The Tai Lopez Show – Episode #739

Guest: Johnny Ma
Date: September 11, 2025

Episode Overview

In this episode, Tai Lopez hosts Johnny Ma, a young entrepreneur and sales leader collecting over $1 million monthly on his sales floor. The discussion dives deep into sales team building, sales training, leveraging AI, personal branding for competitive advantage, and practical objection-handling strategies. Tai shares insights from top business books, personal stories, and the significance of building predictable, scalable, and resilient business systems. Johnny expands on actionable frameworks for sales success, team structure, tech, and building mental resilience in salespeople.

Main Themes & Purpose

• Escaping Competition and Creating a “Monopoly”
  Tai emphasizes how to use personal brands and AI as the dominant strategies to ensure business success and lasting profit, inspired by Peter Thiel’s book Zero to One.

• Building High-Performing Sales Teams
  Johnny Ma details his approach to developing a sales floor, training new reps, and scaling from startup to seven-figure monthly revenues.

• Sales Techniques and Objection Handling
  Both share hard-hitting, tactical advice for effectively closing deals, managing objections, structuring calls, and maximizing sales conversions—especially for high-ticket offers.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Power of Personal Branding and AI

Tai’s Book Recommendations & Take:

• Peter Thiel’s Zero to One – Read yearly for strategy inspiration. Tai emphasizes, “You don’t want a level playing field. You want a monopoly. Competition eventually destroys all profits.” [04:10]
• Building Your Monopoly: Personal branding is the only “legal monopoly.” AI and personal branding are the only future-proof business models:

  "The only two things that'll make money long term is AI brands and personal brands." [08:55]

• Predictable future trends are demographics, AI, and tech. Get in early or be left behind.

2. Sales Floor Structure and Scaling Up

Johnny Ma’s Journey:

• Started following Tai at 18; now collects over $1 million/month on a 12-person sales floor. [19:02]
• Goal: Scale to $4 million/month managed revenue, split across multiple businesses/offers.
• Recommends spreading skills through training and “taking a piece out of every single person.” [19:37]
• Stress on clear commissions (5-20%), and supplementing with personal offers (e.g., 350k/month coaching).

Tai’s Philosophy:
“You can only sell so much alone. If you have 10, 20 people, you can scale.” [19:03]

3. Sales Training & Mental Resilience

• First lesson for new salespeople: "I want them to understand how difficult it's going to be... being told no consistently is one of the most important skills to have." – Johnny Ma [29:34]
• Kinetic Energy Transfer:
  “If you're on the phone and you don't sound energetic... that's transferring right through the phone... Humans don't make decisions logically.” – Tai Lopez [31:22]
• Conviction & congruency matter: Handle money objections only if you’re congruent in life (“If you can't keep promises to yourself, it's hard to persuade others”). [32:35]

4. Objection Handling Techniques

• On "Send me an email":
  “What are you looking for more information on? Because that's not the real objection.” – Johnny Ma [34:18]
• Tai’s direct approach: “Email is where deals go to die. You want help or not?” [34:28]
• On "Let me think about it":
  Johnny: “Do you feel like what we went over could get you where you want to go?”—leading to the core fear, usually fear of failure.
  Tai: "Would you still have to think if you KNEW you'd get success?" [36:37]
• Overcoming Price Objections:
  Johnny reframes the role of money, labels procrastination, and uses NLP to drive resourcefulness. “Does you not having the money or it being too tight mean you're not willing to find a way?” [39:52]

5. Sales Tech Stack and Process

• Uses Close CRM, custom-builds AI agent for call reviews and sales coaching. [43:04]
• Lead follow-up cadence: Call in first 5 minutes, and at scheduled intervals; use human DMs, WhatsApp, and iMessage for personalized touches.
• Triage and Qualification:
  A triage team calls within 3 minutes of booking, qualifies, builds anticipation, and group-chats prospect with a closer to increase show rates. [47:07]
• Show and Contact Rates:
  “The hardest thing in the modern world right now is just getting people that can answer. On first dial, only about 10% reach rate.” – Johnny [50:08]
  Good show rate: 70-80% for booked calls considered best-in-class. [49:38]

6. Scaling with Financing & Payment Plans

• Johnny prefers “Split It” and “Elective” for client financing—crucial for increasing conversions on high-ticket sales.
• Minimum down payments, interest-free installments, and creative solutions to lower financial barriers.

7. Remote vs. In-Person Sales Teams

• Johnny leans toward in-person sales floors for maximum energy and culture, specifically in Scottsdale, AZ due to talent density. [41:03]
• Tai agrees cities like Miami, San Diego, London, and Dubai are top picks for big sales team HQ.

8. Lead Generation & Outreach

• Johnny’s company started all-organic, went to $1M+ in 4 months. Now adding paid ads.
• DM voice memos favored over canned videos; highly personalize outreach and follow-up based on age and prospect profile.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Tai Lopez [04:10]:
  “Forget what everybody says. You don't want a level playing field, you want a monopoly. Competition eventually destroys all profits.”

• Tai Lopez [08:55]:
  “The only two things that’ll make money long term are AI brands and personal brands. If you’re not in one, you’ll get wrecked.”

• Johnny Ma [29:34]:
  “Being able to be told no consistently time after time after time is one of the most important skills to have, especially in sales.”

• Tai Lopez [31:22]:
  “Sales is kinetic energy transfer. If you don't sound energetic or confident, that's transferring right through the phone.”

• Johnny Ma [32:50]:
  “You can't handle money objections if you live in scarcity. People see that lack of conviction.”

• Tai Lopez [34:28]:
  “Email is where deals go to die. You want help or not? Let's talk real.”

• Johnny Ma [39:52]:
  “Does you not having the money or it being too tight mean you're not willing to find a way?” (on using NLP and identity to close)

• Tai Lopez [45:04]:
  “If you call in the first five minutes, you get like 100x chance of reaching them.”

• Johnny Ma [54:09]:
  “We did 350 [thousand] last month. Is that collected or cash? Yeah, I only count cash collected. Bird in the hand is better than two in the bush.”

Important Timestamps

• 00:00 - Tai’s opening story about his student’s business transformation.
• 04:10 - Insights on Zero to One and escaping competition.
• 08:55 - The centrality of AI & Personal branding.
• 19:02 - Johnny’s journey: building a sales floor, hitting $1M/month.
• 29:34 - Johnny’s first lesson for new salespeople—embracing rejection.
• 31:22 - Tai on “kinetic energy transfer.”
• 34:18-36:08 - Live objection handling demonstrations (“Send me info,” “let me think”).
• 39:15-40:10 - Johnny’s frameworks for handling price and financial objections.
• 43:04 - Tech stack: custom AI, cadence, and rapid-fire follow-up systems.
• 45:04 - Tai’s principle: “Call leads in first five minutes.”
• 49:38 - Show rate benchmarking for booked sales calls.
• 54:09 - Johnny on cash collection and company growth metrics.

Conclusion

This episode offers a masterclass in scaling sales, handling objections, leveraging the latest tech, and building personal business moats. The interplay between Tai's macro-strategy perspective and Johnny's frontline tactics makes the conversation both inspiring and highly practical for entrepreneurs aiming to scale up sales teams or break into high-ticket sales.

For more, find the show notes and links at:

TaiLopez.com/johnny-podcast
Or text/WhatsApp +1 786-730-8374 with the keyword "JOHNNY".