There are a lot of negative stereotypes surrounding “sales.” Everything from the “sleazy car salesman” to the “lifestyle lush” to the “credibility crackpot” – there’s no shortage of these! So it makes sense why so many of us have some level of discomfort when we think about selling something.
But the truth is that “sales” is an every-day part of our lives – whether it’s at work, at home, or in our social circles, selling is unavoidable.
So to help ease any insecurities you might have about the topic, and/or to help you become more purposeful in your sales approach and strategy, today’s episode covers the Do’s, Don’ts and Core Principles behind the sales process. Specifically,
- The essential information you need to tailor your message appropriately
- Why so many of us have insecurities about the idea of sales
- How to keep your messaging consistent and build trust with your audience
- Critical questions and considerations for your communication strategy
Referenced Resources:
Brand Builder (Entrepreneur Essentials Workshop)
Facilitator Course – Email us to find out more at info@artofcoaching.com
The Apprenticeship – our live Leadership and Communication Training Workshop. *Take advantage of early bird, military/ first responder, and group discounts!
When we say “leadership training,” we are not referring to cheesy corny trust-falls, motivational speak, or anything of the sorts. We are talking about the things that people say they wish they would have known earlier in their career and life – how to navigate difficult people and conversations, power dynamics, negotiations, and implement change.
If you deal with people-problems at all, if you’re in a leadership position or want to be in a leadership role, if you want LESS DRAMA – you need to get to this event! Check out our entire 2024 live event schedule for the best date and location for you!
Referenced Podcast Episodes:
E266: How To Find Your Voice & Get Out Of Your Head
E204: Amira Mansour: Starting Your Own Coaching Business & Managing The Voice In Your Head
E188: Ethan Kross: Chatter – The Voice In Our Head, Why It Matters, and How To Harness It
E112: Finding & Developing Your Leadership Voice
If there are other topics you’d like us to dive into in our podcast, please let us know! We want to hear from you and value your questions and feedback immensely! You can reach us directly at info@artofcoaching.com or submit your questions HERE.
Podcast Sponsors:
Moving into the new year, we are excited to announce our continued partnership with Momentous! Momentous is our oldest partner, but they are STILL improving their product. If you are looking for the best tasting and cleanest protein out there, look no further. Code: BRETT15 gets you 15% off your first order!
TRANSCRIPTION
Brett Bartholomew 0:00
Hey, everyone, it’s Brett here. Quick note just to begin, some of you have been listening to the podcast for a while. And I realize you may not know what we do at art of coaching. The podcast is just one small extension, we are focused on leadership development. And really, we sit at the crux of all things leadership, entrepreneurship, and relationships. So if you’re somebody that wants to improve how you communicate, so that your business can run more smoothly, or maybe it makes your marketing better, or you want to do it, because you want to be able to better relate to your spouse, or your kids, we have something for you.
If you’re somebody that wants to improve your staff development, and maybe they need to work on conflict resolution, negotiation, problem solving under pressure, we have programs for that. We do things that are live, and virtual so that you can have access to the content you need. When it matters most. Please check us out. Go to artofcoaching.com we’ve helped people in more than 30 different professions solve some of their biggest problems, because all things human and social are where those problems reside.
Learn how to be more confident when you speak, learn how to get your point across much more clearly learn how to navigate the power dynamics inherent to life and work. Again, that’s the artofcoaching.com . And if you have specific questions, you can email us at info@artofcoaching.com. For our live events, we have group discounts, student discounts, first responder discounts we do in services all over the world, and we have a dedicated team that can help you no matter what your problem is, we’d be honored to serve you last time. That’s artofcoaching.com.
Welcome to the Art of coaching Podcast. I’m Brett Bartholomew, and at a young age poor communication nearly cost me my life. Now, I help others navigate the gray area of social interaction, power dynamics and communication so they can become more adaptable leaders, regardless of their profession, age or situation. This podcast is for everybody who is fascinated with solving people problems. So if you’re in the no nonsense type, who appreciates frank conversations, advice you can put to use immediately, and learning how others navigate the messy realities of leadership. You’re in the right place. I’m glad that you’re joining us. Let’s dive in.
