The Sales Whisperer | Vanessa Horn

In this world of cold calls and predictable sales pitches, Vanessa Horn stands apart.

Over $100M sold. Zero manipulation. 100% human.

Yes, you read that right—over $100M.

Her approach isn’t about flashy scripts or aggressive pitches, but emotional intelligence, building real connections, and creating psychological safety for clients.

More of what we cover:

• How to use emotional intelligence in closing sales (no reading off scripts)
• Vanessa’s C.L.A.S.S.Y sales framework and why it works
• How to shatter the most persistent roadblock in sales

And here’s a BONUS: Vanessa takes us through a sales call in a raw, unscripted role-play. In fact, I found something to implement immediately that got me tangible results in my next sales call.

If you’ve ever dreaded a sales call, Vanessa will change your entire approach. Watch now.

Follow Vanessa Horn at:

https://www.theclassyclose.com/
https://www.vanessahorn.com/
https://www.facebook.com/VanessaHornSuccessCoach/
https://www.instagram.com/vanessahorn/
https://www.youtube.com/user/vanessahorn123
https://www.linkedin.com/in/vanessahorn/

Follow Ken Okazaki at:

https://www.instagram.com/kenokazaki/
https://www.youtube.com/c/KenOkazaki
https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-content-capitalists-with-ken-okazaki/id1634328251
https://open.spotify.com/show/09IzKghscecbI7jPDVBJTw

Content Capitalists YouTube

Transcript

I've now done thousands of sales calls myself. I've utilized it as a playground. I had this vision in my head of what sales was. The biggest mistake that coaches make is. The

Ken Okazaki: Hey, welcome to another episode of the Content Capitalist Podcast. Today I've got somebody who is a legend at sales. When I say legend, I think that there have been many seven figures that have passed through the work she's done. And I'm going to let her introduce herself because I think she's going to do a better job than me.

Vanessa Horn, welcome to the show.

Vanessa Horn: Thank you so much, Ken. It's a delight to be here.

Ken Okazaki: Thank you. Thank you. Now, Vanessa, I've always known you as somebody who is you know, At the cream of the crop, you know, the gold standard when it comes to sales, especially for coaches. But I think that there's more than just that. And could you give us the kind of the lay of the land? What is it you do?

There's a breadth of things, but I kind of like to get the update for 2024 October.

Vanessa Horn: 2024 October. What I have been focusing on in the last Gosh, at least eight years has been exclusively on the sales component when it comes to the coaching industry.

I became a coach back in 2011 and launched online. the common denominator and all the businesses that I started and I've sold a couple of them was the sales side of things. And as a matter of fact, when I became a coach, I saw that there wasn't, what I was being directed to do was not working at the time when it came to sales.

And I felt like there was several different options and none of them quite resonated with me. So I took some of the stuff that had worked in previous industries that had been in, and then put it into this industry and finally things clicked for me. But what really had me dial in on the sales side of things was the fact that.

Eight years ago, I had a severe adrenal burnout, a health crash. And I was like, what can I do that takes the least amount of energy from me and that I actually love and enjoy? And I was like. The enrollment conversations, that's like my favorite part, because it allows the opportunity to really identify what somebody's desire is that they want to create and help them create a tactical plan to accomplish that.

And so that's when I began focusing exclusively on.

t names that you know in this industry. And then that just grew and grew and grew into more and more people asking, Vanessa, can you do it for me? Can you do it for me? And there was limitations to my capacity. And so I built an agency. that trains up people in what I call the classy clothes, setters, closers, and managers.

So we can do full outsource management for usually seven figure coaching companies and take them to eight figures. And so I've personally have sold nine figures worth of coaching in my career. For all the clients that I've personally sold for in my own business and through our agency, we've done equivalent for the clients that we've served.

So that's what I've been focusing on. I

Ken Okazaki: I love it. Now, I've, I've always been impressed with the way you're able to lead a conversation. So, well, you said it best, classy. And I'm going to break down the acronym in a, in a minute. Were you going to mention that you were in the Inc.. 5000? Or do I have to ask you to brag about yourself a little bit?

Vanessa Horn International, right?

