Hey hey bold leaders. Welcome to another episode of the Bold Money Revolution podcast.
I’m overly excited to be here with you today BECAUSE this podcast episode is the first one in the new batch.
I’m a big fan of batching. It helps our content production move along smoothly and provides solid organization for my team. It’s probably been a solid 6-8 weeks since I’ve flipped on the mic and recorded.
We are not only creating content for all of you but we are creating content for The Bold Profit Academy so staying on schedule is critical to me having space to enjoy life outside of this business.
The last batch of content was more high performance-related: talking about goals, energy, mindset, starting your year on the best foot.
This next batch of podcasts is going to be more specific around sales and money, with a few pops of performance and things to make you go hmmmm.
One of the topics we’re going to be exploring more deeply is the gaps between how things are taught in the online business space and how sales are actually taught. Because I’m concerned that traditional online business advice is keeping female business owners in a cycle of overwork and underearning, essentially limiting their ability to pay themselves, and in too many scenarios not paying themselves at all.
Now, I want to be absolutely clear…
I’m not taking jabs at anyone. I think using the internet and digital tools is a smart business strategy. However, it’s time to re-evaluate how things are working for you.
And while launch strategies, FB ads, webinars, and complex funnels appeal to some people and align well with their personalities, for most of the women I work with it’s keeping them in a cycle of stress, exhaustion, and overwhelm.
Which is frustrating for me because some good ole fashioned sales skills can clear most of this right up.
In The Bold Profit Academy, we spent all of Q1 focused on what we called a Revenue Acceleration Cycle. That focused the women in the program on planning, walking them through my signature sales framework called EMS, getting them to identify leads, and focus on their highest priority sales activity.
And the results were phenomenal. Without running ads or doing anything differently one woman multiplied her leads by leads 8. She thought she had 2, but after completing the training and doing some implementation she realized she had 16 leads. She then went on to not just sell out but she oversold her program by working the EMS framework.
In The Bold Profit Academy, you have the choice to complete quarterly implementation cycles with the group OR doing the existing trainings on-demand, allowing you to join any time and get IMMEDIATE results.
Now, why am I telling you this?
Well, ONE: Doors are open and you absolutely should join us. You can go to our website at theboldleadershiprevolution.com/academy OR ping me on Instagram/email me/ and let me know you have questions.
TWO: I’ve noticed something about women, small business owners, through the work that I do, and what I’m seeing in The Bold Profit Academy that concerns me is the reason behind this podcast episode.
Do you realize you need to have sales skills to run a business?
Because what I see A LOT of, is women who find the online space seeking solutions to growing a business and consuming a lot of advice geared toward generating leads, nurturing relationships by giving ALL the value, but not a lot of focus on SELLING or converting leads to buyers.
There’s also an over-emphasis on generating more leads when the actual problem is you’re not likely converting the leads you have. Therefore, more leads aren’t going to necessarily help in the long term.
Which is actually when I think that is a strategy… More leads will initially make you sales getting you a quick win and hooking you into the coach/marketers program. But over the long run, this strategy will break down because it will keep you in a never-ending cycle of chasing new leads and converting a very small percentage of them.
As I continue to see that strategy play out and fail, I’ve become curious as to why it’s hooking so many women even though it’s a recipe for exhaustion.
I think it’s actually very layered, but at the heart of that is:
1. Internet businesses are pretty good at marketing but actually terrible at sales. I measure that by conversion rate. Most internet marketing relies on lots of leads (paid traffic) and small conversion numbers.
2. The reason why that’s so attractive is nobody actually has to put in the effort to gain sales skills.
Why don’t people, primarily women, want to gain sales skills?
- I don’t think they realize they need them. I certainly didn’t understand that 15 years ago.
Fifteen years ago my husband and I started our first business with bucket loads of hope and faith but not a lot of sales skills. We were both credible experts in our fields and had always achieved success through hard work and determination.
But there was no amount of hustle that was going to make up for our lack of sales training, so we went out of business and ultimately had to declare bankruptcy.
Once we were on the path to recovery, we made a commitment to ALWAYS prioritize our own sales training, to hire the best coaches to learn from, to regularly upskill by reading books, and making sure we continuously debrief our own sales experiences so we can learn what to improve.
Which leads me to the second reason:
- Women don’t think they can become skilled salespeople because they have outdated beliefs about what it looks like and what it means to make sales in your business.
SO, let’s have THAT conversation. A HUGE part of what I’m doing in The Bold Profit Academy is reframing the way women think about sales, so today I want to share some ways you can begin to reframe how you look at selling.
Reframing your language and thinking around sales is the best way to make selling less intimidating for you and ultimately more enjoyable! Because if we can get you to associate excitement and enthusiasm with selling, we have completely changed the game.
First, take the lens off of you for a second. I get it: YOU think it’s uncomfortable, icky, slimy, smarmy. You don’t want to be like THEM, them being the gross sale speople you see in the world, not just online.
Reframe 1: Put your focus on the BUYER. Think of a time when you purchased a service or a product. You were in NEED. You had a PROBLEM that you genuinely wanted resolved. You were going along in life and everything was good and then wham something happened:
- Your appliance broke and you needed it repaired.
- It snowed and you needed your driveway shoveled
- You could no longer live with sciatica pain so you called the chiropractor
- You wanted to travel to Italy so you hired a tutor to teach you Italian
- You were unhappy in your relationship so you called a therapist
- You were tired of your content being overlooked so you hired a graphic designer
- You were sick of feeling uninspired in your living room so you bought the new furniture you wanted
The same goes for the service YOU sell. Someone really needs you to help them get from point A to point B. They need to know you understand them, and they want to know what they’re experiencing is ok and you have a way to get them to point B either through your service or product.
Think about all those leads you have. Those are PEOPLE. Actually people who want help but the only way they can get help is by you making the SALE.
Reframe 2: Words matter. I talk to women all the time and hear the way they talk about sales. Most of the time, they are parroting back the stuff they’ve been sold and it’s not aligning with their values and who they are. Here are a few examples:
Lure. As I need an option to lure people in. NO, you need an option so you can speak to a person’s more immediate need which allows you to have the next part of the conversation with them.
Convince. As in I need to convince this person that this is the correct program for them. NO, you want to help your prospective client understand if this is the best decision for them right now to solve their problem.
Direct outreach. I teach direct outreach and I understand how intimidating the words direct outreach are because it’s the thing I’ve struggled with the most. But all I’m teaching is how to start conversations.
You get to find words that feel amazing to you. You are not beholden to how others talk about or think about sales.
Reframe 3: You get to create your own process.
Honestly, creating a sales process that works for you isn’t talked about much in the online space. Most people are selling tactics: How to use ads, webinars, funnels, email marketing, and social media. And what happens is these tactics don’t get tied back into a process or strategy, meaning you don’t really know why you’re using them other than the course you took said they will work.
So, things eventually start to feel a little misaligned or draining or inconsistent because you don’t know how they work, or if they work, or why you’re doing them.
We teach 7 basic sales steps in The Bold Profit Academy that you can take and make your own. You can then have a lot of fun deciding on what tools you will use when.
As a matter of fact, our Q3 curriculum is going to be all about creating your own sales process in a way that honors how you love to work and relate. Then we can find the right sales tools for you.
But there is no one way to sell. Your sales process should be as unique as you are, because when you find that alignment, you’ll be so excited to take a potential client through your process.
Thanks for taking the time to listen today. I hope it’s been helpful.
Please know I believe that small business owners have the power to change the world.
Take good care.
