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The Russell Brunson Show
The Oren Klaff Method for Conversation Control and High Stakes Pitching | #Success - Ep. 92
00:49:37
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- [00:01]
Oren Klaff
You're about to make a trade, which you do you listen to. Is it get optioning those options or let's do a little research. Learn more@finra.org TradeSmart do you have a funnel?
- [00:16]
Russell Brunson
But it's not converting. The problem 99.9% of the time is that your funnel is good, but you suck at selling. If you want to learn how to sell so your funnels will actually convert, then get a ticket to my next selling online event by going to sellingonline.com podcast. That's sellingonline.com podcast. This is the Russell Brunson Show. What's up, everyone? This is Russell.
- [00:39]
Oren Klaff
Welcome back to the show.
- [00:40]
Russell Brunson
Today. I'm excited to have someone who I. I first found out about him. I don't know how long ago you wrote the original book pitch anything, but I found this book, read it and loved it. And that was again a few years back. And I hadn't like connected with you or personally. This is the first time, actually. We just met a few minutes ago, which has been really, really fun. And then about two or three, having my big inner circle meeting and one of my friends, Peter Swain was here. And you probably don't know this, but for my audience, they know I collect old books and things, we're building a museum, everything. And he's like, do you know. Do you know Oren Claf? And I'm like, I'm like, well, I'm aware of him for sure. And he's like, he just collected or he just got the. The something from the moon landing. And I was like, what are you talking about? And then he sent me a picture of it and I was like, I have to meet this guy personally now, because that is cooler than anything I've bought. And I bought some really, really cool stuff. So I would love if we start there so that I can know the story or what it is and just. Cause it's the most insane thing ever.
- [01:38]
Oren Klaff
So, in essence, you know, you see a car here. This place was filled with like 18 cars, right? One thing I'd like to add is, you know, I'm sort of, you know, my podcast is the Game of Money. I pitch for money. I live my life around money. But if you give me any of it, I hate it, right? And I would just buy a car. So this place was filled with cars and we did a lot of media and I just felt like this is a lot of Instagram feeling car marketing here. Me by my Cobra, me by my M4, me by this. I'm like, how can we rise above that? And there's nothing better than space. I love airplanes, but there's nothing better than space. And so then we built a replica of the return lander, the Columbia, so the Apollo 13 Columbia Lander. And then we outfitted. And here's the inside of it, inside spaceship. So we have meetings in there really in terms of closing. Everybody wants to get in there when they have an event, right? They want to get inside the spaceship.
- [02:47]
Russell Brunson
How many people actually fit inside of there?
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Oren Klaff
About 8. So it's larger than you think. But the way you get in there is you sign your paperwork.
- [02:57]
Russell Brunson
That's the hook at the end. If you sign it, then you can come in here and celebrate.
- [03:02]
Oren Klaff
This facility here, it's free to get in. It's a million dollars to get out the spaceship, I think elevated. I started aging as we were talking about and the spaceship just elevated it out of cars and hey, check me, my car is out. I actually don't like to do cars for that reason. But the spaceship is so cool and you know, everybody loves space.
- [03:24]
Russell Brunson
And is it built the same dimensions of the. Of what actually went to space back in there? How does that work?
- [03:30]
Oren Klaff
Exact same dimensions.
- [03:32]
Russell Brunson
Okay. So it's very unique. You think about everyone's. A lot of people have lambos, a lot of people have planes now, but you're the only one with space spacecraft, whatever you call it.
- [03:44]
Oren Klaff
We were talking about being competitive. If everyone on Instagram gets a spaceship, I will, I will go further. Right? You're saying like test me, right? Yeah. It's 500 spaceships showing up on Instagram and every sales guy has got one. I will, I don't know.
- [04:00]
Russell Brunson
But you're buying the moon. We're going to go to the moon.
- [04:02]
Oren Klaff
And that's exactly.
- [04:05]
Russell Brunson
That's too cool. That's too cool. Well, man, so cool. It's been fun getting to know you just prior to jumping on. I think we have a lot of commonalities in our personalities and things like that. And before we were talking about like what to focus this podcast interview on, I was telling you like our, our core entrepreneurs. Anyone's who are like the startup phase of a business to, you know, 10 to 20 million dollars. And you brought something that was really fascinating, was just like, okay, these people are dealing with bigger fish. Bigger people could be looking for bankers, other things. A lot of times you get in these power positions that are, that are hard and you're trying to pitch something or set. Create a deal or get a loan or get investor or Whatever the thing might be. And it can be hard. And you know, you come from a different world of selling than I do. Like what I do is one to many. Me in front of a thousand people at a time. And there's ways we sell, but your structure is different and there's a lot of similarities. Actually, when I read your book the first time, I was like, wow, that's interesting how many similarities of like how I look at selling. One to many versus how you're doing it. But I'd love to go deep into that just to help our entrepreneurs who are in that situation where they're trying to move up the ladder and to feel more confident, more comfortable, and know what to actually do.