Hey, it’s nice to have you back with me for another episode of The Art of coaching podcast. This episode comes as a result of a case study that I dealt with today. And every now and then I choose episodes based on what happened recently that’s gotten me fired up or gotten me inspired or make something very relevant. Because if it’s happening in my world, even though I’m not special, I’m one of 8 billion people it has are you there’s other people out there that deal with it as well. And this was somebody that was saying, Hey, we have a great business. And I’ll contextualize this, because this whole thing is going to be about sales. And sales is just something you do in every aspect of life.
We’ve talked about this before. So don’t think you have to be a business owner got news for you. If you’re a coach, you’re in sales, if you’re a leader, a teacher, a parent, you’re in sales, everybody is in sales. Okay, so just to contextualize this, but this person was saying, hey, our business has done well for a very long time. But we’ve recently hit a snag and sales, I’d like to just go over some of the basics. I also have been getting asked for certain clients that help sell our products through third party vendors to provide content to help them improve their sales. And it just I feel like I’ve overthought a lot of this can you help. So that is what this is gonna be about. Now sales, that’s a topic that could be in multiple books.
So I’m just going to hit some of the basics, I’m going to hit some do some don’t some core principles. If this is an episode you like, we’ll chat more about it. We also have two live courses that help with this very, very in depth, we have our Brand Builder or what we’re going to be rebranding as our entrepreneur essentials course, level one and level two. So make sure to email us at info@artofcoaching.com If you’re interested in that. And then we have a facilitator course where if you’ve gone to any of our events before, you’re able to join us and teach locally or around the world as part of our team, you can keep your day job, but we also pay you to go teach for us because there are plenty people out there in other professions that also like this content, and they like to go teach it
So anyway, let’s dive into this. And I want to simplify it because there are too many long winded podcasts out there that tried to give you just overly nuanced information that at the end of the day, just isn’t very practical. So I’m going to give you some stuff here right off the bat that you’re going to be able to utilize, make no mistake about it. Sales first and foremost is simply about relationships. That’s it. It’s about relationships. Now we’ll get into the technical aspects of it as well, because I know many of you are like, Duh. But just to ground it, sales is about relationships. That’s it. Now most people get insecure. They don’t like the term.
Why? Well, it’s pretty easy to know why. Because we have the stereotypes that we have this sleazy kind of scammer this over the top self centric, pushy person who has a subpar product. That’s one kind of individual we think about when it comes to sales. And we certainly don’t want to be perceived as that you have kind of the lifestyle lash in our facilitator course, we have a picture of her just shooting a money gun dollar bills coming out. This is kind of the person that’s all live your dreams, big money, full control of your life, three easy steps kind of thing. And then there’s the credibility crackpot, this is somebody that’s always just gonna say, Hey, if you just get this certification and get this and that, you’re gonna rise to the top of your field.
And a lot of those things are off putting, but for some people, they’re a learning because they simplify things. People really want to believe if they can just follow a simple process, that they’re going to get sales. But aside from sales, first and foremost, being about relationships, it’s also just about knowing your customer. So for example, right? I’ll give you a case study to contextualize this. When I was dealing with this client, they were saying, hey, I want to attract more business owners. And we have that aspect to our work as well, at our apprenticeship, our leadership workshops, we attract business owners, coaches and leaders.
And I said, Well, first and foremost, just start with the basics, right? First Principles. What do you know, every business owner struggles with? Every single business owner, to some degree unless they’re lying to you, unless they’re lying to you, struggles with Team wide communication. And that can be everything from how do I keep my staff motivated? How do I get them to solve problems more independently? How do I get them to just communicate better. And that could be because of generational issues. That could be because of organizational issues that could have to do with just disconnected management, whatever.
But everybody deals with poor communication to some degree, you just got to think of how that manifests. Every business struggles with sales. It doesn’t matter if you’re a mega cap Corporation, like Apple or Microsoft, they’re going to have slumps in sales. If you’re a mom and pop, you’re gonna have slumps in sales. Everybody deals with that. So already out of the bat, it’s like, alright, what are my customers pains and wants from our target audience is wants it fears and pain points? Well, people want better team wide communication. People want increased productivity, we’re business owners, right now, they want to increase sales and better client relationships.
Right, you have a great starting point there, you have a great starting point. So immediately, whether you’re writing an email, or putting out an ad, start with those things speak to what they see, get their attention. Now, there are other times where you want to use a little bit of narrative in there. And narrative means it could just be a story or a lead in but when you account for just human psychology and the attention span, that’s tricky, even with the ads that I do, as a part of this show, because and I hope you don’t begrudge us for having ads, that we do a ton of free content. Every year, this content is free. We have to have ads, we have to run events, we’re a business. I always have to think what’s the number one thing the audience deals with? Well, you’re all people. So you struggle with confidence, you struggle with feeling like your work is not good enough.
