A salesman followed me to my hotel room

I’d just grabbed two fresh drinks from the margarita cart in the lobby at Hard Rock Cabo, one for Sam and one for me, when the vacation club guy spotted me.

This was our fourth stay there in the past year and a half. Why? It’s 30 minutes away, so it’s an easy staycation. They’ve got bowling, foosball, and all sorts of fun stuff for the kids. Plenty for the adults. Plus, Nobu is next door, and their secret dining experience is one of our all-time favorites. So I’m able to entertain the family, have fun, and carve out time for much needed strategy work.

He knew it was our fourth time. He remembered from bumping into us after checking in. So, that was his opener: “Hey, remember we talked when you checked in. You’re a perfect fit for our vacation club.”

He’s probably right. We’re already spending the money. And if I can spend less to get the same experience or a little more to get a better experience, I’m game. I’d be an easy sell.

The problem was, he was asking for 90 minutes of my time on the week I’d intentionally blocked to have no schedule and no meetings.

I said no.

He offered to comp the dinner we’d already booked, Awaken Your Senses, about $500. No thanks.

$500 off our next stay? Still no.

Then he followed me. Through the lobby, to the elevator, down the hall. I was polite about it, but I’m walking through a resort with a couple margaritas and a salesman on my shoulder, like bait in an aquarium.

But I tried to buy anyway. I wanted to know what the offer was.

Me: “Look, I’m interested. I just don’t want to schedule 90 minutes here. Can you just give me the information? What it is, what I get, what it costs. I’ll probably buy. But 90 minutes of my time here is a hard no.”

Him: “No. You have to do the 90 minutes while you’re here or it doesn’t count.”

Me: “Can I call somebody when I get home?”

Him: “No.”

Me: “Then I’m not interested.”

I got to the door. Safety. I’m in sales. I respect the effort. But dayum.

He’d talked to his manager. They’d comp the dinner AND take $500 off the next stay. All I had to do was give them 90 minutes.

Me: “Listen. I’m probably the easiest sell you could make today. If you could just tell me what it is without spending an hour and a half of my time, decent chance I’ll just tell you yes.”

Him: “It’s just 90 minutes.”

Me: “It’s the same 90 minutes you asked for in the lobby. If that’s a requirement, I’m out.”

Now, someone is going to inevitably reply to this email and say, “Ray, $1,000 for 90 minutes isn’t a bad deal.” But it’s not just 90 minutes. It’s a block of time I have to plan other activities around, on a trip I booked specifically to not plan anything.

It was a requirement. I’m not a member of the Hard Rock vacation club.

A few days later, I got a text from Acquisition.com, Alex Hormozi’s company. I’ve got history there too: attended the Scaling Workshop, signed up for their Value Acceleration Method (VAM) program, and worked with their team to help build MSP Sales Partners.

The text said they were opening a new kind of workshop tomorrow, keep an eye out. The next day: “It’s live, click here.”

I clicked from my phone, when it suited me. The link went to a video of Alex, 10-15 minutes: what the workshop is, what it covers, who it’s for, who it isn’t for, what to expect. Then, if I was interested, a link to book a 10-minute call.

The calendar had plenty of slots, including Saturday. I’m sure Saturday isn’t convenient for the salesperson, but it is for me, a business owner. I booked it.

The next morning, a text from Oz at Acquisition.com. He saw I was booked for Saturday. He saw I’d done the Scaling Workshop and the VAM.

He sent me a link. $5,000 later, we were done. Without ever getting on a call.

I’m not sharing this so you’ll copy Acquisition.com’s process. You probably shouldn’t.

I’m sharing it because two companies were talking to the same person, in the same week, with a similar purchase history. All the data was there on who this buyer is, what he’s bought, and how he works.

One company chose to use it. One chose not to. One designed a process that was efficient for me. One didn’t.

Most of the owners I talk to are working on getting better at selling. Objection handling, playbooks, training, execution. That matters, and it’s what we do at MSP Sales Partners. But a lot of the time, something matters more than getting better at sales: making it easier to buy. Knowing who your customer is, how they buy, and changing your process to capture revenue that’s already sitting in front of you.

Hard Rock is the clean A/B. I’m probably an easy customer for them. They could’ve sent me a 10-minute video and a link. We keep coming back, we travel with the kids, this works. It was probably an easy sale, made unnecessarily difficult by friction I didn’t need. And it cost them the sale.

I’m as big an advocate as anyone of a solid sales process and the discipline to run it. But at some point you’ve got to think about the customer. How do you sell the way customers want to buy? Or, as I’ve shared with sales leaders in process workshops: how do you reduce friction while optimizing for conversion?

That’s the point of the process.

It isn’t there to force everyone into your way of selling, unless you can generate unlimited demand. And you can’t, unless you have a monopoly on your market.

If you’re talking to a cold audience, maybe you do want them on a call first and through a few qualifying steps. Perfectly fine. Make those steps easy. Make them efficient. Make them worth taking.

A 10-minute call is a hell of a lot easier to commit to after a 10-15 minute video than 90 minutes at a resort when I have no fucking idea what I’m about to be pitched. $5k? $50k? $500k? But the 90 minutes is fixed either way, so I’m not doing it.

Hard Rock’s process could be improved by thinking about my state of mind as a customer. Spitballing here, but…

First, and most importantly, I don’t want whatever it is they’re selling, because I have no idea what it is. No marketing preceded the ask. An introductory teaser video to get me interested is an easy first step. It creates interest, and it gives them a chance to qualify people and screen out the duds.

Second, like a lot of people checking in there, I’m trying to escape meetings, and they’re asking me for a 90-minute one. Compress it. Share the information in advance so the pitch takes 30-60 minutes, and attach it to an exclusive experience I wouldn’t otherwise get. That creates more interest in investing the time, and it qualifies the buyers who want that kind of experience.

If you sell IT services, or any B2B service, stop and think about this for a minute. Who’s our ideal customer? How do they actually want to buy? Where are they in the process when we typically engage them? What can we change in our process to make it easier for them to buy?

It applies to cold traffic and warm, new customers and existing ones, upsells and renewals. Engineer it into your process, get disciplined about running it, make the obvious judgment calls along the way, and chances are you end up the company that sells stuff. Not the one that follows people to their room.

I was standing in their lobby ready to buy, and I still don’t know what it costs.

Adios,

Ray