Selling made easy
“Your attitude about money and selling your services is 95% of why you’re not doing better. Fix your mindset and you’ll fix your sales. The remaining 5% is about being in serious, consistent action.”
Who said selling was easy?
Probably the person who comes natural to a prospecting and selling situation, has Teflon® skin and is more motivated by the ka-ching of a sale than anything else.
That’s not most of us.
Most of us are solopreneurs and fall anywhere on the spectrum of being uncomfortable selling to downright anxiety and full-on resistance when it comes to even thinking about a sales call.
If that’s you—and that’s definitely where I used to be—I’ve got some great news and I’m going to help make selling easy for you in this snack-size workshop. It’ll take some introspection and the practice of a few new behaviors, but you’ll feel a lot better about prospecting and sales once you do.
You have to sell you—not your services—because you are not a commodity
First and foremost, you have to work on YOU before you present your offer or program to a prospect and invite them to buy. And, the number one thing that we are the source of that keeps us from being successful at selling our own products and services is our money story.
We all have a money story. You may have even done some work on your money story. But until you realize that you sell like you buy and you project your beliefs about money (scarcity, greed, etc.) onto your prospect, you will stay stuck.
There is no magic process or things to say or manipulations to get someone to buy from you. But you can increase the awareness of how you show up on a call.
Be of service
Until you realize that selling is an act of serving, your entire approach will be influenced by your money story. There are three steps to understanding and working through your money story so it doesn’t stop you from being successful selling your products and services:
Learn the beliefs aka “story” you have about money or actions that bring in money to your solopreneur business (use the worksheet prompts)
Briefly explore the origins of those beliefs and acknowledge that they’ve been unconsciously running you
Own that you can create new beliefs around money and create a new money story
By not prospecting and making offers you are being selfish and keeping your value from people who need it
One of the things I have struggled with throughout my solopreneur journey is putting myself out there. It’s not that I am shy or introverted, I simply have always been a “behind the scenes” person pulling the levers and making others look good.
Performing and getting paid to be that way decade after decade throughout my corporate jobs/career has trained me to deliver value a very specific way. That, coupled with my money story (which was tied to a statement I had about my visibility, “children should be seen and not heard,” thanks, Dad) kept me from doing sales, liking sales, and shifting my attitude about sales.
Selling has been my Everest. I’ve done more personal/professional work on my selling skills more than any other aspect of my skill set. I even wrote a book on selling!!!
Here’s the bottom line when getting your prospecting and sales game together after you’ve done the belief work:
Get your butt out there and have conversations
Yeah, I hate to say it, but it’s that simple. This is the encouragement (or shove) I give myself AND my clients whenever I start to worry about my pipeline, finances or getting new clients. Speaking from experience, when I simply reach out to people I believe will benefit from what I do on a daily basis, everything changes.
My energy shifts.
My outlook improves.
My confidence builds.
And I get clients.
Every.
Single.
Time.
Here are some best practices to get your butt out there and have conversations. (Notice this training has NOTHING to do with marketing? Yup. This is all about building relationships and learning what people want through direct outreach. Marketing, especially content marketing, is to create awareness and top-of-funnel transactions so people grow in their understanding of what you do and the value you bring, which is why building a Business of YOU is so important! But that’s for another workshop.)
Prospecting and selling best practices
Use a CRM (I use Copper and ActiveCampaign)
Schedule it and do it every day (even if it’s only for 15 minutes, you’ll get more confident and see results over time)
Make it easy for people to connect with you (put ALL of your contact information on your website and social profiles)
Be consistent (don’t “spurt” your activity - use your CRM to set task reminders to follow up)
Follow up professionally (at the end of every call or email where a prospect puts you off, set your next appointment day and time)
Don’t give away your consulting for free (focus on listening, asking questions, understanding your prospect when you talk with them on a sales call)
Never make the call about YOU (always focus on the prospect with empathy and the desire to learn more about your audience and where they have pain)
Be patient, upbeat and breathe on calls (your tonality, or body language if on Zoom, will be a dead giveaway to your insecurity and trigger resistance in a prospect)
Make an offer!!!! (This is super important—you HAVE to make an offer on these calls. Don’t leave the call without getting a YES on something, even if it’s adding your prospect to your email list or setting the next call date/time—get a YES from your prospect)
Be open to helping them if they’re not a fit (sometimes you’ll get a prospect who really isn’t a fit to your value. Since selling is about serving, ask how you can help them by offering a referral or introducing them to a resource that could help them. You’ll be remembered as a friend, a pro who takes the high road in relationship building and being of service.) 🍀
This video is a recording of the live Selling Made Easy training I did in December 2020. (LOL toward the end of the video, the sun was starting to beam on the paper I had in front of me and was making the camera adjust exposure. Oh, technology.)
Click image to download PDF worksheet
