Business

Techniques That Helped Jeremy Miner Jump From $0 to $2.4 Million

Published

6 years ago

July 10, 2020

When Jeremy Miner, the CEO of 7th Level Communications, first started out in sales, he noticed something: nothing he was doing was working (similar to many salespeople’s first experiences). He, like us, had been taught many techniques from the old sales model and from so-called ‘sales gurus,’ but he wasn’t achieving the six figures a year that they said he could make following their techniques. At the same time, he was in college studying Behavioral Science and Human Psychology, and he was struck by how what he was learning about the human brain contrasted from what he had been taught in sales. He was studying how the brain makes decisions and how people are persuaded to do something. It was the complete opposite of the traditional selling techniques.

“I knew I wanted to succeed in sales. To do so, I knew I needed to take a giant leap outside my comfort zone. Following the status quo wasn’t going to work,” Miner said. “So, rather than just listening to the methods I had been taught, I decided I’d go in search of another sales training program with the behavioral science elements of sales. I searched… invested in many training courses… attended many events… and read many books. But none of them had the questions that I needed to ask to get my prospects to persuade themselves in a step by step sequence rooted in human psychology.”

So… he created it himself. “You may think that would’ve been easy, since I was studying behavioral science in school. Far from it! But as I continued my trial and error process, I eventually got to a place where I mastered the series of questions that I now call ‘Neuro-Emotional Persuasion Questions’ (more on these soon). And, the year I finally felt I had mastered it, I ended up making $2,370,485 dollars in the year in straight commission as a W-2 sales rep.”

Techniques That Took Jeremy Miner to $2.4 Million

Miner now teaches students around the world how to practice the new mode of selling, which means ditching the traditional model. He goes in depth into each of the neuro-emotional persuasion questions in his course. These questions are intended to help the prospect convince themselves that they need what you’re selling.

Asking questions more than presenting. “I now tell my students that prospects should be the ones talking for about 80 percent of the conversation. To guide this, ask questions. “Engage, don’t tell” is one of the three main forms of communication that I teach in the new model of selling. The “Old Model’ of Selling DOES ask some questions. But, 99 percent of salespeople don’t ask the ‘right’ questions at the right time in the conversation. They just ask ‘surface’ questions which only get you the superficial answers from your potential customers.

Rather, it’s critical to ask specific, skilled questions that bring out emotion from your prospects on what their problems are doing to them. These could be what I call ‘problem awareness’ questions where you ask what problems they have, and how they’re affecting them. These are followed by ‘solution awareness’ questions, where you ask what they have done in the past about solving their problems, what has worked, and what hasn’t, which helps them view you more as a trusted authority who is there to help them, and not just sell to them,” Miner said.

Helping the prospect recognize the consequences of not solving their problem. “Another type of NEPQ question that is particularly effective is what I call ‘consequence questions.’ Once you have established what the problem is and what the solution could be, it’s important that the prospect states out loud the consequences of not resolving their problem. In other words, they hear in their own voice what would happen if they don’t solve the problem (buy your solution) — what they’d be missing out on. Perhaps this would be lost social media exposure if they don’t purchase your social media organic reach service, or they lose a sense of safety if they don’t immediately purchase your security device system,” said Miner.

When they are the ones to say it out loud, they’re more likely to persuade themselves. Contrast this with if you filled in the blanks for them and said, “You’ll lose social media exposure if you don’t purchase this today.” The fact that you were the one to say it totally changes the effectiveness of the statement. Even if that’s completely true and they believe it, too, they don’t want to hear you tell them — they’ll likely get defensive and get off the call.

Engaging and discovering in a helpful conversation.

So, it shouldn’t just be following a script or giving a pitch, but it shouldn’t just be asking questions, either. Rather, the best sales conversations work in a banter between salesperson and prospect. I call this ‘learning and discovering from each other.’ Imagine this like you’d talk with a friend who you had no intention of selling to. You ask your friend how business is going, and they complain about something related to what your business solves. So, you ask some more questions to understand more, then mention what you do. The equal playing field is your mutual curiosity to hear what the other has to say.

It shouldn’t be any different in a sales conversation. It shouldn’t be you shoving your product pitch down a prospect’s throat. That’s simply not what they want, and a great way to lose a potential sale.

To learn about Miner’s exact NEPQ process, visit his website: 7thlevelhq.com.

