The Art of Subtle Words That Sell with Author Paul Ross

 

David 0:00
Are you looking to grow your sales on Amazon? Chances are if you’re not selling on Amazon’s international marketplaces, you are leaving some serious money on the table. What keeps a lot of people from selling internationally are all the confusing hoops you have to jump through to get started. That is why we worked with Kevin Sanderson from maximizing e commerce on our international expansion. Kevin and his team take care of the details and guide you through the process of expanding so that you can grow your sales and reach new customers. If you would like to find out if working with Kevin and his team is right for you head over to www.maximizingecommerce.com/fire FIRE, once again that is www.maximizingecommerce.com/fire.

Paul Ross 0:46
To me, selling is about expanding consciousness. It’s not about getting your ideas in your prospects mind. It’s about expanding their consciousness to include your ideas. So in that way they convince themselves to buy not your product or service because you’re never selling your product or service. You’re always selling decisions and good feelings about decisions. One of my mentors said to me, Paul, if you can’t make your proposition, simple enough that my four year old daughter Madison can get it, then you need to go back and rethink it. Gary said no one has time to figure out your pathetic subtlety, that really stuck with me. And he also said people will not stand to be bored. They just won’t take it. So you need to write something that grabs their attention right away.

Intro 1:35
Welcome everyone to the firing the man podcast, a show for anyone who wants to be their own boss. If you sit in a cubicle every day and know you are capable of more, then join us. This show will help you build a business and grow your passive income streams in just a few short hours per day. And now your hosts, serial entrepreneurs David Schomer and Ken Wilson.

David 1:59
Welcome everyone to the firing the man podcast on today’s episode, we have the pleasure to interview Paul Ross. Paul is a master sales trainer, keynote speaker, author of Subtle Words that Sell

. For the last 30 years Paul has been speaking in front of 10s of 1000s of people teaching them to use the power of language to persuade, sell and even heal. Now he’s trading in the stage for the USB mic bringing his message to the podcasting community. Paul has been featured on BBC, Fox, CBS, Huffington Post, The Rolling Stones. Welcome to the show. First things first, tell us a little bit about yourself and your journey.

Paul Ross 2:36
Well I need to correct something in that introduction I’m still very much open to jumping on stages so I’ve not traded that in.

David 2:43
Very good, very good.

Paul Ross 2:45
Well, you know, questions like tell us a little bit more about yourself call for narratives I generally speaking don’t do narratives but a couple of interesting things. One of the things that you left out, I don’t know it’s usually in there is that I’m a master hypnotist. I’ve been doing hypnosis and subconscious persuasion for 33 years and I got my start in it as a dating and seduction coach. I am actually the guy who started that whole worldwide pick up girls community Believe it or not, because I had problems with my own love life. I was not only this, not always, are we doing video too can they see the video?

David 3:21
Yeah, you bet.

Paul Ross 3:22
I was not always this handsome specimen you see before you today, ladies and gentlemen, I was six feet two, 125 pounds, looked horrible, had tremendous amount of body shame, and just didn’t have any emotional intelligence couldn’t talk to women. And I discovered NLP neuro linguistic programming. It helped me overcome my shame, my shyness, and taught me how to speak in ways that are very emotionally evocative. And if you stop and think about it, dating and selling are very similar. In fact, a date is the biggest sell of your life. You have to do your proper prospecting, you have to qualify the prospect, gain rapport, do your sales presentation, do some trial closes and overcome objections and hopefully get repeat business and even if you’re really good like me, referrals.

David 4:10
Very nice, very nice.

Paul Ross 4:12
I’m also let’s see, I’m an avid reader and I’m a cat lover. I have two kitty cats who I’ve thrown out of the room so they don’t dance on the keyboard.

David 4:21
Very nice.

Ken 4:23
So Paul, excellent introduction and I’m excited for the show I you know, I don’t know what’s gonna happen on this show, but it’s gonna be fun. I know that. I read somewhere that you were author of the book subtle words that sell. Can you tell us about that book and what’s it going to teach? What does that book teach people? That looks awesome. I like that cover.

