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How to take outbound sales to the next dimension

book review Dec 26, 2023
Book review of "Justin Michael Method 2.0" by Justin Michael

Inbound doesn’t bring the leads required by enterprise sales organisations and outbound is broken. Sellers with an “either this or that” started to ignore the phone and rejected disruptive methods. Time for a new approach.

This book Justin Michael Method 2.0 forms the second part of the new way of top funnel selling which combines a neuroscience-backed approach, mindset development and selling applications using modern tools like ChatGPT and generative AI.

The underlying JMM™ has been proven over the last few years by coaching over 1,000 sales reps and advising more than 200 tech companies. The result from the codification has been split into two volumes with Sales Superpowers as the first book published in October 2023.

Who is Justin Michael to codify a new operating system which many professionals see on the same level as known sales methods from SPIN Selling to The Challenger Sale? The former sales executive of Salesforce and LinkedIn developed his own method and became the role model described in Tony J Hughes’s book COMBO Prospecting. While prospecting for an ambitious project, an AI model of Justin’s brain has been created for further learning.

From there Justin conducted 20,000 hours of cold calls and sent more than 5 million emails to finetune his method to revolutionise the opening part of sales conversations. Earlier he introduced the concept of the Technology Quotient (TQ) in addition to IQ and EQ in Tech-Powered Sales, also co-authored with Tony J Hughes, which predicted the advent of ChatGPT three years in advance.

This second book takes the fundament from Sales Superpowers around opening into an advanced system to drive explosive pipeline growth. The seven chapters cover advanced insights and questioning everything along the journey of prospective clients. In the Closing chapter perception meets reality.

I resonate very much with the middle chapter “Find Your AI Superpower” as it encourages the reader to involve themselves deeply into the technical possibilities thanks to AI. The journey adds more magic resulting into the statement that we can’t have excuses not to rewriter our future. There we see it, our success is in our hands, and both books are the guide we need.

This book includes a range of scroll stopping quotes worth noting and applying. My favourites are: “Specificity brings personalisation into the realm of relevance. It gives your ROI claims context people can believe in.” Basically Justin fosters hyper personalisation to stand out. Another one shows the importance of risk management: “Your customers are more interested in how you can save them from their pain than how you can deliver potential benefits.” Many sentences cover the mindset behind the action such as: “Interactivity is the only currency of effective outbound. Hence, a negative response is still positive.”

The future business book author will be surprised that the whole text of both books has been made available to hundreds of readers in advance to test and refine the method as practical as possible. Especially the advanced technology handled in this book required an empiric approach to ensure the method works in real life. Same as in the first book, the “GPT lab” marked additions from technical editor Greg Meyer allow readers to apply some learnings with respective prompt exercises.

Together with Sales Superpowers this double set is much more than a regular book. The heuristic approach focuses on mental shortcuts treating outbound sales as an operating system. The JMM™ gives sellers in their hands what they need to overachieve their targets. And professionals on the transition from employee to entrepreneurship receive a blueprint how they can solve the main challenge of any new company — bring in the sales required to start a sustainable business. Double book — double usage — double legend.

Justin Michael is the modern Q from the James Bond movies, and these two books are the Aston Martins of the days. If stirred or better shaken is up to the reader how (and how fast) they apply the learning into action.

Closing my recommendation with another quote from the book: “All the world is a stage, and acing presentations is actually a kind of world-class performance act.”

Q&A with Justin Michael

1. What was the deciding moment to write this book?

After five years out in the market, the Justin Michael Method — albeit open-sourced — was copied by hundreds of trainers, usually without attribution. Like Eddie Van Halen putting out Van Halen One and the guitar solo “Eruption,” I have single-handedly changed how outbound prospecting will be done for the next 100 years with the methods and tactics in this book. Take sending Venn Diagrams or building clusters, hyper-frequent touches in sequences. These methods are like two-handed tapping for the guitar.

