Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Selling is helping, and the majority of what I've heard for nine years in business for growing business owners, they'll say, I just got into business to help people. I would recommend that you're doing legion for 15 to 30 minutes a day. Ideally, you're talking to three to five people a day to start faq's. One is poorly missed, and you would be shocked how much easier it will make sales. It will get you those dream direct messages of, hey, I want to work with you. Can you tell me when we can start, know them and what they want and need, and then be able to naturally integrate that into a conversation?
[00:00:40] Speaker B: Welcome to the society Gal podcast, where trailblazing female entrepreneurs and creatives come together to spark, change and build their dreams. This is where your passion meets purpose, and together, we're crafting a future where everyone has the tools to succeed.
Hey, everyone, welcome to the society Gal podcast. We are so excited to have Alyssa with us here today to talk all about how to go from sleazy sales, sales that don't feel good, to human first sales, and making that shift. And this is a juicy one. I'm so excited for what Alyssa has to share. So let's first hear from you, Alyssa, on how you got to this place and this knowledge that you're sharing with everybody. So share your journey.
[00:01:29] Speaker A: Thank you. I'm so happy to be here. Thank you, Dana. I'm so excited to be on Society Gal podcast. I have been a fan for the entire time I've been in business. So about nine years, we're gonna be talking about sleazy sales to human first sales is a topic that I talk about a lot. I really learned about selling from trial and error in all of the ways from my clients that weren't selling. So I started in 2016, freelancing. I was in New York City. I just graduated from NYU. I got a job that was six jobs in one for the price of one job for the income. And so I started freelancing, doing marketing. While I was doing marketing for the first couple of years, I realized that a lot of people hired for all different kinds of things, for coaching, marketing, content creation, blog writing, copywriting, and all of these things contribute to us getting new clients. But that wasn't something necessarily that my clients would put at the forefront of what they were asking for. It was just an expectation that was difficult for us to traverse. So after I did all these different things in business for clients that contributed to making sales, I decided to take a more holistic approach with clients and coach them on everything that contributes to sales in your business, which is everything in your business, from the way that you're branded and how you show up for your business online and offline, your offers, your marketing, your lead generation, the way you close sales, et cetera. So basically, I went from freelancing as a freelance marketer in 2016, then 2020, I pivoted to sales coaching. And after doing sales coaching for just a few months for my clients, their results were so successful in terms of the clients that they had gotten, they were able to go from $2,000 months to $20,000 months, from five k to ten k, whatever they were working towards. So all kind of all over the map for income goals. But after they had really improved their sales skillset and found a way that was fun and easy and felt good for them to sell, then they didn't want to do that anymore. Once they could afford to have support with lead generation, they really wanted to do the client work and not get new clients, which is something Dana and I are going to go into in a little while. So really, my love of sales just stems from loving people and loving building relationships with people. And after I built so many with clients and other business owners, I realized that getting new clients is something that a lot of us struggle with. And so I've worked in all different angles with that and now help people coaching to get their sales skills up as well as doing actual lead generation for my clients.
[00:04:17] Speaker B: Awesome. That's awesome.
[00:04:19] Speaker A: I love it.
[00:04:19] Speaker B: And I always love the 2020 thing, the shift.
[00:04:23] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, there was a lot of shifting for everybody in 2020, for sure.
[00:04:28] Speaker B: Yeah, some great shifts. So I love that. And I love how freelancing is such a great gateway to so things. I think people always are like, oh, freelancing, I just start here. But, man, it just opens you up to all doors of, you know, different opportunities, which is really cool how you got to this place now. I love it.
[00:04:47] Speaker A: I feel like we have so many opportunities when you're freelancing and just getting started to try different things, and then you can find out what you do and don't like doing and what kind of clients you do and don't like. And then I think Dana and I talked about this before, then it kind of comes full circle. So I went from done for you services to coaching to now done for you services and coaching. And there were periods where I really liked or didn't like each and I really liked or didn't like client calls or client chat support. Like, it would burn you out. Depending on what, like, season I was in. So, yeah, you just gotta. We gotta find the right business model that fits our life at the time, which is an ongoing thing. Yeah, yeah, I love it.
