If you’re a business owner, have you struggled to get sales because the techniques you learned just never gelled with you…?
Or have you been on the receiving end of a sales conversation, seminar or webinar where you were all fired up to buy something, the credit card at the ready, you were really excited…
…and then the product or programme you bought didn’t live up to the expectations described?
Yes? I think lots of us have been there.
You’ve fallen for those subtle persuasion sales techniques which:
- Emphasize our pain points to influence us to take action away from them.
- Inflate the prices of all component parts of a programme, then heavily discount the package if you ‘BUY IT NOW’, making you think you’re getting the deal of the century.
- Include a gazillion time-sensitive bonuses to pad out the offer even more.
- Say “If you follow everything I tell you, you will get the same results as me.” These are marketing promises that can’t be substantiated because they’re based on someone else’s level of consciousness, skills, beliefs and experiences and don’t take yours into consideration. “If you follow everything I tell you…” is often the caveat to a money back guarantee so you feel safe to spend your money, but it’s not a realistic expectation.
- Hide NLP persuasion techniques and mind voodoo which prey on your insecurities and fears of missing out, override your legitimate objections and get you to spend beyond your means.
- Share big success stories of past clients, implying you can achieve it too. Everyone is differently motivated, some have clients with lots of money, time or support to make those changes, and maybe these success examples are from people who already have a success mindset – again, totally different level of consciousness and life experience. It doesn’t paint the full picture, and we can’t see if this success is isolated, sustainable or flows through the rest of their life.
…And a really disempowering thing to watch out for is when an impression is given that an expert knows better than you what you should do. NO ONE KNOWS WHAT’S BEST FOR YOU, EXCEPT YOU!
(It’s very easy to convince ourselves when we are lacking certainty, or we are in fear about something, that someone else’s solution will provide the answer to our problems. Unless it offers a process to draw out aligned answers from within you, it usually won’t last. In fact, it’s likely to cause all kinds of issues because you are essentially giving your power away to them. So once the programme with them ends, so do your successful results.)
Give us something different! More simplicity and honesty, please!
More and more people I’m talking to seem to be tired of this model and are wanting more transparency and honesty about the real value and cost of what’s on offer. We know there are amazing people with awesome products and services out there, so give us the social proof, but give us the whole picture so we can choose with awareness.
Amazing financial success and fulfilment in your business is great, but not at the expense of your health, your happiness or having to work so hard that you never get to see your friends, have a holiday or spend time with your loved ones.
Until recently, that sales and marketing model was the only one I’d seen and been taught, and you have to be able to sell to have a business, right! So that was the gateway through which clients would step to work with me.
I’m not saying the process doesn’t work. It does! And I know many who use it come from the heart and believe they’ll be able to help the person once they become a client.
But for me personally, it clashes with my values, it’s not transparent enough and feels icky.
I’d like to believe that communicating the value of our programmes and services should be enough, and we should give people time to decide if it’s right for them, without all the distracting bells and whistles.
If we’re really coming from a place of service, surely finding out whether it’s really right for the consumer is more important than what’s convenient for the seller?
And as sellers, can’t we trust that the client can come to their own decision without using the tactic of telling them “If you delay making a decision now, when you know you want this, your ego could get in the way and sabotage you, and you might never take action…”
Who are we to know what’s in a person’s best interest, or what their soul wants for them?
It’s a fear-based sales tactic, no matter how much you might convince yourself as the seller, that you’re doing it in their best interests.
I thought I was just terrible at selling, but mostly I was out of alignment.
So you may not be surprised to hear that I’ve had DOZENS OF SALES FLOPS because I was following a process I was just not aligned with.
For a long time I was confused. Part of me thought I was just not good at selling, but then I also had wonderful clients, easy to work with, who I never really had to sell to because we clicked and they simply wanted what I was offering.
I know I could do better at communicating the whole value of what I do in a really tangible way. I always get my clients great results, but I’m not great at sales copy, elevator pitches or selling from the stage. I’m definitely NOT perfect!
Getting clear on your value and believing in yourself is so important. Focusing on this alone will bring you so much more success. It’s made the biggest difference for me.
But it’s been a revelation to discover that I’d been using a sales process that just wasn’t right for me, and I never realised how much until now.
If you resonate with what I’m saying, your business depends on having sales conversations, and you’ve not been converting those conversations into paying clients, maybe your alignment with your sales process needs looking at too.
This is why I think that persuasion model doesn’t work for me…
When the sales process doesn’t feel fully comfortable and aligned, it means I am sending out unclear energy. People pick up on this incongruent energy unconsciously and it confuses them. They can feel something’s off, even if on the surface everything looks great, they like me and like what I have to say.
But that confusion feeling stops people buying. It interrupts the ‘know, like and trust’ flow.
