How to Increase the Perceived Value of the Thing You Sell

This weekend, I had the chance to witness one of the best sales presentations of my life. Let me show you how it worked, and how you can model it for what you do.

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---Transcript---

Hey everybody, this is Russell Brunson. Welcome back to the marketing secrets podcast. Today, I want to talk about the secret to increasing the perceived value of whatever it is you're selling. And I'm going to tell you a story about how somebody did this to me this weekend and it was amazing. So, here we go.

All right, so I'm going to give you some backstory. Some of you guys know that I'm mildly obsessed with books. Books are the coolest, seriously, come on now. And so my office I'm in now, is swelling with books. We have big bookshelves but there's no room left at all. And so, I decided to start a project. We're going to build a library, a huge library in the lot next to our office, so I can have more books.

So I think my office right now has, I think we did the math, has like a little under 10,000 books are in there right now. And the new office will hold, or the new library, will hold up like 60,000 books, which is crazy. And I'm going to have different sections. Like one section that's going to be just about business. One on personal development, one on health, one on religion, just the different topics that I'm passionate about, right?

And so, and in there I'll have all the books that matter on all those topics and it's going to be amazing. But then on top of that, I'm kind of a collector of old books, because old books are the coolest thing ever. And so, in section, like for the religion section for example, it'd be a big like white glass bulletproof case that has these old religious books in there.

And then same thing with personal development. Like, I'm looking at this, The Laws of Success that Napoleon Hill wrote way back in the day, that's so cool. Anyway, that'd be out on display under these bulletproof glass and a bunch of the cool things. So anyway, there's kind of the frame where I'm at, right? And so anyway, there's this guy who messaged me this week and was like, "Hey, I'm one of the top..." Or, not the one of, "I'm the top rare Mormon book collectors in the world."

And he's like, "I'm in Utah right now and I can come and show you some of things I have. And he started telling me all the stuff he has, I'm like, "Heck yeah dude, if you want to drive up here, I'll look at it." Not thinking that I'm going to purchase anything. So anyway, so the guy that drives up and he has these cases and brings them out and he's got all these old insanely cool, amazing books, right?

Now, again, I can't tell you all the details because... Anyway, so some things don't make any logical sense, but I'll give you the basic gist. So, so you guys know, I actually bought a first edition book of Mormon back in the day, which is one of my prize possessions. And he had like five first additions. And my mine's like a good one, these are like insane. The highest quality in the world, right?

And so when he brought him, I'm like, "I'm going to look at these things but I already have one, I don't need another one. There's no way I'm going to do it." Right? And he tells us ahead of time, he said, "I'm not the best sales person in the world, but as I show you these books, I'm just going to tell you the story behind each of them." And I'm like, "Okay."

And so, one at a time, he pulls out the book and you see it. And I was like, "Oh cool, yeah, I have one like that." And then he starts telling you the story behind it. Like, "Let me tell you how I found this. This is where I got it. This is what it looks like. This is why it's so cool. This is..." Like, "Look at this, look at the inscription, look at the thing here, look at the thing..." And started showing you all the pieces about it.

Where within like 10 minutes I'm like, "Oh my gosh, I want that so bad." And they shows the first book and he's like, "Here's the second book." And pulls it out and tells the story behind that and how he found it, and why it's so cool and the intricacies and why this one's different, and why it's so important, and why very few people have it and the scarcity of it.

Right? The second book is the second edition printing of The Book of Mormon, and it was so cool. And he's like, "Just so you know, there's only 25 of these on planet earth right now that we know of. And this one is the best quality one." And shows that and I'm like, "That's so cool." But still in my head, I'm like, "I'm not here to buy anything."

And then he shows the third one and the fourth one and the fifth one. Then he shows this other book and then just going through book after book, all these things. And as he did it, he didn't just like, "Oh, here's the book." Like, show it to me. He told me the story about each one. It was interesting, as he told the story, the story, as you guys know, if you've been following me for any amount of time, the story increases the perceived value of the thing.

And so by hearing the story, he went from like, "Oh yeah, that's a book." Like, "There's no book." To like, "Ooh, there's an old book that it's pretty cool." To like, "Oh my gosh, I really want this old book." And by then it's like, "I have to have this at all costs." Like, "This needs to be in my library, otherwise, what's the point of building a library? I should just burn it to the ground, right?"

And so, it was just fascinating. And this was one of my interesting takeaways. Because I asked this guy, he finds these things, collects them, and then sells them. And I said, "Is this hard for you to sell these after you find them and you know the stories?" And he told me something interesting. He said, "I've regretted every book I've sold." He's like, "But this is what I do. So I've done it for the last 40 years."

And it was interesting because I was noticing myself, as he told the stories, how engrossed I got into the story of each book and how important it became to me. And I remember feeling this other thing where I was like, "If I don't buy this..." How much regret I was going to have, because I'm going to miss out on the story and the thing and all the stuff."

So by him telling his story, the same regret that he was having by selling this book, was the same regret I was going to have if I didn't have the book, which was super fascinating, don't you think? And anyway, Oh, and then there's so many sales lessons I could tell you. It's from this guy, he's like, "I'm a horrible salesperson." But then also talking about status, right?

