FBC – 284 – Change your sales method and watch the magic happen

Today we are going to talk about the best way to get people onboard with whatever it is that you are doing. Change your sales method and watch the magic happen.

There is ONE thing that compels people to agree with you and to cooperate with you and most people don't know how to use this deadly weapon.

Today, we are going to arm you with the very best tool in your toolbox and this is going to help you do wonders.

All answers in today's episode

If you want to discover how I can afford to travel all year and have a kickass life, click here: https://martinebongue.com/profit-machines

My good friend Stephanie sent me a video today. And the video was about Simon Sinek, who is the author of “It Starts with Why?”

It's a really, really good reminder of how important this is, and in order to re-explain the importance of a why?

An experiment was carried out to figure out what is necessary for people to accept a demand for you and your product or get them to do something that you want them to do?

So they were trying to figure out what the secret ingredient is. Then afterwards, being able to replicate that and use that in persuasion techniques and stuff.

All right. So basically, this experiment was carried out in a place where you do photocopies and stuff, you know? And so there was a line, a very big line. OK. And, well, basically, people were standing in line. They were there for forever.

And you know that people who are in line, they're very impatient. Right. So don't go and try to push in front of people. You can start a fight with this kind of thing. OK. So they had a few people monitoring and taking notes as they were conducting this experiment. So the experiment was this.

So scenario one was someone in the back of the line asking people if he if he or she could overtake them. The way the person did it was like this: “Can I please move in front of you?”  Well, as you can expect, most of the people said no, hell no.

You know, well, because they had been waiting there forever. OK. So they didn't. The notes were overwhelming. OK. So they wrote that stuff down there like, oh, OK. So this doesn't seem to work.

Now, the second experiment, which they wanted to test, was what if you gave people a reason why you need to overtake them. I don't know if it was the same day or a different day. So they came back with someone else who this time said, oh, can I please overtake you? Because my son is at the hospital and I need to do this quickly or something.

And surprisingly enough, people were very understanding and they allowed that person to go through. So in this case, the number of people who actually said yes or please go ahead was a lot higher than before. I think there were actually more people saying yes than no.

But the difference between, oh, can I please pass you, and can I please pass you because my son is dying and I need to do some copies. The difference was it was incredible. OK, so what does it say? What does it tell you?

Well, it says, well, you know what? The reason why people let them through is because that person had a good reason for wanting to pass them. Now, you might think that this is the end of the experiment. But, no, they wanted to know something else.

Change your sales method and watch the magic happen.

So there is something that's missing in this equation. What they wanted to know was does the reason need to be a good one?

All right, so here in this case, it was my son is dying, I need to do some copies, which, you know, I'm pretty sure that was not justification because you wouldn't be doing copies if your son was dying. But anyway, so they wanted to know. Well, if the reason is crappy, does that still work?

And so they sent someone on the third experiment that said, oh, can I please pass you because I need to make copies. And surprisingly enough, people said, yes, dude, please go ahead. Even though everybody I mean, if you're in the damn line, the reason is because you need to make copies as well.

So all these people actually needed to make copies. But someone told them, oh, can I? And a lot of people said, yes, you can go in. You can pass me. So now. So what does this tell you?

What this experiment demonstrated was that people need a reason. But the reason could be completely irrelevant. So what's the point of this, you know, experience in this story that I'm telling you?

The point is that I want you to understand how important the reason “why” is. If you've listened to the story, you'll notice that in the third experiment, the reason was completely bogus. You just need to have a reason there. If you have one, your chances of success are way, way, way better because you have a reason for doing something.

And it doesn't matter if it's a good or like a crappy reason. You just need one. All right. So now the point is that if you have a reason why you're doing something, it's more likely to be accepted by others. OK, so now how does it manifest or how do you use that?

So the way you use it is by when you present yourself, represent your company or present your product and stuff, you are going to format it differently. And this is one of the points that Simon Sinek actually makes in this book.

So instead of telling people how your product works, you must start by presenting yourself, your company, your services and stuff, using the “WHY” first.

Why are you doing this? And then afterwards, this is how it works. And that's the actual product. Right. So this is how you need to format something for the best results. OK. It's counter intuitive because when you're interacting with people and everybody actually does the same thing, telling you what they do, nobody tells you exactly why I am here.

So hopefully that's going to be of interest for you.

Change how you sell before you change what you sell

When the money slows, most people rebuild the product. Nine times out of ten the product was fine and the selling was broken. I have watched this across 20+ years and 1,500+ automations built for clients like eBay and PepsiCo. The fastest revenue I ever unlocked for a business came not from a new offer but from changing the sequence: when we asked, how we followed up, and how many times we did it before giving up.

The concrete version: stop selling once and hoping. I run a cart-to-recovery flow on Make.com where a missed purchase triggers a timed follow-up with a reason to come back, and that one change has recovered five figures for e-commerce clients in a single quarter. HubSpot's sales research is blunt that most conversions happen after the fifth touch, and Zapier shows 88% of small firms lean on automation to keep up. I break the method down on my podcast and in my Substack essays. Fix the sales method first. Watch the money move.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does it mean to change your sales method instead of your product?

Changing the sales method means keeping the product the same and altering how you present, position, and close it. A demo can become a free trial. A phone call can become a payment link. A long sales page can become a short letter. The product is identical. The conversion rate can double overnight.

Why is changing your sales method often more effective than changing your product?

Changing the sales method is faster, cheaper, and easier to measure than rebuilding the product. The product already works for some buyers. The bottleneck is usually the friction between interest and payment. Cut one step out of the buying process and revenue often rises within a single week of testing.

What is the fastest sales method change that increases conversions?

Remove one friction step. Replace the contact form with a direct booking link. Replace the discovery call with a fixed price page. Replace the long video with a one minute summary. Each removed step reduces drop off. Compound three removals and the same traffic can produce two to three times the revenue.

How do you know which sales method actually works for your business?

Test one method at a time, send the same traffic to each version for at least one hundred visitors, and compare paid conversions, not vanity clicks. The method that produces the most cash per visitor wins, even if the click through looks worse. Cash banks the answer. Engagement metrics often lie.

About the Author

Martin Ebongue is the founder of martinebongue.com, an online business and lifestyle design blog focused on helping aspiring entrepreneurs build location-independent businesses. Since 2014, he has been creating and scaling online ventures across multiple niches , from digital products and affiliate marketing to SaaS and content platforms , while traveling the world. He shares the real-world strategies, tools, and systems that work, with a particular focus on AI-powered automation for solopreneurs. Follow him on YouTube, X (Twitter), and Instagram.

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