You sometimes struggle with doubts and insecurities, you struggle with all the things that we all struggle with. So I want to lead with that. And that’s what our work has been made to help with. But so often just people forget that, though, if they’re advertising a workshop, or an event, or a product or a service, there’s this long winded written kind of intro. And by that point in time the person’s already done. You have to start off with a little bit of an intro. Right? Get right to the point say, hey, every business owner struggles with this. Every athlete struggles with this, every parent struggles with this, boom, boom, boom, reflect their world and back at them, show that you’ve respected them enough to do your due diligence. And then present what you do as part of that solution, not the end all be all right? You’re ethical, but as part of the solution.
Like for us, if people struggle with power dynamics, staff development, Team wide communication confidence. Well, it’s easy for me to say hey, our workshops which utilize a combination of lecture, role playing video review, peer evaluation, opportunities for rich feedback from a lot of people will help with that. Because it does, it does right? If you’re selling something else, and you’re not sure that you have the right solutions as part of your product. That’s okay, just go back and work on that say what would really help people hear more, but this just comes down to the and those relationships I Identifying customer values, making sure that you align their needs, wants pains, fears, anything like that goals with your product, showing how like it solves that, personalizing it, and then really just continuing to make the process easy for them.
Okay, that’s what a lot of this stuff comes down to. Now, we can organize the rest of this episode in a lot of different ways. We’re going to start with some people that just aren’t comfortable with sales, we’ll touch on some points there to get people more comfortable with it. And then we’ll also talk to some of you that are more comfortable with sales, you have no issues with it on how to refine tactics even more. So if you’re uncomfortable with sales, remember, you’re likely just very worried that you’re going to come off as pushy salesy, smarmy whatever. But that can be really addressed pretty easily based on how you do this.
One, it helps for you to just realize you’re not that person, you’re a guide, that is what and whether you want to look at a guide is that archetype of like Gandalf, nor any other guide that you can think of in popular film, or fiction or anything like that, you’re a guide. And in leadership, you’re a guide, you’re an imperfect person, guiding other imperfect people through their doubts and their insecurities. So when you think of yourself as a guide, and then you think of those that you’re trying to sell it just like other good people that don’t really know, either what they’re looking for what they want, or how to get it, that helps. There are plenty of people that didn’t come to some of our events or do some of our services for a while. And when I’d ask them, hey, what was it that would have gotten you over the top sooner?
How could we have converted, and many of them just said, Hey, I didn’t know what I wanted, I didn’t know what I needed. It took me a while to realize the problems I was facing was due to poor communication are the things you talk about. And there was really nothing you could have said, because just my ears weren’t attuned to that. Okay, so that will happen. And that case, you need to be a guide that’s just persistent. And this is why we put out messages constantly on LinkedIn, and Facebook and Twitter and threads in the podcast, we’re not a company that spends 30 grand a month on ads are just not, that’s not how we’re built right now.
But we can be ubiquitous and consistent in our messaging. And that’s what you need to be. So then to be consistent in your messaging, you also need to think what kind of brand voice or what kind of voice do I want, do I have? For me, I’m very much a realist. I’m direct, I’m going to tell you things in a direct way. Because I respect you, I want to be that guide, I want to be somebody that knows that you’re busy. And I’m not going to give you any fluff. That’s how I’d want to be addressed as a consumer. But when you look at, and I’m gonna reference some notes here, when you look at how other brands position themselves, there’s always kind of a unique voice.
You know, Nike or sorry, let’s start with Apple. Apple always speaks to creatives, creatives and emotions, and they use a lot of inspirational appeals. Nike, just do it. That is like kind of this heroic, leave a mark, go out there and just get it done kind of thing. You think of Old Spice commercials, they’re more kind of goofy. They’re trying to get your attention by being funny. So when a customer once asked me, Can you help me create copy for this ad? Because we do so much communication strategy, I was like, well, first thing I need to know is your voice. And then I need to know the voice that your customers are used to receiving. As a byproduct of that. Are you more serious? Are you more analytical? Are you more empathetic? I need to be able to speak in your voice.