- [05:14]
Oren Klaff
100%. I think I've listened to a quick interview that you did with. I can't remember his name. He has like one letter in his name, like G or something like that. But a sales guy, and he's one to one. And you're one to many, right? I'm kind of one to one, but at super sized. Like the guys I deal with run billion dollar funds. They have $300 million. They come in with so much power. Right. And before we get into that, I believe, and I'm interested in your reflection on it, like, you know, that guy was very good at selling whoever you had on Mr. G or G or.
- [05:51]
Russell Brunson
Yeah, Danny G. Danny G. Okay.
- [05:53]
Oren Klaff
So, you know, he was very good at like selling directly to like couples and everything like that. You're good at one to many. You know, I'm. I'm okay at those big tickets, you know, million dollars, $300 million, whatever it is. I feel like whatever that wound, like everybody got wounded at some point by money. And then a few of us overcorrected by like 9,000%. And that's what you're good at, right? By your overcorrection. I bet it. I bet if you interview the guys in sales, you look way back and you go, what? Because I'm good at money. But as I told you, I don't care about it. Right. I just love the W. And so what happened is I was in a company and we grew too rapidly. Really. Before, there was a lot of venture capital and there was no money. And so we went out, we had a great company today. That company would have raised $50 million in a minute because there's so much, but couldn't find money anywhere for a software company. And 1991, because there wasn't a lot of venture capital and private equity. And ultimately that created a wound in me that I couldn't find money for a good company. And then I just overcorrected by being great at walking into funds, kicking the door down and saying, no, you sit down, no, stop talking. And just getting frame control over them and getting the people who normally scare other people scared of me. And that is what I like to give the 10 and 15 million dollars guys. From being on the front lines of doing that, maybe to my own detriment, many, many times, and I'll give you an example, I get on up and everybody should start doing this immediately until everybody's doing it, it doesn't work anymore. But I get on the phone with billionaires or guys managing billion dollar funds all the time. Guess what they do every single time they come late, right? Why? Because they're busy, because they can, because they're packed too much stuff in their day. Whatever the case is, they always come. So I'm looking for $10 million and they're running a 300 million or $3 billion fund or they're a $3 billion, you can guarantee they will come late, three minutes late, five minutes late, eight minutes late, whatever it is. I always go, john, are you here for the 1007 call? You want me to catch you up on what has happened up to now? And every single executive banker, private equity guy, money manager in America knows the value of time. It's the value system that we are all in alignment with. So when you call them out on the inability to be professional with time, they will always say, I'm sorry. So that is the right way to start a call. You know, if you're a $10 million guy talking to a $300 million guy with them apologizing to you. Because what happens is, as you know from the book, there's this status imbalance. And I don't know how status works. In the selling that you do, you sort of have a very humble, got your Unabomber sweatshirt on and everything. But in environments that I go into, it is critical to lower the status of the fund. The high net worth guy, the big guy coming in late, shooting big guns because nobody's going to buy from you when they feel like they are higher status than you are. So I think what a lot of people do is they focus on raising their own status. But that is folly because you haven't been in that environment. You're walking into a bank, you walk into a private equity group, you're dealing with venture capital, you're just dealing with a Mark Cuban high net worth individual Rather than trying to make yourself look good in an environment that you're not familiar with, Imagine you and I going to a Katana nightclub in Los Angeles tonight, Friday night, right? 2:45 plus year old guys walking in there. And there's no way we're gonna get into cool, right? Because it's just we're not gonna figure out that environment and be cool in that environment. And that's the same challenge. You're not gonna make yourself look good in an environment or in a situation you have no experience in. So rather than raising your status lower, theirs, and it's easy to do. So I'll do it on time. A lot of times the billion dollar guy will come on the phone and I'll go, he's like, hey, yeah, sorry, I'm a few minutes late. I'm like, okay. And the first thing I'll say is, I'm confused. The things I see on your website are really confusing for all the things you said in the email. So I'm here to try and reconcile what I see on the website and what you're saying in media, because I'm confused. And billionaires hate that when they're sending out confusing messages about their business. So I'll always find something where they're out of integrity or out of their value system. I'll say, look, I saw perfect example, Luke Nosek at Founders Fund, right? So Founders Fund, I'll give you a better example. I want to try and answer your question. I'll try and land the plane here. Guy Kawasaki ran a small venture firm in Silicon Valley called Garage Ventures. And we go there to pitch a deal with one of my clients. And he goes, really? I really like this company. It's amazing. Would be very interested in it, but we'd like to see the revenue more seasoned. We'd like to see faster scaling in the, you know, in the customer growth. We'd like to see more seasoning in the management team. Like to see just a little bit more of a mature business before we could get involved. And I go, it's literally called Garage Ventures. Change your name, okay? Do not have my client drive here across town or fly up and talk to them out of Integrity. It says Garage Ventures. If the client had scaling revenue, if they had more seasoned management team, if they had predictable user growth, it wouldn't be here. It'd be a