Paul Ross 4:42
Well the subhead says at all, how to get your prospects to convince themselves to buy and add top dollars to your bottom line. So I have a radically different bat bleep Can I say the S word on your show?

David 4:54
Let it fly, let it fly, Paul.

Paul Ross 4:56
It is a batshit crazy topsy turvy down the rabbit hole, look at how selling really works. It’s unlike anything you’ve ever seen before, to me, selling is about expanding consciousness, it’s not about getting your ideas in your prospects mind, it’s about expanding their consciousness to include your ideas. So in that way they convince themselves to buy not your product or service, because you’re never selling your product or service, you’re always selling decisions and good feelings about decisions. And those are made on the subconscious level. So by learning how to address the subconscious of your prospect, and create states of them of focused states of wanting to believe you states of deep trust, any message you give, will go through those filters, and will be far more likely to be received in a positive light. So what I’m teaching is a completely different way. Yes, I give people the exact words to say in this book, that’s true. There’s some scripts in here you can use, particularly to crush objections, my favorite thing to teach, that’s all true. But it’s also true that there’s a deeper understanding of how subtle selling works, I like to call it the subconscious sales advantage. And so the metaphor I like to use is, you take a wizard, or someone who’s learning magic, the beginner reads from the book of spells, they don’t understand what they’re doing, they just read from the book, The master can write the spells, and then the absolute master doesn’t need any spells at all, just by their presence and their power, they can be persuasive. So really, we’re talking about a fundamentally different way of looking at selling. And whether that’s and look, if you’re an entrepreneur, I need to inform you, you’re in the business of selling constantly. That’s the only way you get revenue coming in.

David 6:44
Very nice. I’d like to maybe do a little bit of roleplay in terms of selling I really like your commentary on you’re not selling your product or service, but you’re going about it in a completely different way. Can you think, is there anything within arm’s distance of you that we could do a little role playing here?

Paul Ross 7:03
Well, you don’t want what’s an arm’s distance of me.

Ken 7:09
We’re off the guard rails, I love it.

Paul Ross 7:11
Oh, I told you we’d go off the guard rails. I told you we’d just break the guard rails completely guard rails are no fun. I’m not sure what you’re getting at. Can you like sell me this, sell me this I don’t do those kinds of stupid scenarios. But what I can give is a few words that you can use at the beginning of any sales presentation to put your prospects in a very deeply suggestible, semi hypnotic state to give them the impression on the underlying subconscious level that you are a trusted leader who they already view as someone they need to follow. I can do that.

David 7:46
Absolutely, yeah, let’s dive into that.

Paul Ross 7:48
So a typical sales presentation is about something you do to someone. As I’m presenting this opportunity to you today, I would just like to ask you to please ask any questions that come up for you to help you see that this is something you want to do something along those lines, maybe you make some jokes, tell some stories, etc. But I say there are certain words that I call implied relationship words that act like posthypnotic suggestions, because I am a hypnotist, that will convince the subconscious mind of your listener or viewer to see you as an absolute expert and authority before you give them any facts, figures or data, and here it goes. I would say something like before we explore this opportunity together today, I’d just like to invite you to please share the questions that naturally arise when a great decisions being made. So let’s look at those words not before I but before we, did you hear it? So we implies we’re on the same side of the table. Explore, in any exploration, there has to be a leader and therefore there has to be a follower. Exactly before we explore this opportunity together. Again, it implies relationship today, I just want to invite you, when you extend an invitation to someone that implies a valuable gift is being given to please share the questions, not ask the questions, but share the questions. What’s the distinction between sharing and asking? Do we share things with people who we don’t trust?

David 9:29
No.