And I also need to understand what they’re really scared of. And if you don’t know what your voice is, we have a lot of episodes on how to find your voice. Well put those in the show notes. But it’s also just okay to like mimic. And I don’t mean Mimic, like copy somebody in a roadway. Just think of brands or organizations or individuals that speak in a way that really resonates with you. And then think okay, yeah, this this kind of fits with our company. Like we’re not toddlers at art of coaching, we’re not going to sit here and say, Hey, we know you’re struggling. And it’s okay. As a matter of fact, struggle is– we’re just going to say, hey, life’s short. We all have things that get in our way. Don’t let communication be one of them.
Our relationships are a critical part to our happiness in life. And that is the same with business, or our personal lives. So if you want to get better and you have a growth mindset, check out what we do. Right? It’s just straightforward. But you want to figure out what’s going to work for you and don’t overthink it. That is a huge piece of advice I have for you because when you think of sales, as nothing more than building relationships, problem solving, sharing enthusiasm, just being willing to answer questions and being trusted guide. It really helps because the majority of people are just really busy. They don’t understand your product, they may not understand you, they have questions and misconceptions, and they just need some help with that.
Support for today’s show comes from Momentous. It doesn’t matter whether you’re somebody that wants to be eight years old and be able to play with your grandkids, or if you’re in your 20s now, you just want to be able to push harder and longer. Or for that matter, even if you’re just a stay at home parent, and you want to not get sick as much when you’re being around your kids. Momentous has something that can help. We partner with them because of their practical anybody we partner with is because they’re practical, I use a Momentous Omega three formula, they’re grass fed whey isolate, my wife loves their creatine, we use a wide range of their formulas to help us get through the toughest part of the year.
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Because the majority of people are just really busy, they don’t understand your product, they may not understand you. They have questions and misconceptions. And they just need some help with that. So to contextualize that further, I made a list of some questions and objections and misconceptions people had of our product at first, right? So when I first came out of strength and conditioning, even though I’m not in that field anymore, when people saw our product, they’d say, Well, I’m not a sport coach or a strength coach, right? So we were able to address that misconception. And this hints at an activity I want you to do, you should write down all of the potential misconceptions somebody could have of your business, or your product, and then just address them.
That way you have that copy to utilize. Another one that we got. And I think this one, if I’m being honest, this one frustrated me the most, this one would frustrate me the most. you would get people that say, Well, I’m already pretty good at communication. So then I realize, oh, they don’t really know what communication means. First of all, I think we can all admit, it’s really scary. If somebody thinks they’re already good enough at communication, whether it’s interacting with your kids, your spouse, or the clients you serve, there’s never good enough. That is the core of how we lead. That’s the core of how we connect. And if you have a growth mindset, you don’t ever look at a skill, like communication and think, yeah, I’m already good enough at that.
As a matter of fact, I’m the perfect person to teach communication because I’m woefully imperfect at it. And I’ve spent the probably last 10 years of my life studying it in depth. So we had to think Alright, so what is it that makes people feel like this is just a communication course? Oh, early on, we kind of advertise it is that our apprenticeship, I’m like, we need to do a better job of making sure people understand that it’s leadership development, conflict resolution, problem solving, team cohesion, it can help people with a wide variety of issues, right? Sometimes people might look at your product and think, Yeah, I’m pretty strapped for cash. As a matter of fact, time and money are always going to be the reasons most people say no.
So you have to also think, do you have enough incentives? Yeah. Do you have super early bird discounts? Early Bird discounts? Do you have group discounts? We have military first responder and student discounts. Now, some of those things, and I know some people are gonna be like, well, we don’t discount our stuff. That’s fine. We can get there in a minute. Some of those things don’t matter as much as you think. We found that almost nobody utilizes our super early bird discount, which is ironic, because it will say, Oh, I’m strapped for cash, yet they could save I’m gonna make up a number. But I think it’s accurate at one point. They could save like 350 bucks doing our super early bird. They’d almost never do that.
Why? Because people don’t want to plan too far into the future unless it’s like some kind of big family vacation or something like that. Almost everybody signs up for our events last minute, within the final 30 days or at the earliest they’ll use like our early bird discount. And this goes just into that idea of scarcity stuff that Robert Cialdini talks about, but you want to get used to people saying they’re not going to have the time and the money. There are some people that unless we run one of our workshops in their city, they’re not going to come. So how do we adapt to that? All right? Well, now we just create things that don’t require travel, you’ll get a lot of Will there be another one? Is it online, we have to be careful about what we put online, because people will rip that off. So are you.