Vanessa Horn: Yes. We just got recognized in the Inc. 5,000, which meant that we're one of the 5,000 fastest growing companies privately held in the us. We were actually technically, I think number 2,247. We had 232% growth over the last. So definitely, as we've all seen, the coaching industry has had a big surge of growth.

I feel really proud to be behind the scenes with some amazing companies and be their secret weapon to their growth.

Ken Okazaki: I don't think you're going to be a secret weapon for long. I think that everybody talks about you, but it's going to be like, you know, not necessarily, you know, a huge billboard, but everybody talks about you as being the salesperson, the one who knows how to get it done.

Vanessa Horn: Thank you.

Ken Okazaki: Break that down for me. Class. You said you do the classy method and I know there's got an acronym behind that.

Could you walk us through what that is?

Vanessa Horn: Yeah. And, and I'll give you some context for why I do sales the way that I do. So I really believe in creating emotional and psychological safety.

So whenever you said being a master of how the call is, conducted, that is really, where's the come from of the person who's conducting the call. And what I've discovered is that there's so much as an As a matter of fact, one of my mentors, an Australian at that, back when I was in college, that I asked him, What should I go into?

What career should I go into? And he said, Vanessa, go into sales because it doesn't matter if it's a recession. It doesn't matter if a company goes out of business. There's always you, it's transferable to any industry. It's transferable to any company. And at the time I had this vision in my head of what sales was, maybe like a lot of people do where there was an aversion to it and thinking, I don't want to be one of those, You know, you sell a car salesperson who chases people down, nothing against you as car salesman, but there's like this image that people have in their mind of salespeople but meanwhile, I had this fascination and desire to understand people.

So I actually studied communications and the inner world of humans and what drives their behaviors and what drives their psychology andTheir economic choices, all of those things is such a fascinating field for me, but it wasn't until I actually became an entrepreneur because I had children, I had to learn the sales skills and it ended up being the secret weapon behind the companies that I started that made them be successful.

But the thing that informed the approach that I ended up adopting and infusing into the ClassyClose method. is that I have a very strong core value that is creating emotional and psychological safety because I grew up in a home where I did not have that. I had a mother who was extraordinarily abusive, emotionally, And so emotional and psychological safety was something that I had to learn what it meant to have healthy boundaries, what it meant to feel safe emotionally.

And so as a result in the sales conversations and experiences that a lot of people have, the salesperson isn't honoring the place that prospect is in. Yes, we want to be a champion champion for what they want to accomplish, but we don't want to override their will in a sense of being pushy and plowing through without actually listening at a deeper level.

And so creating emotional and psychological safety is abouthaving a sense of, emotional intelligence and emotional awareness to conduct that call with honor. And the analogy I give is, dancing. I love Latin dancing. I'm Brazilian. And so I think of dancing like if you're the lead in a dance.

you could plow your partner and take them where you want them to be, but it's so much more elegant. It's so much more graceful and it's so much more fun if the trust is there and you can feel them relax into the hold. And so I think of sales that way. I know where we're going to end up on the dance floor.

They might be a little bit resistant, so I'm going to create trust first in the conversation so that I can feel them relax, and then we can elegantly glide through the process. And so that's just to give some background as I go in through each one of these letters of the acronym of CLASI, that's the come from.

That I want to always instill in the salespeople that I train or when I teach people sales is I could, I'll give you words. I'll give you language that works magically. People say those are like magical words, Vanessa, but it's really, when you get the come from right, then those words come out naturally and authentically.

So, to answer your question though, 

Ken Okazaki: the C stands for connect. You want to create a quick connection, create that rapport. That's one thing that I do see very powerfully works is connection versus just coming in from a place of conversion, right?

Vanessa Horn: And so you want to connect. The L stands for lead. If you do not set the proper frame for the conversation and set that you're leading this, But yet there's a container where they can relax into it. Then you'll lose control of the call. Especially if you sell to people who are high D's, high, strong personalities, they'll hijack that call and they'll take it where they want to go.

And I've seen, Salespeople be completely derailed by it or coaches be derailed by that. And so you just create that immediately from the get go. So then you're taking that leadership position. The A is ask, and those are all the discoveries happening during that phase. And you're really identifying where are they at now?