Business

How Technology Drives Value Creation in Private Equity

Published

8 hours ago

April 29, 2026

Matthew Wiles

How technology drives value creation in private equity is now one of the most actively debated topics among institutional investors and fund managers. A decade ago, technology was largely a cost center in PE-backed companies. Today it sits at the center of margin improvement, revenue growth, and exit multiple expansion. Firms that figured this out early are generating better returns with less reliance on financial engineering.

The shift happened for a practical reason. As interest rates rose and deal multiples compressed, financial leverage stopped doing the heavy lifting. Operational improvement became the primary value creation lever. Technology accelerated what was possible within the ownership period.

How Technology Drives Value Creation in Private Equity Operations

Operational improvement through technology produces the most measurable results. PE firms apply technology tools to reduce costs, increase throughput, and improve decision-making speed inside their companies.

Digital Process Automation in PE-Backed Companies

Manual processes in back-office and production functions carry real costs. They consume labor, generate errors, and slow down the information flow that management teams depend on. Automation tools eliminate these costs without requiring headcount reductions that disrupt company culture.

The most impactful automation deployments in PE-backed operations include:

Accounts payable and receivable automation that compresses billing cycles and reduces days sales outstanding
Production scheduling software that reduces downtime and improves throughput in manufacturing environments
Inventory management systems that cut carrying costs by aligning purchasing with real-time demand signals
Quality control automation that reduces defect rates and warranty claims in product-based businesses

ZCG Consulting (“ZCGC”) works with companies across industrials, manufacturing, packaging, and consumer products to identify and implement automation programs tied to specific financial outcomes. The approach connects technology investment to measurable margin improvement rather than treating automation as a general upgrade.

Data Infrastructure as a Value Creation Tool

Many PE-backed companies arrive under new ownership with fragmented data systems. Different departments use different tools. Reporting requires manual consolidation. Leadership makes decisions with incomplete information.

Fixing that infrastructure creates immediate value. Integrated data systems give management teams real-time visibility into revenue, cost, and operational performance. That visibility accelerates decisions and surfaces problems before they become material.

James Zenni, founder and CEO of ZCG with over 30 years of capital markets experience, has consistently emphasized that information quality drives investment performance. That view shapes how ZCG approaches technology investment across the companies in its portfolio.

Technology Drives Value Creation in Private Equity Through Revenue Growth

Cost reduction gets most of the attention in PE operational improvement, but technology also drives revenue growth. The mechanisms are different, and they compound differently over a hold period.

E-Commerce and Digital Customer Acquisition

Companies that sell primarily through traditional channels often leave significant revenue on the table. Adding e-commerce capabilities or investing in digital customer acquisition expands the addressable market without proportional cost increases.

PE firms that invest in digital revenue channels generate higher growth rates during the hold period. That growth rate difference translates directly into exit multiple expansion.

Revenue growth technology applications in PE-backed companies include:

E-commerce platform buildouts that open direct-to-consumer channels alongside existing wholesale relationships
Customer relationship management systems that improve retention and increase repeat purchase rates
Digital marketing infrastructure that lowers customer acquisition costs through better targeting and attribution
Pricing optimization tools that identify margin improvement opportunities without volume loss

Technology-Enabled Customer Experience Improvements

Customer retention is cheaper than customer acquisition. Technology investments in customer experience, service speed, and product quality consistency reduce churn. Lower churn produces more predictable revenue. More predictable revenue supports higher exit valuations.

ZCG deploys Haptiq Technologies and Solutions, its 300-plus-person technology division, to support digital transformation across its companies. The platform was founded 20 years ago and manages approximately $8 billion in AUM. It brings implementation resources that most individual companies cannot afford to build internally. That capability gives ZCG’s companies faster access to technology improvements at lower execution risk.

Building Technology Capability Within PE-Backed Companies

Technology investment during the hold period creates value in two ways. It improves financial performance during ownership. It also makes the business more attractive to the next buyer.

Strategic buyers and later-stage PE funds pay premium multiples for companies with modern technology infrastructure. A business with integrated systems, clean data, and digital revenue channels commands a better price. A comparable business running on legacy platforms does not.

The ZCG Team structures technology investment as part of the initial value creation plan for each company. Priorities get set at entry based on the gap between current capability and acquirer expectations.

This pre-sale positioning approach changes how technology investment gets funded and sequenced during the hold period. Projects that improve financial performance and exit readiness simultaneously get prioritized. Projects with long payback periods that do not improve the sale narrative get deferred.

How technology drives value creation in private equity is ultimately about execution discipline. The tools matter less than the clarity of the financial objective each technology investment must achieve.