goddamn bank of America. Name yourself correctly. Oh, I'm so sorry. Yeah. So not to be angry, but I think the important thing is to have the courage to call out an Imbalance in people's value system. They say one thing, do another, call it out. I'll give you one more example and turn it back over to you. I want people running 5, 8, $10 million companies to be able to do this. You get on a call with investors or big partner or whatever, there's two or three of them on there and ultimately there'll be one of them going like this. And I'll just go, who's that guy? And they go, that's our cfo. I go, listen, are you guys able, we're. This call is 20 minutes long. Are you able to focus on this call for 20 minutes? All right, because, because it's one thing my 11 year old knows, my 12 year old knows is people are in their best behavior in the first meeting because they're trying to attract you, we're trying to attract them, right? And I go, if you guys can't come to the call, authentically interested, listening with people that are focused for 20 minutes, I don't even know how to start a relationship with you. Teach me how to work with you. And two things will happen. If it's authentic, they will know like, yeah, you don't come to a call and start texting on a serious financial discussion. And then we'll go, I'm sorry, let's just all focus. We had a call, we're closing the deal, we're a little bit distracted, but let's focus now. Or they'll say, what's the big deal? That's sort of normal course of business and now, you know, not people that care enough to say we booked a 20 minute call, three of us are here, we're going to listen and focus and there's just not a deal here. And so these are the things that are less top of funnel, but I would call just above mid funnel. Right. So you pitch, you get somebody in, have a conversation with them and then you've got to get some status balance where they don't perceive themselves to be more important, more valuable, more cashed up and more powerful than you. Does that make sense?
- [15:02]
Russell Brunson
Yeah, 100%. It's really interesting because we do the one many selling, we talk a lot same a lot about status and how you know when you're even when you're selling something from stage and you got people, you know, by default then buying something, their status is going to go down but they're hoping for increased status later. Right? So it's like we're using that in the buying process like one to many, a lot of times I try to figure out how to, how to keep that status profile so that they, by investing they're not feeling like a decrease in status, they're feeling like there's a temporary decrease. My bank account goes down. But the, the potential increase in status is worth it. Therefore I'm going to, I'm going to, you know, I'm willing to invest in this thing and try to buy the stuff, but I've never thought about it from a, from like a negotiation standpoint. And I think what you said is dead right. It's harder to increase your own status other than you bragging about yourself, which is never like a nice thing. I can't stand if people come on like let me tell you how great I am versus that way is a sneaky, like a backdoor I've never thought about is like to decrease and try to level out the status from there. Does it typically happen like a one time thing or is this something like as you're doing multiple calls and meetings, like you're resetting this continually or is that the first one kind of set the tone for the relationship usually.
- [16:07]
Oren Klaff
So what happens is I think I repeat it until it's under control. Now you can go the other way. You can raise your own status. Right? And I'll give you a couple ways I do that. I go, hey guys, welcome by the way. So I have to deal with a lot of people, just don't know, haven't read pitch anything, don't know. My aren't online and everything like that. And they're now, well now today we're like, wait, are you Warren Clough? So I'll get a lot of that. We're just on a call, so I will go, hey Russell, good news. You can go home today and tell your family that you met a genuine C level celebrity and they'll like that. And then I'll go, listen, I'm gonna walk you through this really quickly. Just understand, I want you to understand. We had this big bay door just recently installed here so my ego could fit in the door. Right. And so I'm gonna walk you through this. I'm gonna give you an opportunity to reflect. And at the end of the call we're going to decide is this, you know, are we a good fit for each other or is it hail fellow, well met. And by the way, if I can get to that in three minutes, great. If it takes a full 20, you know, that'll be a long time. You, are you ready to roll so that you know, you could get there where you, you do raise your status above people that. But you have to let them know. You have to let them know you're in the hands of a professional. I do this all the time. Right? You are now at Disneyland. You bought a ticket, right? You're going to see the exhibits. At the end of the day, there's, you know, I'll tell you when you're at lunch. You know, when lunchtime, you'll, you'll buy a, you know, $18 bottle of water, a $26 hot dog, and that's how it goes. And you're in the hands of a professional on a professional tour. You know, like, have you been to Universal Studios? You know, shark jumps out and like, you know, and you're on the tour. I'm the guide. I'll let you know when the tour is over and where the tip jar is. Are you ready? We're going to begin now. So it's okay to raise your status if there's a sense that you're in the hands of a professional. If you are a beginner and feeling your way through it and everything, then you got to pull them down to where you are. But the middle ground is the worst. I'd love to hear your opinion on that. I'll get into a little bit more, but either pull them down or you go up. But to just leave this status or this gap. I really love photography. And for me, you're either zoomed in super close and capturing people's face or, or you're zoomed out and capturing the environment. But like these mid shots where it's like, you know, there's people and it's just, it's nothing. So you're either all in on your status or you're pulling them down. But the gap in the middle to me is a no man's land.