Where do they want to be? What's getting in their way. then the S is to serve. I make an analogy of Swiss cheese. That we want to identify what are the holes in the cheese and we want to show them how we can fill the holes. Or if you're the coach and you're selling your own services, you might demonstrate by filling one hole.

But don't fill all the holes. My first 18 months as a coach, as a matter of fact, I did 280 hours of free sessions and didn't enroll a single client because I was doing a method of, Oh, what are all their challenges? And then I would do too much coaching and fill all the holes of their Swiss cheese that they'd be like, Oh my gosh, you've given me so much that they wouldn't.

Have a desire to continue working per se, because they weren't even asking that question. They just took it as a coaching session. So that's a common mistake people try to do. So the serve is just about showing how you can serve, how you can fill those holes of the Swiss cheese without doing so on the call itself.

And I do utilize models and frameworks. I do work for. with Simon Bowen very, very closely. He's the genius behind models and selling, but I've always used frameworks to be able to convey concepts. So that's a fantastic way to get a concept conveyed visually for how it's going to solve their challenges.

And then the next S is for solution. And so that's how you describe. The logistics and what they would get with the offer. And the biggest mistake that people make around that is that they just spew out a whole bunch of, and you'll get this and you get this and you get this, and we got these calls and these calls, and the theme of these calls is this.

And then they completely overwhelm the prospect and instead. I like to present the solution in context of what is their process. What's their journey going to be like inside of the program? Cause I, tested, I've now done thousands of sales calls myself. So I've utilized it as a playground to be like, okay, I'm going to test this.

Let me try this. Let me test that. And so I've tested some of these things and I've just seen repeatedly where people would say, okay, wait. So if I sign up. What happens next? So I saw that they were naturally asking me, what is the prospect? What's my journey going to look like? My client journey in the program.

So I like to describe the deliverables in context of that. And while it might be a year long program or a multi year program, their brains are usually thinking of the first couple of months. So you've got to. address that and how it's going to, solve those immediate top of mind problems that they might be thinking of.

And do not go into every single detail of the program because you'll completely overwhelm them. You'll trip from being an emotional conversation straight into just a cognitive. And most people make decisions from emotion and substantiate it with cognition versus Thinking that they're only making decisions logically, they just are not.

Emotions at play with everybody. And so you don't want to trip them up to go into the cognition too strongly. So there's no sense in overwhelming them. You could actually unsell somebody by sharing too many details. So. That sweet spot of what to do in the sharing of the solution. And then the Y is for yes, it's the logistics after the yes, because I see sales doesn't just end right there.

And most people sadly are, have aversion to collecting the money and actually getting the deal done. I'm like, unless the agreement is signed and the payment is collected, this sale is not done. So I want to make sure that all of those things have happened and we move them into possibility, not just thinking affordability by logistics of the, yes, having a strong onboarding.

So sales extends into the onboarding experience. Otherwise you can see a sale completely unravel, if you, if they're not onboarded strongly. So that's the, what the acronym stands for. I love that. I really do. I want to ask you something and

Ken Okazaki: You could say no, totally okay with it, but hearing this, but then also experiencing it are going to be two different things and we're live right now, but. Would you be willing to role play and, and I'll be the prospect and you systematically walk me through the Class C framework and, uh, so people kind of hear like, what's the tonality?

How does it work? And I'll actually play the role of prospect. Would you be cool with that?

Vanessa Horn: time?

Do a, do a actual sales call?

Ken Okazaki: well, I actually want to. See if we could do an abbreviated version, like five minutes, just to kind of highlight the, the, the classy framework. Um, and I will, I will give very short answers as well. But of course, this would not be the same as having a regular call, which is roughly how long normally for you.

Vanessa Horn: normally It's, I've set aside a full hour for people, but I have some people we close within 27 minutes and some within an

Ken Okazaki: Oh, how about this? What's, what's the one part you feel that people get wrong? And let's just role play that part. Like what, what do salespeople think they're doing correctly, but that you're like, Oh, you know, if you just said it like that, like, is it what stage of C L A S S Y do you feel like we could learn something from?

Vanessa Horn: the first part of the call should be the prospect doing most of the talking and really just asking pointed questions. And when I script this out, For coaches, it's really, we're creating belief shifts in the prospect. So we're starting to really create those frames. So the first part of the call, usually I find with most salespeople, coaches, they do a fantastic job at connecting.