Paul Ross 9:30
So in the space of that one sentence, we’re embedding suggestions without saying it directly. I’m not saying Well, Mr. Smith, as we go through this presentation, you’re going to more and more view me as your leader, someone who you believe in, someone who you absolutely trust without question. If I said that directly, they’d give me the finger or kick me in the Jimmy. I can’t believe I’m allowed to say that. What’s the distinction in that let’s take pull one word out of that. So the words are we explore together Invite and share. Let’s take just one, the word share, what’s the difference is saying please share your questions and saying please ask your questions. Asking is something that one person does to another. Sharing is something that one person does with another. It implies a relationship. Now this is very subtle, hence the title of the book subtle words that sell. So that’s just one example, and remember, for me, selling is about creating states of consciousness. My first question I asked myself is not how do I want to present this plan so they understand the facts and figures or show that I sell 15%? Whatever. My first question is, what states of mind do I want the client in? And how do I get them there? Do I want them in a state of boredom? Do I want them in a state of distraction? And believe me, folks, one of your number one barriers of selling, you’re not selling your product or service, but one of your number one barriers to successful sales is this thing, a smartphone, because of these things and the internet, people’s attention spans have been drastically cut. So even if they’re initially, and people are distracted, and they’re numbed out and they’re dumbed down, one of my mentors said to me, Paul, if you can’t make your proposition, simple enough that my four year old daughter, Madison, can get it, then you need to go back and rethink it.

Ken 11:27
Yeah, I like that. It’s so true. Like we, day to day we’re like this going from one thing to the next to the next immediate, you know, reactions and impulses. So Paul, David and I, a lot of listeners we sell on ecommerce platforms, Walmart, and Amazon. And so you just mentioned, you know, most of our customers, they use their smartphones for shopping. And so they go on and start browsing for products that they’re looking forward to solve a problem. And so do you have any tips on like, if we’re writing copy or on the listing?

Paul Ross 12:00
Oh, boy, do I ever. I’ve made millions of dollars writing copy. I’ve lost most of it, but I sure as hell made it. And I’m going to give you, everything I’m about to teach you comes from out of the mouth and the words and the writing of my mentor, one of the great teachers in my life, Gary Halbert

. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of Gary but Gary passed on in 2007. He was a Mozart of writing copy. Or more like a Barnum and Bailey, PT Barnum, or both a combination of the two. Gary said no one has time to figure out your pathetic subtlety. That really stuck with me. And he also said people will not stand to be bored. They just won’t take it. So you need to write something that grabs their attention right away. Whether that’s in a video or in an audio or in a print ad, you need to do it right away. Let me go back to my origins as an internet marketer, I started in 1994 I got the domain name, and people can be offended I don’t give a shit. I don’t care at my age. I’m doing well enough where I don’t need the business so screw you all. My website is www.seduction.com, I got seduction.com in 1994. And I made my original six figures with a ad I wrote in the back of men’s magazines. And I’m just going to give you the headline for the ad. The headline said, the amazing seduction secrets of a skinny, ugly six foot geek from Culver City, California that could get you all the hot, sexy women you ever desired, no matter what your looks, finances or age or it’s free. Now you’re saying that’s a long headline. But no, who’s not going to read that? Everyone’s going to stop. Gary’s exercise for us is go get all the rag magazines, the Enquirer, the weekly World News, the examiner, write out all of their headlines for a month, and you’ll get pretty good at writing copy. You need to grab people’s attention very quickly. People do not have time to figure out your pathetic subtlety.

David 14:08
So what are some like common, going along with this subtlety, what are some mistakes that you observe entrepreneurs making as it relates to maybe being overly subtle?

Paul Ross 14:19
In copywriting, you mean?

David 14:21
Yes.

Paul Ross 14:22
Oh, I didn’t know that this turned into a course on copywriting, but I’m happy to do it. One of the things that Gary teaches or taught, I still think of him as being alive in some ways. Gary taught that it has to pass the read out loud test. If you can’t read the sentence out loud, then it’s not a well written sentence. So if I write something, it has to pass the talk test. Does that make sense?

