I don't mean to toot my own horn over here, but I've become a pretty top-notch salesman over the years.
I owe a lot of that to my lead generation business, which has put me in contact with hundreds of business owners since 2015. And while I fine-tuned my ability to generate digital assets that now produce me more income than doctors and lawyers, my sales skills grew exponentially as well.
But I love to learn. And there's always room for improvement, right? So I looked into dozens of types of sales training programs and found some great ones that taught me incredible tactics that I still use to this day.
But I have to say, although these sales skills have been extremely valuable to me, if I had started with the sales route, that alone would not have lead me to generating the passive income that I am now.
And if that's your goal as well, make sure to stay till the end because I'm going to give you my #1 business recommendation for generating passive income online in 2021.
But why should you listen to me in the first place?
Allow me to introduce myself...
When I was 25 years old, I was living paycheck to paycheck. I was working 40 hours per week, and by the end of each month I only had $2,100 to show for it.
...I hated every minute of it.
One year I got a standard 5% raise, and after taxes it came out to be $60 more on my monthly paycheck.
That’s when I decided enough is enough. I needed to figure out something to become free from being a corporate slave.
That’s when I turned to the internet and began doing a lot of research on online business opportunities.
Fortunately I was able to find a business model that made a lot of sense to me--Making money online by generating leads for small businesses.
7 months after I joined this lead generation coaching program, I was able to walk away from my 9 to 5 job slavery.
I’ve been self-employed every since (June of 2014.)
Building this lead generation business made me realize just how important sales skills are as an entrepreneur.
It helps that I’m selling the #1 thing needed for any business to survive which are leads.
But as I honed my skills in sales, my business began to grow faster and faster.
What is sales at the end of the day?
Sales is effective communication.
And communication is key to building any powerful relationship with people.
Today I have over 45 clients across the US, from plumbers to towing companies.
Generating $45K-$50K per month in recurring income.
You'll notice that this isn't a "Top 10" list.
That's because I’ve looked at many sales training programs over time that claimed to be the best online sales courses, and for the most part, many of them are simply imitations of other popular programs or sales teachers, rehashing the same concepts over and over again.
The 4 sales courses I’m about to list, however, are actually one of a kind.
Four different sales approaches, philosophies and styles.
I'll also give you their strong suits so you can decide which course might be right for you (you really can’t go wrong with any of them, but certain styles may be a better fit for some.)
The bottom line is, I went from being an introvert to now becoming really passionate about sales.
These are the 4 best sales courses online that helped me the most.
DISCLAIMER: UNBIASED REVIEW-NO AFFILIATE LINKS
Just a reminder: I am not an affiliate for any of the programs on this list.
If you choose to purchase one of the four sales training courses outlined in this article, I don't receive any compensation.
4. Brad Lea – Closer School Masterclass
First off, who's Brad Lea?
Brad Lea is the creator of LightSpeedVT, the online training platform that is used by many well-known personalities such as Daymond John, Tony Robbins & Grant Cardone.
Brad's program helped me make sure I had an understanding of the complete sales process.
(The "big picture," so to speak.)
He covers the core components of selling in 2021, showing the 7 steps of today's sales process, but he doesn't get lost in the weeds.
Closer School Contents
Since it's a masterclass, Brad spends the majority of time training on developing a strong sales mindset.
While he does cover everything, his course is pretty short (under 5 hours), so he doesn't exactly cover all the ins and outs of each topic like Grant Cardone and Jordan Belfort do in their longer courses.
To give you a more robust review of Brad's short course, I also include some of the social commentary from forums like Reddit & Quora.
Who is Closer School right for?
Closer School is a great introduction to the field of sales, so it's good for the noobie who's trying to figure out the game.
3. Grant Cardone – Cardone University
Grant’s online training sales program, Cardone University is good.
But I gotta say I have to give major props to his two sales books, "Sell or be Sold: How to Get Your Way in Business and in Life" and "The 10X Rule."
Probably two of my favorite sales books ever.
Grant makes it pretty clear early on that being great at sales requires a winning mentality. And these books in particular helped me begin to understand what kind of mindset it takes to be a great closer.
Here are some key takeaways from these books:
If you go with Cordone's course, all I can say is...prepare to be captivated.
This guy has a magical, motivating energy that is nothing short of inspiring. It might be hard to imagine the idea of a sales training keeping you on the edge of your seat, but that's exactly what you're in for in Cordone University, his flagship sales course.
It covers the entire process that a salesperson must go through to produce sales for his own business or for another company.
Cardone U covers:
Here's a fun fact for you: Many reputable companies are actually purchasing Cardone University to train entire sales teams.
The program is just so comprehensive, you can't go wrong.
To pinpoint something specific, I will say that I love the mindset and motivation aspect of Grant Cardone’s teachings. They played a huge role in shaping the salesperson that I am today.
I will say, though--his sales style does fall towards the more aggressive side of utilizing absolute certainty and tenacity to close deals.
He takes the "either my prospect buys or dies" approach.
He's also big on following up.
You can read the full review I did on Cardone University here.
2. Jordan Belfort – Straight Line Persuasion System
This is the sales training course by the renowned Wolf of Wallstreet himself: Jordan Belfort.
In my mind, the Straight Line Persuasion System is easily one of the most important sales trainings I’ve been through, no doubt about it.
The most important concept I learned is the need to visualize every sale as a Straight Line.
As a good sales person, you should always be in control of the conversation.
Don’t let the conversation go out of hand. You need to be talking to your prospect with a purpose--To find out his or her pain points.