They do a relatively good job in the discovery process, but where things fall apart is when they transition into the sharing the solution and that participates, actually telling them about the program. So my favorite way to do that is to say, what I found is you have to, so let's just pretend that we had just done discovery.

I would say. Ken, let me just repeat back what I'm hearing.

You just described this about, well, are all the things that I train behind the scenes is like pain.

Ken Okazaki: Okay.Okay. I will give a scenario. Tell me, tell me what product we're doing and I'll, I'll give like a bullet point scenario of where I'm at.

Vanessa Horn: your bullet point scenario on let's pretend that had a sales challenge in your business.

Ken Okazaki: Okay. So, uh, Vanessa, as you know, I've been. I just started coaching program and, uh, we've just done our first month, we have 74, 000 in sales, but my challenge is that I don't have, uh, a team or a system. And in order to scale, I either going to have to spend a lot more of my time or hire someone. And I don't have the team or the systems to do that.

So, we're having this conversation because I kind of need to know what's the next steps. Like what, what should I be, what direction should I be going? And I don't want to spend a bunch of my own time more than I already am.

Vanessa Horn: Okay. And what do you feel like you need help with most? .

Ken Okazaki: I think what I need help with most is a robust system that

Vanessa Horn: to

Ken Okazaki: find, hire, train a sales team and manage, I guess.

Vanessa Horn: Okay. So let's pretend we'd spent a good, like substantial amount of time really digging into that and me understanding what's the pain, et cetera, and what is the ideal that you want to be experiencing instead.

And now I'm wrapping up that full discovery portion and I'm going to transition to sharing the offer with you. So I'll say Ken. So what I'm, Do you mind if I just repeat back what I'm hearing just so I can make sure that I'm capturing your situation effectively? So what I'm hearing is that you're having challenges in sales. If you've recently launched your coaching program, you did successful your first month, but in order for it to continue to do that successfully and sustain itself, you know that you need to get somebody in that sales seat. Either it's go, if it's you, it would take too much of your time, but then also the process of finding the right person who could sell as effectively as you feels overwhelming or potentially be expensive.

Ken Okazaki: And you need the system where you can find the right people, hire them, train them and manage them effectively so that the 74K month wasn't just your first month, but you're building on that every single month and growing from there. Is that an accurate reflection? Yeah, that's 100 percent off point.

Vanessa Horn: so where you're at 74k months now, where do you want it to be?

Ken Okazaki: A minimum of 100k by the third month.

Vanessa Horn: Okay. Why that number in particular?

Ken Okazaki: Well, I have a very specific emotional connection to a seven figure, seven figures in my businesses. And, because my agency's there, I feel like if a business is worth running, it's worth running at minimum of a seven figure run rate.

Vanessa Horn: Okay. So what, what, what does that mean? If it's minimally it's minimally needs to be at a seven figure run rate to be worth it.

What's worth it mean to you? I've

Ken Okazaki: dabbled for a long time with a lot of ideas and, little projects here and there. And I found that there's not enough juice in it for me to sustain long term if it's not making enough revenue that it's, that I have money that I could pay myself, that I could pay my team, and that, and that there's profits.

And Below Seven Figures is kind of, I feel like it's playing small and I don't like playing small. And if it can't scale there quickly, then I feel like Either it's got to be something that's really fun to do, or, or I got to ditch it and find, or make some major changes to get there.

Vanessa Horn: that 100k month allow you to enjoy or experience that you're not currently enjoying?

Ken Okazaki: Okay, I've, I've distilled it down. At seven figures, I have enough where I could hire a leadership team. and they can grow the business and I can coach the leadership. Below that range, it's possible, but not, not ideal because the kind of leaders I want to bring in, they're not cheap and I need to have enough revenue where they can get excited about it and I could attract top talent.

I think that's the biggest difference. Then that allows me the freedom to step out of the business and just coach the leadership team versus being the person who's doing all the stuff.

Vanessa Horn: And so instead of being on sales calls all day, and instead of having a scrappy team without the right leadership in place, what would you enjoy with your free time that is freed up by having this seven figure business that has these amazing leaders running it? What would your life look like? How would you be personally impacted by achieving that?