David 14:49
Yes, it does.

Paul Ross 14:50
Gary said research your markets even more important than a good headline and a good story and an irresistible offer is research your market. He once said I don’t want to make this about Gary Halbert, but I’ll give you one more story. Gary said in a seminar, let’s do a contest. We’re going to open up competing hamburger stands. I’ll give you any advantage that you want over me. What would you like? And people would say, fresher tasting meat. Some person said topless waitresses. Gary said, Okay, you know what I want? A starving crowd. So who is your starving crowd entrepreneurs?

David 15:26
Like our very hyper focused audience, perhaps.

Paul Ross 15:30
Who are your starving crowd? And who do you not want to serve? For example, I know my starving crowd, they’re not starving, because I only work with people who are already really successful, and they’re highly motivated, and they want to crush their best day and potentially crush their competition. So I know I’m not going to put out a message that says, hey, if you’re struggling, and you’re really ready to begin finally succeeding, that’s not what I do for the sales side of what I do. For the seduction side, yeah, I’ll say, Hey, I don’t care if you’ve never had a woman in your life, or bla bla bla, bla, or you’re living in your mom’s basement, come to me and I’ll show you how to fix that problem. It’s different.

Ken 16:12
Yeah, absolutely. So switching gears a little bit. Paul, you mentioned earlier, you’ve been an entrepreneur since 94, is that right?

Paul Ross 16:19
No, no, no. Since 88.

Ken 16:23
Since 88, ok.

Paul Ross 16:24
No, strike that. It was 1990. I will never forget the day. So I was selling copies of my original book. Man, we’re really gonna you’re gonna catch it. This is my original book. How to get the women you desire into bed.

Ken 16:35
I love that.

Paul Ross 16:39
That’s my original self published piece of shit. The most unbridled, uncensored interview I’d ever done. What the hell, my mentor said, just go for it. Tell people your story. It’s interesting. The people are going to be offended. And Gary said that Gary said, Don’t worry about offending the dogs just focus on attracting the foxes. So there you go, let’s offend people even more. No, I got into it. I wrote ads for my book, as I said, in the back of men’s magazines, I got on some TV shows. And then, I was working as a paralegal full time, there came a point where I realized I’m losing money going into work. Every time I go into work, I have to pass on a radio interview that makes me on average, like five $6,000. So I went in and said to my boss, Theresa, I worked for a law firm I was a paralegal for like, 30 lawyers. And I said, I’m losing money when I come into work, I really gotta go. And she said, Well, you can go today, I said no, you’re the best boss I’ve ever had. I’ll give you two weeks notice. I remember my last thing I ever did at work, I took an update for the law library, and I threw it in the trash because they gave me too much work to do. I remember, I turned in my security card. No, no, I didn’t turn it in. I left the underground garage. I drove to where I lived in Marina Del Rey, and I threw my key card into the ocean. And that Sunday night, which I shouldn’t have done that’s killing birds and seals, but sorry seals or sea lions. That Sunday night, I was driving home and there’s tons of traffic, I thought, wow, all these people have to go to work tomorrow and I don’t. And that was the moment that it really hit me. I had fired the man big time.

Ken 18:20
That’s awesome. So bring us to that point. Like what did it mean to you? How did you feel? And how did the next few weeks and months go?

Paul Ross 18:27
How did I feel? I’d worked shitty jobs my entire life. Although I enjoyed being a paralegal I was good at it. It didn’t pay more than like 20 bucks 15 bucks an hour. So I thought, wow, there’s a whole world waiting for me. It’s like, do you remember the moment you moved out your house? And there was no parents to supervise you? No one to tell you you can’t do something or what to do, and you were completely free. Remember that?

David 18:55
I do.

Paul Ross 18:57
Although you look like you could still be living, Ken, in your mom’s basement.

Ken 19:04
I might be.

Paul Ross 19:07
I’m just effing with you, my man. I like you.