- [19:09]
Russell Brunson
Yeah, I feel that on. I'm not someone who usually does negotiate, you know, people, my team do that. But people eventually get through gatekeepers to me and feeling it from that side where you can, you know, on my site, within 20 seconds or so, the decision's been made. You know what I mean? And it's interesting because a lot of times it is that or I'm like. In fact, I remember the very first time I'd moved to a new area and I went to church the first time and this guy came to me and he was like a financial planner and he was like, he knew I was successful and so of course he wants me to invest. And within talking of two or three minutes. I was like, I'm not gonna give my money to a financial planner who makes less money than me. And he tried for months to try to. I was just like, like, you haven't managed your own money to get the spot where. You know what I mean? It's like I had that really, really quickly thing where had he had come in and. And figured out a way to position it correctly or to get the status where even if it's not his, maybe it's his clients or some. Some other version, it would have opened. It probably could have reopened the door, kept the door from shutting, versus very quickly. I was just like this, There's a mismatch here. And like, I, you know, I work with people that. That work with different people. You know what I mean? Like, anyway, it's interesting.
- [20:17]
Oren Klaff
Yeah, yeah. So the status is so important that there has to be that alignment that you guys are on the same level. What happens is I don't get too much into evolutionary biology, but when somebody feels they have more power than you, and this is why I'm so keyed in on power, and I'm not keyed in on getting my own power. My joy is taking power away from people. So we are on a level playing field. And that's what wrestling does, right? It strips you. That's what sports does. You know, when you go to a college campus, it's amazing because everything outside of the campus, you know, I grew up on University of Illinois, as I said, University of Wisconsin, University of Delaware. And when you go on a college campus, especially in the sports part, all the society stuff strips away and there's just a purity of academia and sports. The commercialism and the financial purposes fall away, and you're just there for the competition and the relationship and the purity of it. And I feel like when that's what I enjoy is taking the power away from the other side. And now we're on a level playing field and we can actually talk about the business without the social overlay. So I want to take that away from people so they don't have it to use. I'll give you an example. Good investor of mine was in a big negotiation, $30 million contract. Everybody signed off on it. I have this archetype. I like to name all the archetypes in deals. And I have this type called the final boss. If anybody's played video games, right? So you're playing a video game, you're like, oh yeah, I'm on level 30. Like, I'm really winning. I might even get to the end of the game. And then, like, out comes Shiva and just throw, like, 19 fireballs, you know, 11 of them hit you, and you're like, what? I just lost, like, a thousand lives in one second. It took me two years to build up. Like, that is not fair. You know, the final boss and video games, you're, like, playing that level, you know, over and over and over. So the final boss will always come out. So they're in this $30 million deal, and the final boss comes out. They've got a letter of intent. They've got a definitive agreement. Everything gets signed up. The final boss and this archetype, the final boss, you never heard of him. Nobody ever mentioned him before. He's hiding behind the door, and all of a sudden, hey, what's going on here?
- [22:55]
Russell Brunson
I gotta sell that guy now. We've been doing this for a long time.
