No BS advice to make $20k per month in sales quick

I've closed $9M+ in sales and helped hundreds of reps hit record breaking months. This isn't theory. These are the 9 things I wish somebody told me when I started, the stuff that would have gotten me to $20k months a hell of a lot faster.

Keep it conversational over everything

The resistance a prospect feels about being "sold" needs to be at an all time low. If they're painfully aware they're on a sales call, you're done. People lie to salespeople. They don't lie to friends. And if people aren't being truthful with you, you can't build a reliable process.

Two things I almost never use: agendas and parroting back what someone just said.

"If you're hanging out with your buddy and you're about to have a conversation, would you say, hey, this conversation I'm going to ask you a few questions? No. It's weird."

Same with repeating things back. If your friend says they're ordering a burger and fries, you don't say "so what I hear is you're ordering a burger and fries." You'd look like an idiot. These habits just remind the prospect they're in a sales process, and that kills openness.

As for scripts versus scriptless selling, I've always run a script. I think scriptless selling is trending because people get handed a script, never learn the why behind the questions, never learn the tone, and then blame the script when it doesn't work. I keep my script memorized front to back, but I never look at it. I know why I'm asking every question and what answer I'm hunting for.

Tone matters more than people think. Early in the call, be curious. When you dig into problems, shift to concerned. If your tone never changes, your concern means nothing. If you smile and laugh when someone shares pain, they'll laugh it off too. Match the moment.

Become obsessed with human behavior

If you understand humans on a deep level, you'll never worry about money again. That's what top closers and top marketers all have in common.

I work with a lot of younger guys who were never taught to talk about emotions or read people. I've gone outside of sales training to learn this stuff, studying interrogation techniques, FBI and CIA behavior analysis, body language.

"If you become obsessed with human behavior, it's just really a shortcut to reading people. And if you're good at reading people, you'll be good at sales."

Fidgeting, self soothing, nervous energy, all of it tells you whether you're dealing with a fear objection or a money objection. That distinction changes everything about where you take the call.

Focus is your greatest weapon

Everyone wants your attention right now. The biggest hack is picking one thing and eliminating everything else.

My first year in sales I did better than average. I was the top guy at a SaaS company. But I didn't get outsized results until sales became THE thing for me. I'm a small town kid from Kansas who wanted to work from anywhere, so I got into sales, moved to Miami, and got distracted by every shiny opportunity.

I was making $20k, $30k, $40k a month and still chasing the next business model. My focus would wander and my income would crash. The second I said "sales is the thing" and got hyperfocused, I started outperforming everyone around me.

"If you become great at sales, it's a skill set you'll have for the rest of your life. You'll never have to worry about money again."

Destroy your own limiting beliefs before you fight theirs

Sales is leadership. You have to lead yourself first. Most objections you struggle to handle are objections you secretly believe yourself.

I was training a guy who always folded when a prospect said they wanted to shop around with other companies. Turns out that's literally how he makes decisions in his own life, so he believed the objection was valid.

I asked him: how much do you actually know about your AC unit? Nothing, right? So if your heater breaks, does it really help you to talk to three different companies about something you know nothing about? You have no frame of reference. You can't judge if they're right or wrong. All you're doing is burning hours and muddying your own decision.

"I am the easiest person to sell. If I hop on a call with you, I already know I'm going to buy your stuff."

The other big limiting belief is how people treat prospects who are "doing well." My response is always: what does that even mean, compared to what? Chase Hughes, a body language expert I highly recommend, says every person you talk to is insecure, is shaped by their past, and is wearing a mask. Wealthy people just have more material to build a thicker mask with.

If you buy into their mask as their real self, you're dead in the water. People don't buy from people they like. They buy from people they trust. And they only trust someone who feels a step ahead of them on the one specific thing being discussed.

Get comfortable having uncomfortable conversations

Whoever is most comfortable in the conversation usually has the strongest frame, and the strongest frame wins.