Ken 19:09
Yeah, yeah. All good.

Paul Ross 19:11
So, it was a wonderful feeling. And then I knew, don’t get me wrong, I work a lot. There are times I don’t work much as an entrepreneur, I tend to have a flood of work and then I finish it, and I goof off for a day. And I have time to think but I always know that what I’m producing is for me. Unfortunately, we’re always working for the man because we got to pay taxes. So in a sense, we can’t fire those people even though I would like to do so. But you can’t fire them.

Ken 19:38
Yeah, I would as well.

David 19:40
Sorry to interrupt the episode. You may have heard Ken and I talking recently about a new tool that we’re using for Amazon refunds. Now I have used other refund tools like this. However, I can tell you in the first seven days, they scrubbed the back end of my Amazon account going back 18 months and found 5000 dollars of refunds. And the nice thing about this is, it’s my money, Amazon made a mistake and they are just auditing my account. The other thing I really like about this tool is there is no monthly fee. They only charge a commission if they are successful in getting you your money. Go to www.getida.com GETIDA, and enter promo code FTM for firing the man FTM 400. This is an awesome tool. I can’t say enough good things about it. Now back to the episode. I want to dive a little bit more into a couple of things. One, your T shirt. Can we talk a little bit about that right now?

Paul Ross 20:40
Oh, sure.

David 20:42
Yeah.

Paul Ross 20:42
Defund the media.

David 20:44
Yeah, let’s dig into that.

Paul Ross 20:47
I like to provoke people. My ex girlfriend is about to have a baby. Not mine. Said, Paul, why do you like to provoke people? I’ll wear t shirts that say, the biggest virus is the media or is fear. Or I just like to provoke people. My mother, when I was a little kid, I was sassing her, maybe I was five or six years old. She said, Paul, if you don’t watch it, you’ll grew up to be an iconoclast. I said, What’s that? She said, an iconoclast goes around knocking over other people’s sacred ideas and making them very angry. I said, Mommy, I want to be an iconoclast. How do I do that? So I like to annoy people. I like to be the gadfly. The she said you’re a gadfly. I said what’s a gadfly? She said the gadfly is the big fly that flies around the horse and constantly annoys it, the horse has to swish its tail to chase the fly away. My mother impressed things upon my mind that have never gone away. Thanks, Mom. So if you’re out there watching this, and you’re offended by what I’m saying, blame my mom. No, who are you to blame my mother. You want to talk about my mama, you come over here. I got thunder and lightning for you.

Ken 21:55
Nice, and for those that are listening, he put up what I like to call pete and repeat. Left and Right. So Paul, you mentioned something earlier on, like in your kind of your intro you mentioned, and I’ve heard it a few times before, I’d like to dive into a little bit I think it was NLP. Can you talk a little bit more about that? Kind of explain it?

Paul Ross 22:19
That stands for no limp penises. No, NLP stands for neuro linguistic programming. There’s a lot of different definitions of NLP. But for me, it’s the study of human excellence. It looks at how geniuses, people who are very talented, do what they do. It takes apart, it extracts and takes apart the structure of their talent. And then repackages it, so you can teach it to anybody. So for example, someone who’s naturally good at, I don’t know someone who’s naturally good at making friends with anybody. They may not know how they do that. But with the skills and tools of NLP, you can unpack that talent you can extract out that talent, look at the different levels. What does that person believe? What are their attitudes? What do they notice? What do they ignore? Etc, etc. And you can begin to teach that talent to other people.

David 23:15
Very nice. Would you have a good book recommendation for a NLP starter pack?

Paul Ross 23:19
Sure. Yes, absolutely. Well, if you want to apply it to sales, no, not that one. This one, subtle words that sell, get it on Amazon, your best starter book.

David 23:29
Very nice. Very nice. So a lot of our audience are ecommerce entrepreneurs, and they’re always looking for ways to increase revenue, increase sales. So.

Paul Ross 23:40
Repeat business.