Don’t believe me? Read it. This book is planting a flag in the sand for everything I’ve invented with prospecting in the last 20 years but also examines the mindset to optimize any comp plan, double income, and pipeline rapidly, regardless of managerial support, tech stack investments, or the right product-market fit. Anyone can take this book, apply its ideas, and, within 30–90 days, vastly improve their sales ability, skills, and financial condition. Hundreds of JMM™ practitioners have done this, and thousands leveraging the open-source Codex guides of the JMM™. Now, neuroscience is explained behind all of it.

2. How long did it take from concept to launch?

Four years in the making, 300 hours of editing and writing. Hundreds and hundreds of hours of coaching. I first released 17 Codex guides on tactical elements that challenged traditional B2B cold emailing, copywriting, visual prospecting, video drops, and visual outreach in 2020 when I turned 40. But explaining where it all came from and the mindset to pull it off as a repeat top performer and funnel builder wherever I went is what presented challenges.

3. How did you perform the research to create the practical content?

The core of this book was hundreds of coaching sessions with technology and services sales reps at all levels, from SDR to CRO, during the writing. I took copious micro-notes while holding these and injected them into the book. I also still cold call, cold email, social sell, and video/voice drop every day — 7 days a week for my own businesses. I worked with two editors in the UK to smooth the outputs and ensure the book’s flow and structure worked. Ultimately, the publisher split the volume into two segments of a “new outbound operating system” to optimize for Amazon Kindle.

4. What was the biggest challenge along the process (and how did you overcome it)?

The hardest part of writing a book that codifies one’s methodology is getting in your own way. It was hard to stay concise, not bragging about accomplishments, and to nail the flow. It was hard to predict where prospecting with tech would be by 2030 and make everything in the book a time capsule that would last 100 years. I don’t mention many tech vendors, and the work on GPT prompting will stay relevant for the next 20 years.

5. What was your own reflection along the journey?

The beauty of codifying a method into a deep book is that you better deliver it and understand its value. I collected new testimonials and fleshed out new dimensions to calling, emailing, and social selling methods I’d used for the past ten years. I realized that identity and being are more important than a positive mindset and doing to earning a phenomenal living in sales. I realized I could integrate the work of spiritual masters, not just business kingpins, to give this book a flavor B2B has never seen.

6. What is the outcome in having this book available?

Sales Superpowers fundamentally challenges all the top prospecting book bestsellers and the methods that 11MM tech sales reps have used in the past. This book will disrupt B2B as we know it. No manual has ever sought to take on parallel-assisted dialing strategy, sequencer strategy introduced heuristics, Venn Selling, visual prospecting, and chat-based choreography that I know of — quantum leaping the “outbound” GTM motion forward with ChatGPT and AI by a factor of 5 years. This book is the blueprint to unleash the superhuman automation described in my first bestseller, Tech-Powered Sales.

My method is the most pivotal shift in outbound prospecting to occur in the last 20 years, maybe even 100 — ask Todd Caponi. It considers game theory, neuro-linguistic programming, behavioral psychology, relationship dynamics, mobile-responsive design, and neuroscience in a unique way that’s never been realized. The depth and sophistication of the techniques fit the explosion of AI-based prospecting technology like a glove. Better than all of this, it works. Paul Vorsmann at HubSpot hit President’s Club and became top in his region. Luke Shalom plugged in just the 4th Frame social selling model and did $175K within 9 months as a solopreneur.

7. What would you advise others about writing their book?

Dr. Benjamin Hardy echoes my thoughts. Write from intrinsic motivation, not extrinsic. Write from your heart, gut, and soul. If publishers turn you down, realize there are many options, and if you believe in the work, your expertise, and the message/mission you have, do not compromise. You’ll ultimately help more people authentically by being yourself vs. selling out. It is worth ensuring your writing is simple and universal so you don’t lose audiences. I’ve strived for clarity of communication in this work more than any other. Bring many voices in early and listen to the critical feedback you receive. This allows you to “carve the angel from the marble until you set it free,” as Michelangelo said best.

Justin Michael: “Justin Michael Method 2.0”, Jones Media Publishing 2023, ISBN 978–1–948382–71–7 (Paperback) or Kindle. More about the book and author: www.salessuperpowers.com.

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