- [22:59]
Oren Klaff
What do you mean, what's going on here? He's like, yeah, I'm like, CEO of the company. I'm the founder, right? So, yeah, in order to do this contract, we would need 15% off. And so my buddy calls me, like, what do we do? The founder. We didn't even know he existed. I didn't know his name. He just showed up and he's asking for a 15% discount. I go, we have to do it. Like, we need this contract. I go, go back in there, and this is the playbook. You say, whatever his name, Herman, look, I understand. Like, this goofy thing works for you. You come in the last minute, we need 15% off. There's a couple of things going on here. It works. It's goofy. You've made a lot of money in the past, right? But, like, we've been working with your team for eight weeks. We have 60 hours in this contract. We negotiate. Everything's ready to go. So one of two things is happening here. One, this is a goofy thing you do. It usually works. It's not working here, okay? There's no 15% discount. You want 3% off, whatever. Or this is the real you, and you actually show up at the last minute and demand, with nobody even having met you or talked to you before, 15% off. And if that is, we're out of here. Because we will see that all the time, and this is who you really are. And we would never work with somebody who believes that's the right way to do business, which is it? And that takes all their power away. Because if they come back and go, right, it is a riskless move. Because if they go, this is us. We will show up at the last minute, ask for 15% off, constantly negotiating, ankle biting you, and be a pestilence on the margin of your business. Then you know these wallets and I can sell this account. It's a horrible account to have to live with. If the account tells you I am a horrible account to your face, you have to believe them. And so this is how you strip people's power away, is you create this nakedness in which you say you are either this or you are this. And you have to tell me which one it is. And you can literally say, and here's the line that will lean you into this. Yogi Berra said, when you come to a fork in the road, take it, and this is that fork in the road. You are going to tell us who you really are and then we're going to make a decision. If we're going to provide this value, this account, this deal, this whatever to you, and that is the ultimate transition, is when you let them know based on something they're going to tell you about their integrity, their values. You are now going to make a decision about them. Does that make sense in any way?
- [26:12]
Russell Brunson
That's so fascinating, huh? You're basically putting him in a, in a, not a corner. But like, yeah, the two options, and both are good for you, only one is ends up being good for them.
- [26:30]
Oren Klaff
Here's a great one. I think there's two such easy lines in this. High stakes. The stakes is important. The problem with guys at 5, 6, 8, $10 million is they don't raise the stakes high enough when the stakes aren't high enough. We were talking about consequences of proxy for stakes. When the stakes aren't high enough, no decision is going to be made and they're going to go, hey, yeah, this is really interesting. I'm going to show it up, you know, to my partner, the team. We'll take a look at it, get back to you if we have any questions. And then they're gone. Right? You haven't been able to set another. Oh, well, we should set another meeting. Yeah, we'll get back to you. We're not really ready to set a meeting right now. I'll show to the committee, we'll get back to you. And then you're just, are you, you know, checking for an update, Checking in, wanting to do another call? Like, you have no controls. Your job is to raise the stakes high enough where you can authentically say, you know, kiss or kill. Let's figure out whether we should move. You don't have to sign the contract or do the deal or whatever, but is there enough here where we're going to move to the next step or Hail fellow, well met. Should we let each other go? And if there's status, alignment, if you have value, if they have a problem and you've correctly made them feel the pain, then they're not. And you're a high functioning, high processing person, they're not going to want to let you go. So what you want them to feel is like, listen, Russell, you have this problem. I didn't create this problem. We don't have the problem you have over here. We solve it. And it's not just that you have it, you have it kind of as bad as it can get. So if it gets any worse under your direction or whoever's helping you even we would not want to help you out too hard, too high friction, too high cost. So you're sort of at this teetering edge where we would even consider helping you. Let's figure out in this last dying glimmer of hope that you have that you could get someone like us to help you out if it makes sense for me to jump in and fix all these problems that you have created for yourself. And that's where they need to get to and that's how you get the stakes. So now you can say a decision is being made in this meeting to either take one more step forward or to knock off and you got to get there. And that decision shouldn't be a 50, 50 flip of the coin. It should really be that if they choose to go away, it's because you are in control of that decision and that is really the right thing to have happen. And also, I'm sure you've felt this in your own life deals come back around just because, you know, it's like you let it go and it truly loved you. It will come like whatever, it will come back, right? But if you hold your integrity and you hold your values and you hold your stakes high and it goes away, they will cogitate on it and they will come back around. And so that's what I mean by raising the stakes and making somebody choose a path forward.
- [30:12]
Russell Brunson
It's interesting too because it's coming back to we talked about earlier, right? The final boss is coming in with this increased status to be able to come back and force you to go do the thing and you're switching it back around and be like, if you do this, you just decrease your status directly. Or so it's, it's interesting. Do you look at all the negotiations through that status inbound? Is that the core thing that you're doing throughout? I mean, I know there's a lot of other stuff, but it's such a fascinating thing.