David 23:41
Repeat business, okay. Okay.

Paul Ross 23:43
The most expensive thing you can do is to acquire a customer. The next most expensive thing you can do is to lose a customer.

David 23:51
Okay. Okay.

Paul Ross 23:52
Is that Teddy Roosevelt riding a moose behind you?

David 23:55
It sure is. It sure is.

Paul Ross 23:58
That’s Batman over there. And Joker and Harley Quinn over there. And over there, do you recognize that actor?

David 24:08
I don’t Who is that?

Paul Ross 24:11
Tom Cruise.

David 24:12
Okay. Very nice.

Paul Ross 24:14
Tom Cruise played a version of my Ross Jeffries character in the movie Magnolia. So Tom Cruise actually played me in a movie.

David 24:22
That’s awesome. That’s awesome.

Paul Ross 24:24
This is all over the map.

David 24:25
It’s good.

Paul Ross 24:26
I told you.

David 24:27
It’s good stuff. Good stuff.

Paul Ross 24:30
This is not a dry conversation.

David 24:32
Not at all.

Ken 24:32
No, not at all. So Paul, we’re gonna pivot a little bit. This show is awesome, and I want to continue down this path. And so you’ve had an amazing journey. And can you share just one story? I love storytime. Can you share a story with the audience that you’ve had on your journey that’s been really impactful to you?

Paul Ross 24:50
Wow, there’s so so many of them. I’ll tell you what’s most impactful to me is when people, I’ll give you a recent example. I worked with a guy and I’m not industry specific, necessarily, but I worked with someone who is, I broke my rules. My rules are I only work with people already making good amounts of dough, because that’s who I like working with. But this guy was a former student of my seduction stuff, and he wanted coaching with me, and he couldn’t afford my normal fee. So I cut the fee dramatically. Don’t even try that with me. Because you have to apply when you apply, I’ll see your revenue levels, so forget about it. But in this case, I did it. When he started working, his paycheck was $3500. And he had to drive Lyft or Uber to put food on the table in addition to his check. By the time I was done with him, his biggest check was 27,000 something. And he just thanked me profusely for being able to provide for his family. And that was very touching to me. In fact, he did so well he quit loan depot, who he was working for, and opened up his own shop. So bringing people that kind of thing where they, or I also like astonishing people, to take people, and I say trust me, believe what I’m doing, we’ll get your sales up 30 to 40%. I know it sounds crazy, just trust me. And then to have them report back to me, makes me feel so happy. I do have a, one of my VIP clients makes tons of cash, he is one of my ideal prospects and clients. I have a 10 minute panic call. In addition, I don’t want to make it seem like I’m promoting myself. But among other things to get a 10 minute panic call which no one uses. He took his 10 minute panic call. He’s about to lose a $4.5 million deal. He’s a real estate syndicator. And I gave him seven sentences to say, and he texted me back like two hours later saying I got the deal on my terms. So I say this guy, he was gonna lose about $400,000 in fees and commissions, etc. So that made me feel pretty good.

Ken 25:02
Yeah, that’s awesome. And that’s a huge impact. Both of those stories are very cool.

Paul Ross 27:06
And then I have many of them, I have to say from the seduction side, there’s that book out of print, from the seduction side I’ve had students tell me they were ready to kill themselves. They were ready to drink bleach, one of them told me he was looking at his balcony, calculating how hard he was going to hit when he stepped off on the fifth floor. Because he hadn’t had a girlfriend in his entire life and he was in his 30s. And then when they tell me that I save their life, and they really mean it and they break out weeping. That’s a tremendous responsibility. It’s very, very humbling. It’s deeply humbling to save a life and to know I’ve had people send me, guys send me pictures of their family, their wife, their kids saying thank you. I would not have my children if it weren’t for you. That’s humbling that’s really effing humbling to know that there are children in the world because your work saved someone’s life and changed how they relate to people they’re attracted to that’s pretty humbling stuff.