[00:05:28] Speaker B: So let's. Let's dig in on what is human first, sales and how can, like, right now, whoever's listening, integrate it into their business today?
[00:05:38] Speaker A: Yeah, definitely. So one of my big mottos for my business is selling is helping. And the majority of what I've heard for nine years in business with hundreds of clients, for creatives, for solo producers, for growing business owners, really across the board is that I just, they'll say, I just got into business to help people. I don't want to, like, put myself on people or sell to people. Like, I just want to do the clients and do the client work and have people that want that come to me. The challenge, the challenge is that in a great way, there are so many businesses each new day, each new month, each new year, that the people that you really want to help can't always find you. And then if they do find you, they may not really know that you're for them or what your offers are without some conversation. So what I like to help people with is making sure that we're putting ourselves in touch with the people we can help and offering them that help in an ethical way. So that's really all it is. I mean, selling to fellow humans is selling to help them. And if we really want to help our clients, and that's why we got into business, then we need to start helping them before they become a client, so they know how we can help them and what it'll be like afterwards. We have a note on here, too, that the client experience starts before they actually become a client. So we want people to get to know you if you're the one who's going to be working with them. Like, if I'm providing sales coaching, for example, people need to know me and talk to me before they pay me, because afterwards they're going to know me and talk to me. So if you're the one in your business providing that done for you, support one on one. If you work with your clients at all, ideally you should get going with lead gen by you talking to potential clients so that they can become clients. And then eventually, once it's affordable and feasible, like making sense for you, you can hire additional support for lead generation, handling your direct messages, emails. But I really advocate you learning how to do it first until it makes sense in terms of the size of your business to have additional support.
[00:07:49] Speaker B: Well, when you, like I said, selling is helping, but when you are more in your sales era or you're really, like, digging into sales, you learn how to serve better. Like, you really do. You learn how to serve your client better because that's, every single conversation is data, right? Every conversation is data is, oh, I didn't know they had that pain point. Oh, I didn't know that that's what they wanted. And then that goes back into marketing, into your messaging, and to, like, how your client experience can be better to serve what they need. And so I think sometimes with, like, the online world, right, we're so out of touch with, like, with, like, who we're trying to serve, and we think, oh, well, that person's serving that person. So I'm going to follow what they're doing and serve that type of client, right? And then we're just like, no one's, it's all crickets, right? Because I feel gross because we want, you know, we feel gross serving because we're really, honestly, I think sometimes speaking to the wrong client because we're nothing in touch with our client. Right? Is that what you find with clients?
[00:08:43] Speaker A: Yes. Yeah. I definitely think, like, I mean, if you're trying to make content to speak to your ideal clients, one of my tricks, which is really simple, is, like, if Dana was a potential client for me and we're talking in the direct messages, I'll take screenshots as ideas, not to actually post the screenshot of what, you know, you exactly said in your name, but I'll take screenshots of the questions, the comments that my ideal clients are asking and then make that into contact. If you, if any of you all are struggling with, like, making content that will actually help you get new clients, just take screenshots or write notes of the things that your ideal clients say. I'm ADHD and pretty free form in my business. That can be your content plan. You took some screenshots last week, and then next week you turn those into content. But yes, I definitely think having a sales plan and a way to do ethical lead gen will help you get to know your clients better.
[00:09:40] Speaker B: I know a lot of people. They go into sales and feel so gross about it. And I know so many people have this whole, like, I just want to do everything for free or, like, for no money. And so can you go a little bit deeper into how selling is serving and, like, how someone can kind of shift that perspective or how to kind of see clients in a different way or people that you're helping in a different way to undo that mindset, I would say, and shift into something into a better way to use your energy and to grow your business.
