In this short In-Sights episode of Against the Sales Odds, Lance Tyson breaks down a simple but often overlooked truth: you are the first sale. From mindset and confidence to credibility and belief, how you show up determines how others respond. If you’re struggling to influence, persuade, or move deals forward, the issue may not be your pitch — it may be what buyers are picking up before you even speak. A quick listen with a powerful reminder: sales always starts with you.
👉If you’re looking to elevate your selling strategy, shift your perspective, and compete where the decision actually happens, this episode is a must-listen.
Check out Tyson Group’s Open Enrollment Programs: https://www.tysongroup.com/openenrollment
Check out Lance’s Bestseller Books:
The Human Sales Factor – https://tysongroup.com/books#thehumansalesfactor
Selling is an Away Game – https://tysongroup.com/books#sellingisanawaygame
Download our playbooks: https://www.tysongroup.com/sales-playbooks
Schedule a call with one of Tyson Group’s member: https://bit.ly/41YJW7K
Subscribe to our Newsletter: https://tysongroup.com/#weeklynewsletter
Follow Lance across Social Media:
LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/lancetyson/
Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/lance_tyson_1/
Love the show? Subscribe, rate, review, and share! https://www.tysongroup.com/podcast
🎧 Tune in as Lance shares the mindset, behaviors, and tactics that separate average reps from elite performers.
—
Listen to the podcast here
In-Sights: You Are The First Sale
Before you sell an idea, a product, or a solution — you sell yourself.
When you go to a doctor or a dentist, it is easy to take advice from them because of how they intake. It is easy to follow the chain. When you go see a doctor, you connect with a certain doctor. My son Zach was getting his shoulder done. He tore his labrum. We were suggested to see a certain doctor or a specific type of doctor. We go to an orthopedic surgeon. We sit down with the orthopedic surgeon. He connects with us. He puts us through an evaluation. He looks at his age, his history, demographic, and permanent record and evaluates.
You walk into a dentist’s office, and the same thing happens every time. They also, in the connect step, pre-qualify you. Cannot afford to pay? That is called insurance. In the connect step, there is a pre-qualification, which is where you are building credibility, laying it out. There is an evaluation when you go into a room. Nurse practitioner, doctor, nurse, whoever, they are then diagnosing you. They go back and forth. They look at your history. That is what you do. You do that every single time.
The key is to make sure you dial in with that person individually, as we talked about earlier, just not treating them as another appointment or another enrollment. You are dealing with them as the individual they are, but then you suggest to them. Your diagnosis is your best guess for what you could do for them or what they need or want. Does that make sense? Even in general, and then you prescribe. That is exactly what VOT does. They will give you a prescription. That is what the orthopedic surgeon does.
“We are going to give you a suggestion on how to fix this.” Once you get the prescription, you have a dialogue about the prescription, you talk about it. When you get to the pharmacist, you talk about it too when you get a prescription, and then you close, which is action. You either end it, you close the book, whatever it is.
What’s interesting about this is that if you think about it, that turns into stages. Your first three are your sit down when somebody comes and does a visit. You sit down with the doctor, your sit down with whatever program it is. Maybe even in that meeting, you make a suggestion and prescribe. Your job is to get reasons why they would do it and not do it. That could all happen in one meeting, or it could be broken up into steps. That is really the process you follow. You do not do anything else. The reason why that process is so important is that it is embedded in giving advice.
The Right Way To Selling Yourself
It literally follows advice, and the advice it takes considers the fact that you would do a prognosis. The prognosis is before you ever meet with somebody. You know your ideal prospect profile, you know who you do business with, and then you get into the evaluation and diagnosis, which is actually meeting with that person. Does that make sense to everybody? Now, let us break these down. I am going to dabble a little bit and come across a high level.
You might pick up some stuff up here. Run with me. This does not work if you are not building rapport, establishing credibility, and demonstrating that you understand. Back to what we talked about earlier. It is all sitting on that. Let us think about a simple pre-approach before you start talking to somebody. Who am I calling? Why am I meeting with them? Am I actually flexible enough to see it from their point of view?
You do not need a pep-up talk, but I would print that out and stick it right in front of your desk, especially question number two. Am I flexible enough to see it from their point of view? Am I going to shove my opinion down their throat because I have been there, done that before? I do not think that is what Marquee is all about. I think Marquee’s value proposition goes the other way. What I hear and what I see in the marketing is that we treat each patient or each customer personally. It is personalized. The sales process has to be about that also. Let us move the needle.
Let us get in that first connect step. Let us go there first. The connect step says that every time you first meet with somebody, they are preoccupied. That is the objection. That is called an inherent objection. You sit down with somebody you call, and they are going to be preoccupied. They are thinking of something else or what they need to think about. That is why I called earlier. Why do you not ask them what got them to meet and what they want to hear?
They are already preoccupied with that anyway. They are preoccupied with the solution. What is your strategy? Your strategy would be to engage the buyer in a conversation and get them to acknowledge you are actually a person worth listening to. That is where the trusted advisor comes in. Follow me so far? What are the tactics? We have got to be really good at sales starters.
Sales starts with you. You are the first sale. If they have to believe in what you offer, they have to believe in you first.
Open with a sales starter. Remember, I said before, pleasantries are not that, but if you ask somebody how much time they have, that is a sales starter. You should be good at impact statements. That is like your elevator speech. You should be good at why-speak statements. That is your ability to facilitate a conversation. What I was going over with Jules earlier, when I laid out that whole agenda, that is a why-speak statement.
We call it a why-speak statement because when you state it, Jules just sits there and goes, “I know why you are speaking to me now.” It goes to my Jules. “Jules, how much time?” “We have about 30 minutes.” “Fair enough.” Most of the people we are talking to are looking to get their loved ones into a spot that lowers risks and takes care of them individually.
First thing I would like is to learn a little bit about you, your family and your loved ones. We can talk a little bit about how we work at Marquee. We will show you a couple of options, and if there is a next step, we will take it. How does that sound? Sounds like actually probably self for you. Yes. That is pretty reasonable at the end. I am not saying that is perfect, but that is probably where it should go.
What skills do you need there? Verbal brevity is probably important, verbal economy. Your ability to sell time and awareness probably becomes pretty critical. Can you not communicate value? Remember, as Dave said, this all starts with you. You are the first sale. They have to, if they are going to believe in Marquee, they have to believe in you first. Let us move the needle.