David 28:01
That’s awesome. Man this has been a good conversation Ken anything else you want to get into before we get into the fire round?

Paul Ross 28:08
We can get into UFOs which I’ve seen.

David 28:12
Oh we’ve got to explore this one. We’ve got to explore this one.

Paul Ross 28:15
I really have. In fact that’s one of my favorite books because I know you asked to recommend a favorite book I’m gonna recommend one. No, I’ve seen them when I was a little kid there was a, no one’s gonna want to contact me after this. He’s a sexist, he teaches seduction, he’s a hypnotist. Steer clear of this weirdo and you’re gonna get hate mail. But I’m gonna take your hate mail I’m gonna give out an email address only for people who hate me. I’m just kidding you can email me if you’d like to. No, I just saw a giant one float over our backyard when I was a kid. It made no noise, changed color, changed shapes. I could not make any sense out of what it was. It wasn’t a blimp, wasn’t an airplane. I don’t know, it’s scary. All I know is it was the most terrifying thing I’ve ever seen in my life. Absolutely different kind of terror. It was, there’s a difference between if I said there’s a tiger, I’m about to let in the room. You’d be terrified. But if I said a ghost is about to walk through the wall and you believed me, that’s the kind of terror that makes your hair stand up on end. That was the kind of terror It was. It absolutely terrified me, because it didn’t fit into any category of anything I’d ever seen before.

Ken 29:24
That’s pretty incredible. Yeah, it makes you think, right, like that’s a deep story. I have not seen any UFOs yet. I’m not saying that they’re not out there, but.

Paul Ross 29:36
I’ve dated a few aliens.

Ken 29:39
I think I’ve done that same thing as well. Before we get into the fire round, I have one more question. So Paul, can you share a few tips on how, our audience on this podcast are largely ecommerce entrepreneurs. Can you share a couple of tips that they can use to increase their revenue by 30% or more in 90 days?

Paul Ross 30:00
Yeah, first and foremost, learn to get people’s attention immediately by writing a gripping headline. Know your market who really is your market, not who you think is your market, but who really is your market for what you have. Always bear in mind, you’re never selling your product or service at every moment and your connection with that prospect. You’re selling decisions or good feelings about decisions, even if it’s the decision to continue reading your ad. That’s a decision. So you better make sure that you’re continuing to guide them to the decisions that lead to the final decision, which is the buy.

Ken 30:38
Okay, now those are great nuggets. Very cool. Awesome. So okay, so now we’re moving into the fire round. Are you ready, Paul?

Paul Ross 30:47
Hit me with your best shot. Fire away.

Ken 30:52
What is your favorite book?

Paul Ross 30:54
Tied. So fiction or nonfiction? Or both? Which do you want to know?

David 30:59
Both.

Ken 30:59
Both.

Paul Ross 31:00
Fiction would be a science fiction novel by Philip K. Dick called Valis VALIS

and Philip K. Dick, by the way, wrote stories that Hollywood later produced movies from like Blade Runner, and Total Recall, etc, etc. all based on his work.

Ken 31:18
Awesome. Very cool. I’ll have to check that out

Paul Ross 31:22
And nonfiction. That’s a toss up between the age of reason by Thomas Paine

, which totally destroyed my faith in the Bible. If you’re a believer, that’s great. I have no bone to pick with you no quarrel. But I was a deeply believing Jewish person. And now I’m agnostic slash atheist. Thanks to that book. That book tore it to pieces for me.

Ken 31:44
Sounds like a powerful book. What are your hobbies, Paul?

Paul Ross 31:47
Cats. I’m a cat lover. I have two of them. I’m a big cat fancier. I am an incredible dancer. I tend to attract women like bees to honey, when I dance. I’m an outrageous flirt. I love to flirt. And those are the hobbies we can talk about without me getting arrested. And your show shut down for aiding and abetting across state lines.