But this is just all going into helping you understand sales more, because when you’re creating something that you put on social media, or on your newsletter, or you’re sending out in an email blasts, it’s giving you that checklist once again. So let’s revisit, if I’m putting something out that is supposed to help with sales, I have to think, do I know them? Am I leading? Unless this is a phone call or interpersonal? Like what you’re doing one to one we’ll talk about momentarily as well. Am I but in written prose, am I leading with what their biggest pain point is? Am I showing that I understand them? Am I then showing how we provide an engaging or pragmatic solution for that problem?
Am I speaking to true differentiation? Right, not saying the other guys are dumb, the other guys are worthless, we’re better? Am I speaking to our true differentiation, emphasizing our stuff? And it’s okay to contrast we do we tell anybody that hosts, hey, please let people know, this is not a communication workshop, where they’re doing trust falls and all that. Let them know we’re getting into grittier topics, let them know that we’re speaking to things that are going to be related to power dynamics, persuasion, building trust, overcoming conflict, okay, well, then that’s what you put out in front. And that’s another helpful exercise, act as if somebody else advertise your product in an awful way, whatever that means to you. And you’re going to vent to a friend.
And you said, Yeah, Billy, it just frustrates me, you know, they said this and this, our stuffs not about that. It’s about this. Go to a computer, write that down, make sure that’s what you lead with. See, the things that we often say and vent, when we’re frustrated, are the things that are the most clear part of our messaging in this context. I’m not saying that when you’re emotional, you’re always thinking clearly. But this even happens to me when I’m working on my next book, I’ll get really irritated, I can’t get this chapter out of my head. And then I’ll be like, all I’m trying to say, is this. And I’m like, Oh, I’m gonna go back and say that then.
So when you’re writing, just remember, people are strapped for attention and time, they have myths and misconceptions that are clouding their ideology. So just come out front with what you have. And then make sure that there’s some kind of visual, and I don’t care if you’ve used that visual a lot. I told my staff guys, it doesn’t really matter. If we use a picture from an event we ran in Georgia, to advertise an event we’re going to run in San Francisco. Nobody cares.
What’s important is that picture is representative of our product. Are people interacting? Are they having fun? Do they look like they’re being challenged having breakthroughs? Great, it’s relevant. But this goes into people overthinking sales as well. So if you know your people, you know your product. And within knowing your people, by the way, isn’t knowing their problems, you know, your people, you know, their problems, you know your product, make sure you address those things. Make sure that you address those things. Let me see if there’s other tips, I want to get to
Remember anybody that objects, a lot of that is just underlying fears, fear of vulnerability, fear of the unknown, fear of loss of control, judgment, failure, not fitting in, these are all a lot of the reasons people can say no, but their Express excuses. And their actual reasons are very rarely in line. So they’ll say lack of time, lack of interest, lack of perceived need cost, anything like that. But really, it’s usually negative past experiences. They’re not confident in themselves. I always get a little bit annoyed, hey, I’m a flawed person. When people say my work won’t cover it. Holy shit. If I only did things that my work would cover, first of all, I’m self employed. But even when I wasn’t, if I only limited my education to things my work would cover, it would be really hard to have grown at the rate that I wanted to or really needed to.
And don’t demonize that don’t be like, well, easy for you to say no, not easy for me to say. I understand people are cash strapped. We just came off record high inflation. Very weird. However many years we’ve all had in our economies worldwide. Nobody is just sitting around with a ton of cash. Okay, nobody, very few at least. So, when you use positive reinforcement, you understand that people, it’s going to take persistence and you just build that relationship. You’re gonna go a long way. Now. I’ll give you advice, what if it’s over the phone? What if it’s over the phone or in person, I’d give you the same advice that I would give my staff and my wife, because she was somebody that feels like I’m bad at sales. And she’s really not, then you’re gonna have a little bit more conversation on the front end.
And this is especially dependent on cultural contacts. There are certain parts of the world where it’s rude to get down to business, even if it is a sales call or a merger or acquisition, it’s rude to get down to business right out the bat, you want to have some small talk doesn’t matter if you hate small talk. But if it’s over the phone, it is good to just have an appointment, that’s clear cut, make sure that you know whether it’s gonna be 15 to 30 minutes, I always tell my staff, if it’s a higher ticket item, make sure that when you line up the sales call, that every decision maker is going to be on the phone, right? Because otherwise people Oh, I got to ask my wife, oh, I got to ask my husband, oh, I got to ask my partner.