Ken Okazaki: I think I would buy myself more vacations. Right now I'm doing like one a year with my family. Um, actually not even that because COVID, that, that interrupted things a bit, but, Before COVID, I used to do that, like couple of family vacations a year. Recently, it hasn't really been there for two reasons.

I'm doing all the stuff, and that includes the sales. yeah, that's number one. You know what? That's really it. I'm the one doing the stuff and, uh, it's hard to get away.

Vanessa Horn: the tactician or technician in the

Ken Okazaki: Yeah.

And so what's that like for you, not being able to go on as many vacations or take your family as, and instead you're behind the screen doing calls? To be honest, I love my business. I really do. But I'm afraid I'm not spending enough time with the people who are not in the business that are part of my family who deserve more of me.

Vanessa Horn: I really hear

Ken Okazaki: So can't afford to lose, yeah, the best of me, not the what's left of me, as the saying goes.

Vanessa Horn: I hear that. Yeah, definitely. Everything that you've shared is within the wheelhouse of what we do. I, if you would have said, Hey, no, I Don't trust that somebody else could sell as well as me, or that you, want to just do the sales calls and get support around other areas in your business. And I would say that we weren't the right fit for you, but based on what you've shared a hundred percent that we, we could support you with this.

What I'd love to do is walk you through exactly how, is that something that you're open to me, walking you through.

And then I would transition into sharing, pulling up. I visually pull up on my iPad, the visual model, and the distinction that I, I do right there is I'll say, um, so big picture, here's what we do. Here's our framework. Now the program that I would recommend for you, or the solution or the offer that I would recommend for you based on your needs in this, this, in this area.

Pointing back again to the framework, to the model, I would say is this. Now, I want to walk you through exactly what it would look like, what you would get. We're looking at an investment of blank. I go ahead and put in price before I go through logistics. And most people, what I see still happening on sales calls is people go through all this stuff and then they leave the price to the very end.

I've just found that the prospect's brain is allows them to digest the investment. While they're hearing the logistics and they're having this, they're able to assess what is the value of what I'm hearing in context of that. So that's one unique thing that I'll do between discovery and transitioning into the offer.

And so that's just after having done so many calls and testing, okay, do I wait till the end? Do I drop it here? And I've just found a higher conversion. It's easier for them to, you know, not get like a call needing to be rushed before the time is over. And then now you have to have a follow up call, or it feels like it's pushing somebody through to a close.

It just makes it very elegant at the end to be able to say, okay, where do you want to go from here? I also, when I do present the offer, I like to ask the question, what do you like about what you're hearing? Because I'm going to see. What they're, how they're being bought in. And then that's when I'll transition and say, okay, so I'll ask where, what do you like about what you're hearing?

Is there anything I can clarify? Where would you like to go from here? And then. We're usually talking about, okay, can that, are there payment plans or this or that, and I'll, I've already explained, okay, so if they got enrolled, what their whole journey would be like, but those would be a couple of points.

I, there's seven hotspots I've identified in sales calls where stuff really falls apart. But that's one of the key ones is that transition from the discovery to the presentation of the offer.

Ken Okazaki: That alone was extremely worth it. I, I don't know if any, I think everybody who's listening has probably been on or conducted some of these calls, but I'll tell you what I picked up, Vanessa. As soon as we got into the role, you got into your role, your tone changed, your face even changed. Like, instead of being like, when we're conversing, we were at a different level.

At a pace where our words were coming pretty quickly, uh, you had a very big expressive smile on your face. You were presenting, like, which, which is great. But as soon as you stepped into the role of having that call with me, your face relaxed more. Your tonality changed, you slowed your pace down, and I felt like we were in sync, and I felt like that you matched my energy perfectly.

Uh, that's one thing I picked up. The second thing is how well you described my situation back to me in such a way that it was impossible for me to not feel like, wow, she really gets me. One, I literally just told you the same things. But you just read it back to me in different words that made me feel so understood. And I think that alone, that, that shift in tonality, phrasing my words back to me, in a way that makes me feel understood. That was amazing. that was fantastic. And it's easy for me to digitally understand that, say, okay, I could repeat that. But To come across with the same feeling in the same modality, I think that would take practice, like maybe like nine figures of practice to get that.