Ken 32:15
I love it. Alright, we’re gonna stay within the rail, so we’re gonna go to the next question. What is the one thing that you do not miss about working for the man?

Paul Ross 32:23
Oh my god punching a clock.

Ken 32:25
Yeah, that sucks.

Paul Ross 32:25
And following orders. I do not do well with following orders. Unless I’m wearing my special outfit, then I’ll follow orders. This is totally off the rails. I warned you you know if you don’t want to use this episode, you can totally trash it.

David 32:43
Not at all. This is gold.

Ken 32:44
Last one. Yeah, this is a gold mine. What do you think sets apart successful ecommerce entrepreneurs from those who give up, fail or never get started.

Paul Ross 32:53
You have to have your back against, you have to really get that there’s no other thing you can do. What’s kept me going during my dark time, first of all, you have to have the passion for it. And you have to have a vision of where you want to go. But equally true, you have to really get, at the end of the day you there’s nothing else you know how to do. I can’t do anything else. It’s been 30, 91, so that’s what 30 years. I have a 30 year unemployment record. I couldn’t get a job flipping burgers. Right. So at the end of the day, you really have to know you burn, I love this to the back of your, right there in back of you, Ken. You have to burn the boats, you have to realize the boats have not only been burned, they’re gone at the bottom of the ocean.

Ken 33:33
Absolutely. Yeah. Totally agree. David, you want to close out the show?

David 33:38
Yeah, absolutely. How can people get a hold of you, Paul?

Paul Ross 33:41
Well, like I said, I really do only work with people who are already at least doing multiple six figures. I, speaking to them, time is money. My time is my money. Your time is your money. I’m not going to waste your time, I wouldn’t want you to waste mine. So if what I’ve said has been resonating with you in any way along with making you laugh, and maybe even offend you, just contact me immediately. And the best way to do that is my email, paul@speakerpaulross.com. That’s paul@speakerpaulross.com. And if you want to send hate mail send it to ken@firingthemanpodcast.org.

Ken 34:22
Love it, love it. It’s been a blast Paul, appreciate you coming on the show and sharing your time with the audience.

Paul Ross 34:29
Well good. Can you guys admit this has the been the most off the rail episode you’ve ever done?

David 34:34
Yes. In 80 some episodes this has been, yeah, I don’t think I’ve laughed this hard and this has been absolutely wonderful.

Paul Ross 34:40
And remember, if you’re a desperate geek who has not seen a woman naked without a credit card, pick up how to get the woman you desire into bed somewhere. It’s out of print, but I think you could get it somewhere on Amazon.

Ken 34:53
That’s awesome.

David 34:54
Well, good stuff. Good stuff. Yeah, I know a couple people in my Rolodex I’ll be recommending that to so.

Paul Ross 35:04
www.seduction.com

David 35:08
Got it. Awesome. Well Paul, thank you so much for being on the show and hope to talk to you soon. Thank you everyone for tuning in to today’s firing the man podcast. If you liked this episode, head on over to www.firingtheman.com and check out our resource library for exclusive firing the man discounts on popular e commerce subscription services. That is www.firingtheman.com\resource. You can also find a comprehensive library of over 50 books that Ken and I have read in the last few years that have made a meaningful impact on our business, for that head on over to www.firingtheman.com/library. Lastly, check us out on social media at firing the man, and on YouTube at firing the man for exclusive content. This is David Schomer

Ken 35:54
and Ken Wilson. We’re out

David 36:10
Before you go, fun fact for all you Amazon sellers out there when you start selling in international marketplaces, all of your reviews come with you. At the beginning of this year, Ken and I sat down and talked of ways that we could double our businesses in size and landed on international expansion as our number one initiative this year. We partnered up with Kevin Sanderson from maximizing ecommerce and he has made the process an absolute breeze walking us step by step through the process. If you want to grow your revenue and reach new customers head on over to www.maximizingecommerce.com/fire and connect with Kevin Sanderson today. Now, back to the show.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai