. We had a teacher. It was like, you have four different types of teachers for the four different types of business. One of them was sales and negotiation. And I was in door to door sales, like making a ton of money, like loved it. And this professor was teaching the most menial, like kindergarten level sales tactics.

And I’m like, this is what people are teaching you. I think there’s something to be said when you are someone that is in a situation, whether that be a job or school or a program, and you kind of look around and you don’t feel like you belong, but in a good way. I think it’s good to notice that, acknowledge it and let, if you still want to finish it, just to be able to say you did, I think that’s important.

But it’s also like, don’t follow that path. Then if you know that you’re better than everybody else around you in a non egotistical way, but you just know you’re special, you know, you’re destined for more than what you’re doing right now, that that’s okay.

And I think a lot of the people, when they told me, you know, just do things the normal way, why are you trying so hard? It’s like those people now are in a position where they’re asking me for advice and I’m like, well, there’s not really much advice to give because we both started off at the same exact playing field. It’s just some people go really f*ing fast and try a bunch of different things out and not everything worked out.

And I had to sacrifice nights, I had to sacrifice friendships, I had to sacrifice, you know, going out or whatever, but it’s worth it. So yeah, I wouldn’t have finished my master’s program if I know what I know now, but I mean, glad I did it.

Can Everyone Be Good at Sales?

JAY SHETTY: Yeah, that’s cool. Question number four, can everyone be good at sales or are certain people just not meant for it?

SHELBY SAPP: Everybody thinks you need to be extroverted in order to be good at sales and that’s actually false. And I’m not saying introverts are better than extroverts, even though a lot of introverts do do well in sales because you can build that empathy.

But it all comes down to internal motivation of I will do what I need to do right now, even if nobody’s watching. Which means on a sales call, people are going to tell you no. Are you going to sit there and roll a couple objections with them? Are you going to sit there and even though it’s a little uncomfy, are you going to do what you need to do in order to move the conversation forward or at the end of your day, are you satisfied or are you going to send out some follow up emails?

Are you going to text a couple clients from the day before to make sure you pick up every single deal that you possibly can? And those people, I would boil it down into one word and that’s hunger. You need to be hungry. You need to be maniacal in your work ethic and gritty. That’s who succeeds in sales, is who wants it the most and who does the most in order to get it.

Breaking Out of Laziness and Bad Habits

JAY SHETTY: What do people do when they just feel lazy, stuck? Maybe they’ve just wasted a bit of time and they’ve kind of developed bad habits.

SHELBY SAPP: I always ask her, what’s your morning routine? What are you doing today? What did you do before? Did you stop doing the things outside of your sales job that made you so great to where you got a little too cocky, to where you think you thought to yourself, I don’t need to show up to these trainings. I could skip a workout if I need. I don’t need to get a little bit of extra advice about this. I don’t need to rewatch my sales calls because I close everyone.

But money is a lagging indicator. So if you stop doing the things that got you to be so great, it might not affect you that day, but it’ll affect you in two months. And then you’ll wake up one day and be like, where did it all go? Well, because two months ago you stopped doing the things that made you great in the first place.

So sales is all about being the best. Yes. But staying at the top is a big stressor as well because you have to keep up with that level of pressure where everybody’s looking at you and saying, you’re the best closer on our team, like, what’s your secrets? But also being humble enough to know that you could go down the line at any point in time. So you need to keep doing the things that got you there.

Use the Cards You Were Dealt

JAY SHETTY: Yeah. Good advice. Good advice. Fifth and final question. We ask this to every guest who’s ever been on the show. Shelby, if you could create one law that everyone in the world had to follow, what would it be?

SHELBY SAPP: The law that you have to use the cards that you were dealt. A lot of the times I see women specifically feel bad about an unfair advantage that they’ve been dealt. Like, everybody has a deck of cards, right. And maybe one of your cards is you have family money. Like, you’ve got daddy’s money. Daddy did very well for himself, and you are financially set. Okay. Use that card and don’t feel bad about it.

Maybe one of your cards is you’re really good at talking to people. People don’t, try to humble yourself by doing something outside of your skill set, like, take that unfair advantage and use it. Or maybe you’re gorgeous. Go model. Go put yourself in front of a camera and go viral. Like, use every single unfair advantage and don’t ever feel bad about doing so.

So the law would be, I guess, just, yeah, you know, using all of the cards that you were dealt and not faking humility in order to, you know, play it fair. You don’t have to play fair. Nobody else is playing fair. So do what you can to get ahead with the cards that you were dealt.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah. Yeah. Well said. Yeah. I think there’s so many of us that totally do the opposite. Yeah, absolutely. Right.

SHELBY SAPP: Well, I see a lot, and I think it’s cool, too, though, on one hand, because it’s like, oh, you have family money, but you want to go make a name for yourself in a completely different facet. Like, great. But also it’s like, a lot of people have so many advantages in their book, and they don’t realize that they have them.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah, yeah.

SHELBY SAPP: You know, and it’s like, you do. You’re just not focusing on it, or you’re focusing on what’s in somebody else’s deck, and you’re not looking at yours, and you’re not doing things in order to get more cards in your deck. Again, building these skills, building experience for yourself in order to have more cards that you can be dealt. So I think a lot of people just don’t play the game of life to the full advantage that they could.

Final Thoughts

JAY SHETTY: Yeah. Well said, Shelby. Thank you so much. This is awesome. Your advice, your insight, your motivation and inspiration is contagious. And I can’t wait to see so many more people come to your work to be able to learn from you how to sell better, to negotiate better, to persuade better, get the raise they deserve, make the money they deserve, and really create abundance in the world where more people are living a more full life. So thank you so much.

SHELBY SAPP: I’m all for it. Yeah. Thank you so much.

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