The best sales conversations are an empowering and unpressured invitation
Now I’m not saying it never worked for me to sell that way. Many times it did work, and I was really happy to be able to serve my clients the way I did.
But to be honest, when I’ve successfully signed up clients it’s mostly been because I began a new client journey by having a proper chat with them, with no agenda, no attachment to whether they chose to go ahead with coaching or not, and we talked for as long as they needed to, so they could make a clear, empowered decision about whether it was right for them.
The important thing for me was the connection, and whether I thought I really was the best person to help them.
If you take someone on as a client and you have doubts about the connection, but you do it for the money, or you don’t hold your boundaries about who you will and won’t work with (we’ve all done it!), then you can pretty much guarantee that it will bite you in the bum, and that person will be hard work or some other lesson will show up to be learned.
When you trust the Universe will support you, you can let go of hustling for the money
These days lot of my focus in my own life, and in my client sessions, is on creating a greater sense of abundance, opening the capacity to receive, and developing an unshakable connection with the Source within to provide everything we need for a joy-full life..
Trusting that the Universe has your back is not an easy path – and I’m continually testing it! But when I ask for what I want I’ve been rewarded with magic and miracles over and over, and I see it reflected back to me through my clients’ journeys, which further deepens my trust.
Money and abundance doesn’t originate in the external world, because it is energy. It comes from Source.
And when you focus on being what you wish to experience – abundant, financially wealthy, joyful, light, connected, free, etc, Source will use Law of Attraction to bring it to you. It comes through people, but it comes from Source.
That means I’ve been able to drop that needy energy from my exploration calls, the shrinking when it comes to saying my prices, and I can fully focus on who I’m talking to and what they need, rather than be distracted by thoughts about hoping they will sign up so I can get money from them, which contracts my energy
The energy is so much cleaner, the experience more enjoyable, and my awareness of whether a potential client is right for me to work with is so much sharper because I have no other agenda. So I never seem to get difficult clients.
How I use my exploration call as an opportunity to connect and serve
So now I see initial exploration calls as a bit of an adventure. To make sure I spend my time with people who are genuinely interested I usually have them complete a questionnaire that will require some contemplation – it prevents time wasters, and gives me background information so we can make the most of our time on the call.
The call itself is a lovely opportunity to hold the space for someone and hear their story – we’re all so uniquely interesting.Often a person comes to a call with all their pain and frustrations that they see has been stopping them from feeling happier, more connected, more abundant or more fulfilled.
But rather than dwelling on the past and reinforcing those limiting points of view – I help them find clarity. We focus on getting a clear vision, feeling into the life they would love to experience, and get to an inner place of power – where they know it’s really possible to achieve.
Then I let them know how I can help them get in alignment with that, what’s likely to come up, and how I can support them along the way if they choose it, which is often by making a bespoke coaching programme to suit their needs.
Don’t fall into the trap of making promises you can’t deliver on
I don’t make promises that clients will achieve their vision or desire, because often our souls put a desire in our hearts purely to get us moving on the path – a gentle ruse to line us up with the abundance and exciting path that is really waiting for us that we could never have conceived of from our earlier perspective and level of thinking.
It’s always better than we could think of, because it’s our limited thinking that caused us to be stuck in the first place!The most important thing is the journey, not the destination. We’re not meant to see more than the next one or two steps ahead. That’s what helps us learn to trust, and when we do, whatever unfolds is always perfect.
Trust that your client knows what’s right for them
I completely believe that only YOU can know if something is true and right for you, and it’s my job to help people tune into that.
Because of the nature of the work I do, and the people I attract, 99% of my clients say they intuitively know it’s right.
I never need to push.
If they have fears that come up because it’s an uncomfortable stretch, but it excites the pants off them, then we can explore what’s in the way. But I’ll never ask people to put themselves at risk or over-commit, financially or any other way.
And if they have cash flow issues to work out I’ll do my best to make it work for both of us.
There’s no hurry, and no pressure.
If they are meant to work with me, then they will. The Universe will somehow make it happen.
I’d love to know your thoughts about new ways of selling
So that’s how I prefer to have clients calls.
I’m still learning what works, and unlearning what isn’t authentic and congruent for me, but I feel so much happier to work this way, and more confident now that I’m not worrying about getting my sales ‘technique’ right.
If you are heart-led business owner and the sales techniques you’ve learned in the past haven’t been working for you, then don’t assume you can’t sell. If you are really clear about the value you offer, then it might just be that what you learned isn’t congruent for you either.
And if you already are having some great success with truly aligned selling, or you know people who are teaching this, then I would love to hear from you.
Some friends and I are wanting to create some discussions and maybe some podcasts around this topic, so please let me know if you’d like to hear more.
And if you’d like to learn to expand your capacity to receive abundance and deepen your own connection to the Source within you so your life opens up to more magic, miracles, peace and joy, please do get in touch, and let’s have a chat.
To your abundant life!
Much love,
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