Vanessa Horn: No, it doesn't take that much, that much practice.

It's really the, it's that whole really honoring that we're having a conversation. I want to acknowledge the sacredness that our paths have crossed at that moment. If it was a sales conversations, like, I don't know when Or if I'll see this person again, I always want to take the long term view of like, if Ken says no today, I want to leave a positive impression.

I want to leave him better than he was coming in because so many people, I'm playing the long game. I'm playing the game that you might come back later. right? And so therefore, my biggest role is to get your world as the best that I can and understand that there's a bigger context. Our baby conversation is a bigger context, another world that you're living in.

And as much of that, that I can understand, then I'm getting you as a human and honoring and acknowledging you. And so therefore I can serve you most powerfully. And you feel. that psychological, emotional safety, that trust you've relaxed into the dance. And then you're more trusting as I take you to the next places in the journey. I'm

Ken Okazaki: curious about something. Do you feel like there is, there's a better conversion rate or better, better results if a male is running the call? What I'm trying to say is if it's opposite sex. Like if there's a male to a male, male to female, female to male, vice versa, are you seeing any difference in kind of that energy?

Vanessa Horn: personally have seen and maybe have a bias as a result that I feel like women sell to both genders better than to, than men do.

I've come

Ken Okazaki: Any, any theory on why?

Vanessa Horn: one. There's a natural development around emotional acumen. That is more a part of a, of a female, or I should say, maybe a feminine, um, not to make a distinction of just male and female, but a feminine, there's much more of a, that emotional attunement.

Whereas That's not been as emphasized as much historically for the masculine. And so they're more natural connectors. As a matter of fact, my sister, when she was going through a divorce with her husband, she was like, Vanessa, I want to, I got to do something to provide for my family. I'm thinking about going back to school and being a therapist.

And I said, Will you be able to provide for your family with that? Like you're going to be out of, you're going to have to go be in school for X number of years. Like how much are you going to earn? Can you provide for your family? I said, what would you, what if I could teach you how to do sales?

So you can earn immediately. You don't have to wait several years. So, you know, your family's okay. If you want to do the therapy because you wanted to work with young girls, if you want to do that work, you can do that as like pure, your, your charity work, if you wanted to. I said, we will use your superpower because she said, I'm not like you, Vanessa.

I'm not, I don't, I'm not as assertive as you. I'm not a salesperson. And I said, no, no, no, no, you don't have to be. We'll take what would make you an exceptional therapist. And that will be your superpower in sales. And I have, there was an account that I was working with, they were, uh, uh, exclusive mail company, um, selling to attorneys.

And I was like, I promise you, let me put, let me get a US female salesperson in there. And they're like, this is a rough crowd, Vanessa. We don't know. I put her in there. They were immediately three fold the number of sales that they were bringing in at each month. So it's, I won't say it's across the board, a hundred percent, a more feminine versus masculine, you know, a person is going to outsell, but I found because of that more emotional intelligence bend that is just part of the cultural upbringing in most cases, I would say, at least in the Western world, that it serves to be exceptional in sales. It's why I'm so big about empowering women around sales, because sometimes they'll backpedal and not want to do it and see like, oh, that's, but I make a distinction that they're a quadrant where I say, okay, the, if we, if the access is on one side of it is connection and the other access is authority, the bottom left is a hardcore closer. Who's pushing, there's a little bit of like, assuming the sale, not really listening, overriding what the cues that they were getting from the other person. I would put that as a hardcore closer. Does hardcore closers close sales? Absolutely, they do. Do the people who they close have buyer's remorse, sometimes refund, want to get out of the contract? All that? Absolutely. So there's some damage that can happen in that setting, but does it work? Yes, it works. I have no hardcore closers who have accept, do close very well, but the prospect doesn't always feel good and the client who's enrolled doesn't always feel good and doesn't always stick the other two that either high connection and And low authority is when somebody friend zones, I call it being in the friend zone.

They become too friendly, friendly on the call. I have tested that in other calls that I've done. It does not convert because again, you're low on authority. And so now that prospect has like, so you don't want to be in the friend zone either. The other one on the top authority, but low connectivity will be somebody who's a coach and they go into coaching mode.