So there are certain things where we’re just like, hey, if anybody else is involved in this decision, feel free to have them jump on whether it’s a phone or Skype, we just want to make sure that we’re as transparent as possible, and that we answer all your questions. If you make sure that the other party is on, you make sure that you’re doing over a higher context medium video if you can. But if you can’t phone, all those things, and then you actually start with, just, Hey, how are things going, I would love to know more about what put us on your radar. It depends on the relationship, what you’re going to catch up on, but not being a robot. So if I’m talking to somebody today that I’ve never spoken to before, I’ll make up their name, Linda.
, Linda, nice to meet you. I appreciate you taking the time, I’d love to know, just first and foremost how we got on your radar, and how we can help you. So just how we get on their radar, knowing that helps us emphasize. Where did this come from? Did a friend teller? Was it social media, this helps us leverage our time more appropriately. Cuz you can’t be everywhere at once. Right? So let’s say Linda just said, Well, you know, I had a friend come to one of your workshops, and you’ve been on my radar for a while I follow you on social media, but I don’t see much of your stuff anymore. That damn algorithm. And she kind of talks and be like, alright, well, cool. Thank you. And I appreciate you being transparent. And mind you this is all honest.
Like, there’s no sacrifice for or substitute for honesty, just being like, well, you know, I want to respect your time. So let’s get down to it. What are some of the main questions or hesitations you have, I want to be as helpful to you as possible, just cut to brass tacks, folks, cut to brass and take notes. Because when most of the people come to us, they’re saying, and maybe this is reflective of some of your experiences. It can be, hey, I don’t own a business, but I want to connect better with my spouse or kids. Or it can be like, Well, I do own a business. And I’m trying to get my employees to grow and be better at resolving conflict. Because there’s a lot of passive aggressiveness in the workplace.
If there’s not that, it could just be a coach saying, Hey, I’m a young coach, or a young leader. And I just kind of want to learn what I be prepared for what I don’t know, be prepared for my blind spots, maybe it’s somebody else that struggles with conflict, it doesn’t matter. People come to us with problems related to being a human being a leader, and being somebody that wants to impact change. So we know those things, and we can speak to a lot of those things. Because we do those things. That’s where I really want to encourage you to do you know your audience well enough. You also want to know where your audience gets a lot of their information. Like, our audience likes to dive deep. So that by itself, you know, dictates a lot of where we’re not going to go in terms of our sales, I’m not gonna spend a lot of time on Tiktok.
This is why I don’t put a lot of heavily nuanced stuff on social media. That’s not a medium where our stuff is going to come through. And I know that because I know my customer. They want more than just saying, Here’s three ways to deal with this kind of person, they want to dive deeper, and they want to practice it. These are people that want skills. So let’s recap what we’ve talked about so far. Once again, all sales is is building relationships, it’s being a guide, you’re being an honest guide for somebody that has a problem, a belief, something that’s keeping them from achieving what they want, or feeling a sense of completeness on the inside. We all have those problems.
And your job is to understand as much about them as you can, and then tailor a message that reflects those fears, worries, lies, doubts and beliefs. And then position what you do as a solution for those things, and doing so in a way that speaks to the differentiating factors. So if you own a virtual reality whitewater rafting company, you don’t want to say we have the best virtual reality. Hey, no, we actually spray it with water. We have guides Do this on the back, I’m being ridiculous for a reason, I’m just saying, you have to speak to something that makes your product uniquely relevant. For us. That is the use of video analysis, peer feedback, very clear and tangible, something that they can hold and take with them and research vetted evaluation, all kinds of handouts that they can use with their staff and staff meetings.
If it’s our Brand Builder, or entrepreneur essentials course, they get a workbook that can help them with all kinds of cool stuff. If it’s our speaker school course, they get tons of reps, and video feedback, and a very intimate environment. Make sure that just act like this person doesn’t know anything. And most importantly, remember yourself. I shouldn’t say most importantly, because the relationships and all those other things are critical. But remember yourself as a consumer. You make decisions based on emotions, it’s the same thing that they do. They make decisions based on emotions, and then rationality, you make decisions largely based on wants and needs or what’s at risk.