Humans pick up on tiny signals even subconsciously. Looking down, touching your neck, tapping, fidgeting, these all scream nervous energy. If you're supposed to be the expert and you look nervous, the prospect's gut says "maybe I shouldn't give this person my money."

A few things that help:

• Move like you're underwater, no fast or jerky movements
• Keep open body language, open palms, open chest
• Manage your own tells, for me that means keeping the AC cold so my face doesn't flush

The place people get most uncomfortable is objection handling. That is exactly when you need to be the calmest person in the room. My recommendation:

"Go 30 minutes straight roleplaying with someone, and they cannot say yes no matter what you do, no matter how persuasive you are."

This forces you to think on your feet and explore different directions in a conversation without the safety net of closing. It builds real comfort fast.

Ask the question they're scared you'll ask

Every part of a good sales conversation is a setup to the one real question the prospect does not want to answer. Put yourself in their shoes. Where is their pain hiding, and what question would bring that pain to the surface?

I was helping someone who sells real estate investing to blue collar guys, electricians, HVAC techs, linemen, guys whose bodies take a beating. The real question wasn't about real estate. It was:

"How much longer can you keep this up? What happens if your body gives out?"

Nobody wants to sit with that. But if they don't confront it, the consequence is still coming. Asking the hard question creates the urgency that actually moves people to change.

Don't stick around for a company to figure it out

Companies have to sell their own salespeople first, on the vision, the product, everything. But while a company is "figuring it out," changing offers, changing marketing, you're not getting enough reps at bat. And if you're commission only like most closers I coach, that directly affects whether you pay rent.

Most companies never actually figure it out. The ones that do are rare. So I only attach myself to companies that are already doing well.

"I know my skill set. If I'm given the right opportunity, I should be making 40 to 50 grand a month. If you can't give me that, that's like buying a Ferrari and leaving it in the garage."

Companies with it figured out are also spending real money on marketing, often $200 to $300 per booked appointment. They are not going to burn that on reps who can't close. So build your skill set wherever you need to, even at a crappy company or as a setter first, then move up to a company that has demand already proven.

Training is something you do, not something you did

This connects straight back to being obsessed with human behavior. If you don't train, you get flabby, same as skipping the gym. You're either growing or declining. There's no neutral.

When I was a full time rep, I listened to my own sales calls constantly. I'd finish my calls for the day, do admin, then plug in one or two of my own recordings on the way to the gym.

"I want to pinpoint if I'm making any pretty obvious mistakes."

This is also how you make coaching actually useful. When someone comes to me with a vague question, I'm partly guessing, even with experience. But when someone says "I've listened to my calls, I keep running into this specific thing, I've tried this and it's not working," I have real context to solve the actual problem. Do the self review first, then bring it to a coach.

Be yourself on your calls

A trap I fell into myself: finding someone whose sales style you love and trying to be a carbon copy. Their words, their tracks, their delivery. People pick up on disingenuous fast.

You can borrow the psychology behind a technique, but you have to rebuild it in your own voice. For example, I use something called tactical vulnerability that one of my mentors taught me. He has this wild story about being a special forces sniper and dealing gems and all this crazy stuff. I can't use that story. It's not mine, and it wouldn't land right coming from me.

My version is growing up in a small town, terrified of being average, watching someone I graduated with become a teacher at our old high school and feeling real anxiety about it. I've told people about my brother getting shot in the chest and how that reshaped how I see time. I've had people call me six months later saying something similar happened to them and asking how I got through it.

"When you're really able to connect with people, you're being yourself on calls, and you're not just trying to sell them at the end of the day."

The bottom line

None of this is complicated, but all of it takes discipline. Talk like a human, get obsessed with why people do what they do, pick one lane and go all in, fix your own head before you try to fix theirs, get comfortable in the uncomfortable parts of the call, ask the question that actually matters, pick companies that already work, train every single week, and stop copying someone else's script word for word. Do these nine things consistently and $20k months stop being a stretch goal and start being the floor.