- [30:37]
Oren Klaff
I started going down this road. I'm evolutionary. If somebody feels they are higher status than you, have more power, a couple things happen. One, they only see you at a surface level. Number two, they take risks around you they would not take with someone of their own position and status. And number three, so see you at a surface level, they take risks around you, and they really are sort of negotiate. They operate from this. You never get anything you don't ask for. And so they ask and ask and ask. And even if they watch you go down to where they know you have no margin, it's okay with them, right? You and I as colleagues or same status. I would have no joy if we did a deal together, we did a conference together, we did a book together, whatever. If I made all the money and you made none, right, it would bring me no joy. But when somebody feels more powerful than you, they take no effort to protect your position. So they're okay with it being the economics being hugely imbalanced. And so that's why you have to correct the status. They see you at a surface level, they don't care about your family, your debt, your company, whatever. It's purely transactional. They take risks around you they wouldn't take. And they are, again, purely transactional. They don't care if they make 100 and you make 0. When I say they'll take risks around you, it's as simple as, you know, they're just, you know, if you see somebody checking their phone while you're in a meeting with them, right? That is a risky behavior. Because if you walked into bank of America to get $100 million, you know, financing, you know, and we're meeting with the committee that determines, you know, financing, and they're sitting there and ask you some questions. You're not going, hold on, I'm doing a couple massage later. I just wanted to see if they have time available. You're like, oh, I'm so sorry to turn your phone off. Right? So that's what I mean. They would take risks around you, right? Slapping you on the butt and saying, hey. But that is why you need that status balance between you, so you don't have this evolutionary sort of power surge over you.
- [33:08]
Russell Brunson
That's cool. Do you have a training? We go through all the different archetypes of all the different people in the deals, you have years out, the final boss. What are the rest of them?
- [33:16]
Oren Klaff
Yes, I do. So. So there. I'll tell you some of the other archetypes that are in every deal, right? The conciliary, you know, the guy who doesn't have a role. It's. It's. Most of the people listening here will know that person as the wife, right? So. So a lot of times, you know, here. Oh, you know, my wife is an expert in this, but there's the third party who's not in the business. And so the wife is a good proxy for that. But it's really like a real person. It's like the CPA or their best friend from college, right? And it's always somebody who has, like, a little overlap on your business, enough to be dangerous, you know, has an opinion, so they'll bring that person in. And the reason that person is an archetype. The only way they can make themselves look good is. Is by making you look bad, right? And so you've got to reframe that guy and get him out. And that's challenging because usually that's a personal relationship because they're not in the business. But it's like my buddy, my college buddy, my most trusted friend, you know, my guy I did a deal with, you know, whatever. So that's an archetype that always shows up. Another one is the analyst. The analyst. As you can imagine, the analyst cannot rise within the organization by finding good things about the deal. They're just doing their job. The only way they can rise in the organization is by finding bad things about the deal. We talk about status. This is really interesting as you're doing a deal. I don't want to get too much into deal making. I know that's not really your topic, but entrepreneurs and guys at that $10 million company level, when they go to make a deal, there's an analyst. And so they know the most about the company or the subject. So they'll answer the analyst questions. And then there'll be a marketing officer, whatever, on the other side. And, like, who knows more about marketing than the $10 million founder? So he'll answer these questions. Then there'll be a CFO who knows the spreadsheet and the financials and the bank better than, you know, the founder. So he'll answer. So this guy's like Bugs Bunny, you know, running around, playing every position, you know, like hitching the ball, batting the ball, outfielding the ball. You don't look like a Real organization. When you're the one running around talking to the analyst, talking to the marketing guy, talking to the cfo, talking to the CEO, talking to the consigliere. So that, so the way to deal with that is you get your analyst, even if it's hired, even it's a borrowed position, to deal with their analyst and make that guy and tie him up, grapple him up and get him in a hold and just get high friction around that analyst so he's not rampantly running free in the deal, trying to make himself feel better. Does that make sense? You've got the archetype of the analyst. When I say it doesn't make sense, I don't know, I don't have a chip to see how well you're understanding it. I get it, you're very experienced and you don't color with crayons. But I just think so there's the analyst, there's a conciliary, there's the final boss and then there's the law firm. And the law firm is they're not trying to make themselves look good or bad, they're just trying to bill ours.
- [36:46]
Russell Brunson
Yes, I know them.