Most people come to us and they say, Hey, I know that poor communication can lead to decreased earning potential, decreased opportunities for just job and career strained relationships. I know, it’s just made me feel less confident. Okay, well, we know what’s at risk here. We know what’s at risk here. So what we’ve covered is knowing some basic pieces about relationships and your audience, addressing some of the written components getting out in front with their fears, or the benefits or any of those things, what they care about most, because attention span is short. We’ve talked about if you’re talking to them in person, or over the phone or video, getting all the decision makers on still leading with relationships first and genuine curiosity, and then building off of that.
What other tips? Well, obviously active listening, asking questions, I think we’ve already talked about not speaking to the thing speaking to the problem, it solves always making the answer. Here’s a mental model, like always make the answer to how will it make me more successful clearer? How will it like for business owners and my previous client, hey, they need to know how it’s going to lead to more sales, better retention of their staff, their staff, being more accountable, all those kinds of things. But when you assume they know that stuff, that’s really gonna kill your chances. Right?
Another thing is don’t compete on price. If somebody says, well, you’re more expensive than the other guy compete on value, we’re never going to get into. Okay, well, but what we do is this, no, no, we’re not going to compete on price beyond a point, we’re gonna compete on value. And what that value is baked into is our differentiation, and our knowledge and our past experience and our unique user experience. Right. And that goes into show, don’t just tell, you know, and then obviously, I think the only other thing I haven’t really covered is if your sales are weak. In other ways, check your website, does it take a long time to check out, is it hard for them to navigate, this is a whole separate point that we cover an entrepreneur essentials, but people should be able to check out and get there in three clicks or less.
But really, sales is so much simpler than that. Anytime there’s an issue in sales, it usually just comes back to messaging, you’re not knowing them or their problem well enough, you’re not positioning your product clearly enough in their mind’s eye, you’re not being persistent enough. No amount of online or social media or any of that stuff will ever supersede just knowing that person knowing the product and how to speak to it. Another one big red flag is when people choose to host art workshop. Like we give them a bunch of stuff, hey, here’s how you can speak to it. Here’s what to do, here’s what not to do. If they are consistently asking us for more and more and more of that. It’s a red flag to us because it’s saying, Hey, you clearly are not understanding you don’t know our product well enough to sell it to others. So I don’t know that this is the best fit.
And you could look at that and say, well, that’s not true. Maybe you didn’t make it clear enough. We can get into that another time. But we say hey, here’s what our product is. Here’s how to speak to it. Here’s how not to speak to it. And here’s some guidance, some guideposts and if you have somebody that sells on behalf of you like our client did have them CC one stuff, have them tagged you on stuff, get an example for what they’re looking at, and give them feedback. Just say hey, Rodney, I noticed that you put out this post I’m really thankful for that. But it does help if you use one of the images we sent you or it does help if you just like straight up talk about what interested you in it and you added a personal element, or it does help if you’re just not so vague.
And you could do so by speaking to blank blank blank blank. So, just comes down to clarity relationships, not being scared well Leaving in your product, persistence, all the things that you know, intuitively, you may just not be willing or able, sorry, slow down, you may just not be doing it consistently enough, be a human. These people are humans and they have struggles. So if there’s something else you would like covered in a future episode, let me know, if you want help with this stuff, whether you’re a coach, a business owner, anything like that, you can go to artofcoaching.com/mentoring. And we help people with this stuff all the time.
Again, I want to emphasize that at our most basic, we are a company that’s focused on helping people with communication strategy, that is the cornerstone of leadership, that is the coaching of relationships, that is a cornerstone of relationships, that is a cornerstone of entrepreneurship. It just is. And that’s where our company sits at that intersection of leadership, entrepreneurship and relationships. So if you’re having problems with any of those areas of your life, one, that’s normal. We all do. Two we’re here to help. Everything is supremely confidential.
We’ve worked with people over 30 fields, from Turner Construction, West Point, Kansas State University, Apple, Microsoft, sports teams, you name it, I promise you nothing you have is unique in a sense that we haven’t heard it before, or that connotes that you’re a failure or you’re weird. And the process is simple. You You just fill out a form. you schedule a free call with a member of our team will work with your budget and most importantly will help you solve your problems. All right, I appreciate you tuning in. I hope all of you have had a great start to the new year. We want to hear from you so never hesitate to reach out at info@artofcoaching.com. Until next time, talk to you soon.
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