So they're like now trying to assert their know how. They're trying to share all of that. They might try to solve too many problems on the call. That doesn't work. Meanwhile, that top right quadrant, which is high connection, high authority is where you're an advocate of the prospect. You're a champion of what they want to accomplish.

You're on the same side of the table with them. you're not trying to commit your you're saying like the same thing. The biggest thing is that people staying in status quo is the biggest thing that we're overcoming at the end of the day. Some people think, well, I got to convince them to buying my thing and not that other person's no.

The biggest thing that we're going against is status quo. Most people, it's easier to just keep doing what they're doing, even if it's painful, it's easier to live with the certainty of what they have than the uncertainty of taking action. So our job is to support people, be the advocate for them to take action and do something different.

And so by doing that, Being in that position, I'm on the same side of the table. And so when they say, well, I don't know, I don't know if I'm going to do this thing, if it's you and Ken, you're like, I don't know. I don't know if I'm going to commit to, this pro this program you have that will help me find, hire, train, and manage my salespeople, then I'll say, okay, well, if you don't do this, what will you do?

Because I'm an advocate for you solving this Ken. I'm an advocate for you not staying and giving up and being in the role and doing all these sales calls and giving up the vacations with your kids. I know how many summers you have with them. I know how much time you have with them. And when they're grown, they're out of the house.

It's hard to get the whole family together. And so I'm an advocate of that becoming a reality. And if you have a better solution, the one that I'm on the same side of the table with you looking at, then God bless. I want you to pursue that. right? I am an advocate for you getting this thing solved. And most people don't have a better solution.

Ken Okazaki: They don't have another solution. And so therefore I'm not going to buy the BS stories. I'm not going to buy your limitations. I'm not going to buy all those things because I'm that advocate for you, that top right quadrant for you seeing that become a reality in your life. And I, and I can feel that. I think there's an element of, you know, circling back to about. You know, women and men being closers, I think there's an element of the saying a woman's intuition. It's, it's a real thing. I think there's, it's something biological. They have a certain, a sense for reading between the lines for picking up nonverbal cues.

And I think men are so Outcome or masculine energy is so outcome oriented that it's harder to pick up the cues and sometimes we just walk right over it and don't realize, you know, what we walked over was that, that little daisy popping up, that the women would pick up and admire and, and, uh, appreciate where the man might just walk right over it.

Uh,

Vanessa Horn: Uh, I do, I speak to

Ken Okazaki: we've just got,

Vanessa Horn: talks about like, here's what the

Ken Okazaki: uh,

Vanessa Horn: mm-hmm. Of the call is. right? When I teach the classy clothes framework, but here's the emotional journey of where we're taking them. where are they in neutral? Where are we taking them to low?

And they're not going to go as low as they can go early. So that we're taking them a little bit low. Then we're going to go high. We're going to go to that peak state, and then we're going to take them to heartbreak and we're getting in touch with that lowest part. And then we're going to come and bring them back up.

And so just. being mindful of the emotional state of the prospect through it. And when they say something, what cue am I getting about what is their emotional state and where they're at versus just taking their words at face value. So let's just pretend, Ken, that I was selling you a coaching program and there was modules and stuff in there.

Uh, and then you say, well, can you show me the modules? Can you walk me through and break down the modules? Right? That might be a prospect question. My brain goes to, Hmm, well, I wonder why he's asking that question. What's going on for him? What's he think that that's going to give him? Is it uncertainty that the program can deliver the result?

Is it, he's been burned in other programs? Is it, he's uncertain that he can be successful with it? And so therefore somebody might, you know, in a sales conversation go, sure, let me pull that up. I'll show you this, or let me break them down for you. That's what the, but that's not the real question you're asking.

There's a deeper layer of an emotional question that you're asking. And that's when I, and so I might ask the question, I'm curious, what would that tell you? What would that give you? That is so good.

Ken Okazaki: Because I was, I thought you were about to tell me what is their thinking. And then I realized, no, you don't really know you have, you have an idea, but might as well just ask them straight up. We got to close in just a couple of minutes. Cause I want to respect your time. what I like to do with my guests is, is to have you asked the question to the listener that's going to give them what you believe is going to be the biggest unlock.