As he's showing me these books and he's like, "There's a lot of people have three, but there's no one that has all five of these." He's like, "Maybe one or two people on the planet." He's like, "Instantly you'd be one of the top five rare, Mormon book collectors on the planet, if you had this set." And then this, and then...

It was crazy. And I come into this thing, not planning on buying anything just wanting to see what he has to two hours, three hours later, writing one of the biggest checks in my life. But I share it to you because I want you to understand, that is the power of story, right? I always tell you guys, if you're teaching a concept, you have to tell the story about how you learned or you earned it.

If you're selling a product or service or a thing, you have to tell the story about how it was created. The story is the thing that increases the perceived value. I literally went from like, "Here's an old book." Like, "Oh, sweet." To like, "Let me tell the story of the book." And then he got deeper in the story and the meaning and all these kinds of things got to the point where like, "Wow, that's really cool." To like, "Ooh, I really want that." To like, "If I don't have that, I'm going to lose something."

The fear of missing out, of not having that, became so big and so large that I was willing to do, as a buyer, do something completely irrational, to make sure that we had it, right? Anyway, it's just fascinating. It was such a cool case study to me. To see these things being used on me. In fact, I told him at the end, I was like, "Dude, you told me two hours ago that you're not that good at selling."

And I'm like, "All selling is, is telling a story in a way that increases the perceived value of the thing that you're trying to sell." I said, "Based on that definition of selling, you're the greatest salespeople I've ever seen." Right? And so, I want you guys to understand that. A lot of times we think, "Oh, we need to do the newest sales trick. I need this technique or I need da, da, da, da." All these kind of things.

It's like, "No, no, no." the best sales people, the thing that they do is, they tell a story that increases the perceived value of the thing that they're trying to get you to desire. And if you desire it, then you're going to want it, right? To the point where if you don't have it, then you're going to feel the same regret that that person has giving it away.

Like, "If I don't have this, ugh, like what would like what's to happen tomorrow or the next day? How are we going to feel?" All the other emotions start flooding in as well, right? And so, that was the fascinating thing. So anyway, I want to share with you guys for so many reasons.

Number one, I'm excited. I got sold, I love getting sold. It's the greatest thing in the world. Number two, just the lesson. And that is the lesson, how do you tell your story in a way that increases the perceived value of the thing you're selling? That's the big secret. That's the big, ah-ha. It's not becoming a slick at selling or figuring out the masterful funnel or any of those things, right?

It's getting good at telling the story about the thing that you're selling in a way that increases the perceived value, so that it goes from an, "Oh, it's cool." To a want, to a desire to, "If I don't have this thing, I'm going to regret it for the rest of my life." And that's the magic. So anyway, think of that for your product. Think about next time you're on a Facebook live or doing a podcast or you're trying to sell something or whatever it is.

Or you're face-to-face with somebody or whatever, right? What's the story? How did you learn it? How did you earn it? How did you create it? How did you find it? What was the thing? Why is it so important? Why is it valuable? How's that person's status going to be increased if they have it, how's the status going to decrease if they don't have it? How are they going to regret this in the future if they don't have it?

Those are all these little things they're tied to the story that make it to the point where it's like, "Oh, I have to have this thing." The better you get at that, the more money you're going to make. Anyway, that's all I got you guys, I hope you enjoyed it. Sunday when this library is done, this will become part of the pilgrimage to internet marketing Mecca.

You guys will have to come to Boise, Idaho, and come look at the library and walk through it and see it. It's going to be something magical. There's more things planned inside the library/event center/stuff. But anyway, someday hopefully you have a chance to come see it. I'm sure that as we start building it, you guys will see the footage and the videos and all this stuff.

Oh, there's so many cool things that are happening in it. In fact, right now, today, they're out there literally surveying the land, which is exciting. Anyway. So one of those things, one of those dreams that become a reality and I'm really excited for it. My plan is to build out a whole research center and start hiring people to can do research and finding things and searching.

And I want to be able to take... I feel like one of my roles here is to sift through tons and tons of information and to find the best things and bring it back to you, right? Like if you look at my books, that's like me going through 10,000 books and 100,000 split tests and things, trying things. And then my books are like, "Here's what I found. Here's what actually works." Right?

And I want to do that at a bigger scale, and I want to be able to do that on all the topics I'm excited about in life. And building that research seems to go through and plow through tens of thousands of books, find out the core pieces, bring them back to us so we can test them, we can try them. And then from there be able to give you guys products and courses and books and training or whatever the thing is to help get you guys results in your life.

And so, that's kind of next phase in my life that I'm really excited for is that, is building the research center, building the library and then building the team to create those things. So anyway, if any of you guys are interested, if you're a researcher, if you're a writer, if you're obsessed with the things I'm obsessed with, and I don't know, maybe it would be a good fit.

Maybe someday I'll put out a job application, see if anyone would love to spend their life living in Russell's library, just reading books and researching and pulling out the gems, so that we can turn it into something that'll change people's lives. Any who, that's all I got for today. I appreciate you guys.

Remember, selling is all about learning how to tell your story in a way to increase the perceived value of the thing that you're trying to sell. If you can master that, you'll never have to work another day in your life. All right guys, appreciate you all. We'll talk soon. Bye.