Paint the picture of a better future because of the service or product you’re offering.
In order to do that, you really get to know your prospect and identify how exactly their life will improve and what that looks like. The more specific, the better.
He also offers some great advice for when you go to close a sale and you get an objection such as, "Let me think about it," or "I need to call my wife."
The remedy for this is a tactic called Looping.
Basically, you bring back his or her pain points and make a strong case as to why they need a solution as soon as possible.
Each time you loop, you’re mining for what’s really holding the prospect back and what they aren’t telling you.
99% of the time, it's about MONEY.
So then you can hit 'em with lines like, “Well, do you like the idea of this business or service?”
“Other than money, is there any other reason why you wouldn’t do this right now?”
Basically you keep looping and looping until you dig out the real truth behind what's holding them back that they aren’t telling you, and you’ll be disarming each objection until you make an airtight case for why they need to make a decision right now.
Good salespeople have this down to a science, to the point where looping is completely natural to them. But Jordan brilliantly created a model out of it that others can pick up and use to master the art of overcoming objections.
When it comes to teaching someone about overcoming objections, I believe Jordan’s Straight Line Persuasion has more powerful tactics than Grant’s Cardone University course.
You can read my full review of Straight Line Persuasion here.
1. Dan Lok – High Ticket Closer
This sales training is incredible.
I can’t say enough good things about it.
Dan has a completely unique way of selling that’s quite different from Grant’s high charging approach.
Is it perhaps closer to Jordan Belfort’s SLP style? Hmm…not really...
Takeaways from Dan Lok's Sales Style
Dan taught me an extremely invaluable lesson: People don’t like being sold to, but people loving buying
Believe it or not, as salespeople...sometimes we can do a little too much. When you begin talking too much or pushing too much, the prospect can get overwhelmed and begin to feel like they’re being pressured or being sold to. “Does this guy even know who I am? Does he even care?”
This is why it's so important to be more of a listener. But you gotta do what Dan calls “Active Listening"--Being thoughtful and asking questions to dig deeper and deeper into the prospect’s true motivations and pain points.
You can read my full review of the HTC program by Dan Lok here.
How I make High Six Figures Online with Lead Generation, Achieving Freedom Lifestyle
Look...having great sales skill is a big deal, there's no doubt about that.
But in my case, I know it wouldn't have been enough to truly create the lifestyle of freedom that I'm currently been able to enjoy.
The best way I've found to achieve that is to learn how to make money from assets.
If sales is the only thing you can do, then you’re still going to be limited because sales requires you to trade your time for dollars.
I think of luxury real estate agents, for example. Those guys and gals earn mind-numbing commissions on their big sales...but they work like dogs. Their time is owned by their clients. Now don't get me wrong, I totally admire the work ethic it takes to really make it in that field. They're some of the most masterful salespeople you'll come across.
But if you're greedy like me and you want to have your time and your money, you need to start looking into investing your time and energy into a scalable business.
A scalable business a process or system that makes money for you.
Watch this video by Dan Lok about the Wealth Triangle, the 3 pieces of the wealth triangle are:
The 3 Parts of Dan Lok's Wealth Triangle
You only have 24 hours in any given day.
And if all you're doing is selling, you’re going to eventually hit a ceiling because you can only sell to so many people per day.
That's why it's best to start looking into building a scalable business much sooner than later.
In my opinion, one of the smartest scalable business you can get into in 2021 is lead generation.
Why is that?
Here's a few reasons
Building on those last two points, here's a lead gen site I put 7 hours in building in 2015, and haven't touched since.
Money flows to high demand, scarce resources.
Therefore, when you master the skill of online lead generation, you become extremely valuable in the marketplace.
Another powerful aspect of this business is that when we build & rank these lead generation websites at the top of Google, once its ranked, it stays ranked for the long-term with hardly any maintenance.
This means you can have these sites generate leads for clients and produce passive income for you on autopilot.
I’m generating $52K per month with my lead generation sites that I don’t have to trade any time for each month.
Sales is great, but if I am being honest, building a scalable lead generation business that generates passive income has made the biggest impact on my quality of life.
Better sales skills just accelerated the growth of my business but it wasn’t the difference maker.
When you can build simple sites like this tree care site, and have it make money for you year after year without touching it. You begin to see just how powerful earning income with digital assets is.
I love the feeling of working hard with a high-income skill and making great money with that by pushing through long hours but at some point, I realized that I also have to work smart as well.
In today’s digital world, you’d be foolish not to take advantage of great leverage that the internet provides.
Building lead generation websites (digital real estate) that you own and rent out to small business owners that can’t live without your leads, has been the most reliable & consistent way for me to continue to increase my monthly income without having to work “harder”.
I think this is where many salespeople go wrong.
They become attached to this cycle of trading time for high dollars.
Typically the cycle goes somethink like this:
Overtime, they become blind to the importance of figuring out how to make money with assets.
This is how I make money today:
Conclusion
Well there you go, your list of the Top 4 Best Online Sales Courses.
I hope this was helpful to you.
Honestly, if I were you, I would aim to take all four of these courses at some point. But if you have to choose one to start with, I would of course start with my #1 pick and work your way down the list.
I'd say that any of them would be great sales training courses for beginners.
But I've said it before and I'll say it again: If you want to create a scalable business with passive income, it's best to pair one of these top sales training programs of 2021 with a business model that will actually get you there.
One with real leverage & scalability.
Go here to check out the coaching program that taught me to develop my very own lead generation business that allows me to live a life I never dreamed possible.