Vanessa Horn: If they're struggling with sales, if they're struggling with, with, uh, you know, Maybe even getting people on a call. I think that by telling someone something, it's easy to pass it off. But if you ask them a question that they can internalize and answer, that you feel is going to flip a switch for them, help them to have an insight. Do you have something like that, that we can chew on? So you, you mean a question that That will help people to, to reevaluate, to, to look at sales differently. Yeah. Uh, for the listener who's, who's, you know, trying to bring in sales for their coaching company or their agency, what would you ask them? I'm not sure I understand the question fully. But,

Ken Okazaki: Okay.

Vanessa Horn: you want to ask it another way?

Ken Okazaki: I came in a bit abruptly. Uh, so for example, um, the last person I had on here, the question they asked is, uh, well, I asked how he scaled so quickly from, he was doing about 200, 000 a year, and then he jumped to like 1. 5 in his coaching business. And the question I asked was, No, the question he asked is, okay,

Vanessa Horn: if

Ken Okazaki: you're trying to scale your coaching business, then what are the things in your life that you can cut out so that you do fewer things and do them?

Well, make that list. And that was powerful because his whole story was how he was doing five different things, mediocre. And then he completely trimmed them out. He sold the stuff, literally cleared out his garage of all his hobbies. Until all he had left was that one business, and then that's when it skyrocketed.

Vanessa Horn: Yeah. So with regards to sales, most founders who are doing the sales themselves, they don't, they're not necessarily following a framework.

They're not necessarily following a process. And so therefore they don't know how to bring somebody else in, who can't, they, they will onboard somebody and almost like hot potato, you're it and toss it over to them, which you can, if somebody is a season sales person, sometimes they can just jump in and run with it, but that's not always the case.

Not all coaches are bringing those people in. So what I would say is that you would want to, um, Make sure that, like I was mentioning earlier, that the status quo. is the biggest resistance that that, that you're overcoming, right? A body in motion will stay in motion unless acted upon by an outside force. A body at rest will stay at rest unless acted upon by an outside force, Newton's law. And so if your prospect stayed where they're at, because the, the, then, then what.

Are they giving up? And if you can make sure that your salesperson has the clarity and is over, is doing that in their sales conversation, because most founders, if they give a call recording of how they enroll, my guess, just from having seen so many calls myself, is They can do the calls in 30 minutes or less.

They're asking a few questions, then they're presenting the offer, but they haven't really dug into that. Cause there's a certain authority that they'll have that that salesperson won't. And so, therefore. Training that salesperson on that framework, helping them see, okay, we're all about, like, getting them from that state of rest into motion.

And so, therefore, these hotspots, avoiding those hotspots in the conversation, reframing the way that the prospect might look at something. Paying attention to what are those deeper emotional triggers that's going to have them buy, those are the things that I would say that they need to make sure that their salesperson is doing in order for them to convert as well as they have, they got away with not having to do all those things themselves necessarily.

Ken Okazaki: Hmm. Well, thank you for that. Thank you. And, uh, I think that, my biggest takeaway from this whole conversation

Vanessa Horn: uh,

Ken Okazaki: is number one. I think I, I played too much in that friend zone area. I think that, uh, that's my honest assessment of myself. And number two is the importance of getting on the other side of the table, shoulder to shoulder with them instead of across from them. Metaphorically, I've heard that so many times, but when we had that role play, I felt different. And now I feel like I've got a long, a lot to learn. I could, uh, that I can improve on. So you gave me something specific that became super clear to me.

Vanessa Horn: awesome. I'm excited to

Ken Okazaki: Thank you for that. Thank you so much for being on the show.

months on upward. All right, I've got to wrap this up. everybody who's listening, thank you so much for listening all the way to the end. I've, I'll drop some links down below if you want to check out Vanessa Horn on social media. Is there anything specific that they should start with, Vanessa, if people wanted to find out more about you?

I have some resources on theclassyclothes. com. That'll be a great place for them to go some walkthroughs of those hot spots, some cells, how to dissolve cells resistance before somebody gets to the call. Okay, so please check out the links down below. If you're on YouTube, it's in the description. If you're listening on the podcast, check out the show notes. Vanessa, thank you so much for being on the show. And for everybody else, I'll see you next week.

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