- [36:50]
Oren Klaff
So what will happen is the worst thing in the world is to let your law firm and their law firm run one wild and free together. Right? Because your law firm's goal is to take care of you, make sure you don't do a bad deal. But their job is to bill ours, the law firm on the other side, who knows what control. So you can get a $50,000 thing quickly hit $1,000,000 in legal bills with the law firm. So the law firm is an archetype. What they want to do is they want to find issues that are non issues and explore them, get a legal wrapper around them. And so if you're a little bit inexperienced, your law firm's. Yeah, compliance, compliance around hiring in California is an issue. And we should take a look at this in terms of the number of 1099 versus W2 you have. We should get an opinion over from our hr. You're like, yeah, we better get an opinion on that. The legal, the analyst, the final boss, the consulary are like the four archetypes you're going to hit in the deal. And so I think you have to look for those and go how can I pre frame and get ahead of these guys before what will happen? Missile Command in a deal, what will happen at some point? There's just too many things coming at you. You're trying to drop bombs on all of them in real time. And you're just like, ah, I hit the reset. It wipes the screen. But they only let you hit that reset three times. You're hitting the reset and the bombs keep coming and you lose all your cities and the deal's over. So you want to figure out who these characters are ahead of time and get a dome over them as quick as you can.
- [38:46]
Russell Brunson
So cool. So fascinating. This has been a fun conversation, man. Way different than I think I was expecting and super fascinating.
- [38:54]
Oren Klaff
I'd be unhelpful. Like I said, I want to be helpful to people are facing these things. I'm like, you know, I guess the quick takeaway is you should definitely try. Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you, but I wanted. You should definitely try. When these guys show up late, you go, hey, Jim, you here for the 1007 call? Your instincts will be like, I have never said anything so rude in my life. What will happen is this is the only thing you'll hear, I'm sorry, right? I had whatever reason. And you go, all right, let's get it going now. So try that, it's amazing. And you'll start to feel the play of status, the shift the play in status with people, and then definitely hold people accountable for their weird behaviors they should not be having, you know, bringing to the table. A lot of times I'll do that with their background on the zoom call. Because my background, like I have a $2 million, you know, investment in this place of a spaceship.
- [40:11]
Russell Brunson
Right?
- [40:13]
Oren Klaff
And I will, you know, and there's a 40 foot LED wall, you know, so if I go here, my laptop. Laptop to wall. There you are. Oh, there it is. There's a 40 foot LED wall there. And. And so, you know, have enough. What happened? You know, have enough status there that when they have a weird background, you know, if it's a fund or a big business, you're doing it. Like, where. Where are. Are you calling me from? A coffee shop? Like, seriously, do you want to. How about we just reschedule? Oh, car calls. If you're in your office and they're taking the call from their car, don't do it. Just go, are you in your car? Right? It's like, why don't we reschedule to a time where you're in your office, I'm in my office, and we can talk. Seriously, another one. I just strongly recommend you try it. Anybody listening to this can do that. Why would you do that? Just run your numbers. Like how many calls with people in a Car have actually, I mean, I would ask this to. You have gone somewhere rarely, if ever.
- [41:24]
Russell Brunson
And I think about when I take calls from the car, usually not someone that's not as serious either. I'm like, oh, yeah, are you in.
- [41:30]
Oren Klaff
The car right now? Hey, well, gotta go.
- [41:33]
Russell Brunson
I'll follow up with you, I promise.
- [41:36]
Oren Klaff
My favorite thing to do is if that becomes an issue. Now I'm in the car, I just go, I'm on a landline. Then I can see you're in a car. And they're like, you are, hey, man, are you paying attention? So I go, are you paying attention? I'm in my car. And I just said I'm on a landline. And you asked me, are you like, oh, you think there's like a 40 mile fiber optic cable dragging me? Like, what is going on here? Right. Let's try and get you to focus. And so that is what I'm saying. Like, call out the little behaviors that show that this is not serious. And so I don't want to have this spin off in a direction that's not helpful for your people, but start to notice that status imbalance. Start to notice the little behaviors that show this is not a serious call. And I would just add, I'll add one thing that's very different from, I think, my business and yours. I feel like I'm talking over you now, but it's just sparking in my head. So in my business, we talk to people who, to raise money. So they're on the other side going, we have money. If you're in an $8 million, $10 million, $15 million business and you're talking to people about money they don't have, 8 out of 10 people don't have any money. But they will say that they do. Because when you walk, I would say this, like, Let's see. So I'm gonna ask you what you do and you're gonna say you're a fireman. Okay. Hey, Russell, what do you do?
- [43:19]
Russell Brunson
I'm a fireman.
- [43:21]
Oren Klaff
Oh, really? What, what municipality are you in?
- [43:25]
Russell Brunson
In Boise.
- [43:26]
Oren Klaff
Oh, Boise. Okay. You drive the truck. You're in dispatch. Like, are you in search and rescue or like, do you have a dog? What?
- [43:33]
Russell Brunson
Search and rescue. That sounds cool.
- [43:35]
Oren Klaff
Yeah. What's your engine number?
- [43:37]
Russell Brunson
43.
- [43:38]
Oren Klaff
Yeah, so you're like looking up into the left. You have no right. So if you say you're a fireman, or you say you're a policeman, or you say you're a college professor, there's breadcrumbs that I Can follow just as a layman, you know, really far back. Right. So now go and ask me what I do.
- [43:56]
Russell Brunson
Oren, what do you do?
- [43:57]
Oren Klaff
I'm a fund manager.
- [43:59]
Russell Brunson
Oh. How big is your fund?
- [44:01]
Oren Klaff
$500 million. Okay.
- [44:02]
Russell Brunson
What's the last three deals you did?
- [44:04]
Oren Klaff
You know, we're working on some stuff. This is a continuation fund that we're doing. So, you know, I was at Yahoo for a while, and we did some stuff there. And, you know, this is a new fund that we're established. We're doing some AI things, you know, and we expect a 46% IRR for our next five years.
- [44:22]
Russell Brunson
Okay, so there's 500 money you actually have in the fund now. That's what you're projecting to try to grow to.
- [44:27]
Oren Klaff
Yeah, I mean, we have it. You know, we've got. We've got an investor base that's committed.
- [44:33]
Russell Brunson
Do you want to write me a check for half of that? I'm just kidding. I don't know. Right.
- [44:37]
Oren Klaff
It's like you don't. Like you don't know how to interrogate. So what you have is all these, you know, you have. Do you know Bridger? Yeah, yeah. So Bridger, you know, Bridger and I. I'm guilty of it. Are training, you know, these legions of people to run around going, I'm a fund manager. Right. They haven't. To your point, they haven't raised. You see, I brushed off that question so easily. Yeah. Where's your money?
- [45:00]
Russell Brunson
They're committed. They're committed.
- [45:04]
Oren Klaff
So you have these legions of people running around going, I'm an investor. I have a fund. Why? Because they get into the good rooms for free, right? They get the free IPAs, the free shrimp, you know, the wine, the invites to the thing. They talk to serious people, and they're just circulating in that world, really having no money. So as you're talking to people, you know, there's just. There's just 8 out of 10 people we talked about money, are in the process of raising money, feel like they have access money, because what they'll do is they'll take your deal, right? They'll package it with some other deals and they'll go, hey. And they'll go try and then promote themselves to some money, to try and really be a broker. But they won't say, I'm a broker. They'll say, I have a fund. And so the status, the importance of status is to break through that and call people out who are saying, we have money when they don't. And so that's why you have to be good at this is to get through the facade, you know, that people are projecting. I'm sure it's a lot of your work, you know, one to many as well. You know, it's getting through this, this facade that people are projecting behind it and see what's really going on. So in fact, my closes as complicated as pitch anything is. And the stuff we talked about are really simple. Right? Which is, Russell, you can tell me what's really going on there. The other one is once you can get past there and you sense it like there there's really, you know, the ability to do a transaction. The only clues that I have is this, what should we be doing together? And that's it. And if you get this far down the road, they will tell you. So the close is not, are you in the can I get the contract over to you? The close is what should we be doing together? And then they'll go, what's next? What's next step? So if you do all the pre work and the framing and get the status right, get the stakes high, get the choices correct, then the close is so simple in my experience.
- [47:38]
Russell Brunson
Well, I love it, man. That was really, that was a masterclass on all that stuff. I love it.
- [47:43]
Oren Klaff
I hope there's enough mean, you know, not I hope there's enough morsels there that people can actually just go out and try that. Nobody's going to spit in your face, Nobody's going to say, what are you talking about? Just start to play with it and you'll go. Because Peter, I've taught this to Peter. And he come back giddy. He's like, it worked because people are people.
- [48:04]
Russell Brunson
Yeah. If people want to like learn more from you or like what's the best place books or podcasts, what's the best way to plug in for people to study with you and learn more.
- [48:14]
Oren Klaff
If you really want to get good at all this stuff, go to russellbrunson.com that's the guy who really knows what he's doing.
- [48:25]
Russell Brunson
Thank you. I'll take that.
- [48:28]
Oren Klaff
If that site is down and not take any more subscribers, then go to Tony Robbins. And if Tony Robbins is down, then go, damn it, I'm gonna have to go to my third choice and go.
- [48:40]
Russell Brunson
To orenclof.com orenclf.com yeah, that's it.
- [48:48]
Oren Klaff
So, hey, I know you had a 15 minute time limit and we went over but thank you for.
- [48:54]
Russell Brunson
It's so good to get to know you better and learn from you. So I really enjoyed the time, so it's a great way to lean to the weekend. I appreciate it.