[00:10:10] Speaker A: Yeah, I think, I mean, the selling is helping to go back to that. So a lot of my clients, after they just become a client, will upsell themselves. They'll sign fairly quickly if they know what they want, and then afterwards they'll say, wow, you did a really good job. Like, leading me through this process, like the sales process. They don't know exactly how they do it. I did it. And that's why they sign up for services, to either have me teach them that or for me to do it for them. And they kind of learn through that. But a lot of them will say that, but mostly they're saying, like, thank you so much for selling to me in those exact words. Because if I have a specific big problem and Dana is on her instagram saying, like, I really want to help you with this problem, if you're this person I'm here to help. I can't wait to help you with it. That enthusiasm and passion that pretty much every female business owner I know has for their business. And I'm lucky to be surrounded by credible business owners like Dana. But all of them that have that passion and enthusiasm, you know, not every day are we going to be happy go lucky, super excited about business at every second. But if you really love it and you can show up in your content and in your direct messages or emails or in person networking events, wherever with potential clients, that enthusiasm is so genuine and infectious, it's hard to interpret it and usually isn't interpreted in any other way. Besides, I want to help you. Like, the three questions that I will ask my clients to think about when they're talking to leads. And what I think about is, is this somebody that I can help? Do I want to help them and do they want that help? This has shifted for me a little bit over the years because there was a time in my business, like at the beginning and times in between, where I really needed to make money. I really needed to make money, and I would take the clients that would pay me. So at that point, like, those questions are, does this person want my help and will they pay me? Right, that would be like the flip. But now that I've been in business for a while, if you all have the ability to be particular, to really get the dream clients you want, we're going to ask, like, first and foremost, do I want to help this person? Clients take a lot of work and we love them and we love the work, but it's a lot of energy and you want to make sure if you have that ability to have like, the right people in your space. So basically what I'm saying is showing up in your content and in your direct messages or wherever you're speaking to a potential client with that energy tends to feel a lot better for clients and for my community. I think part of the issue is that there's so many shitty sales tactics out there and we're inundated with them. I am at least all day, every day. LinkedIn spam messages, email spam messages, Instagram, Instagram, Facebook, and on and on and on tv ads, outside on billboards. There's so much toxic sales strategies. I've heard a lot of smart people in the sales coaching, sales expert space talk about sales trauma. I think that really is what gets us. We've been sold to in shitty ways so many times before and we think, like, if we were going to sell, that's how to do it. Really, I would say it's not how to do it. You have to find the right way to sell for you that feels good to you. And if you can show up and think like, I really want to help the right people and they can feel that it gets a lot easier.
[00:13:51] Speaker B: Yeah. I love how you said, yeah. Really thinking of them. I know. In my business, I know. And people I've helped, too, is when it comes, when sales is hard or it feels hard or it feels gross is when we're thinking so much about ourselves, thinking way too much about ourselves, it's all about me. It's all about us. And even though maybe not intentionally, but subconsciously, it's all about us. It's all about me. And what does this mean about me? And I think that's where it can feel really gross. But I like how you said when you're shifting to the enthusiasm, the excitement of thinking about your client, how you're going to serve them and how you're going to help them and how their life's going to change, and knowing that you have the ability to do that is just a shift in perspective that really helps you show up way differently. Like energetically wise. You talk about content and your content. Too many conversations. I mean, I know when I talked to you, like, for the first time, you were so just like, I don't know, we'll talk about that in a minute, I'm sure. But just like, the way you started the conversation was so genuine and it wasn't like, hey, girl, you know, it.
[00:14:46] Speaker A: Was like I could go through each platform and tell you, like, the top spam message I get each day. Facebook, it's, hey, Dana, you want to join my mastermind? You'll make a million dollars in 6 seconds. Here's the link. Come in today. Like, yeah, I hate that. Unfortunately, though, that's such a rampant part of being in the online space, it's exhausting for people. So, yeah, I recommend doing the opposite of that. Just be yourself, whatever that is.
[00:15:16] Speaker B: Yeah. And showing up, I guess not showing up, being like, I need to get a sale today, but showing up to be like, I want to start a relationship today with somebody. Because I think you talked about last time of, it's not necessarily getting the sale and working with a client. I think just even starting a relationship or anyway, in that journey where you're with that person, you can help them in some way, whether it's a free piece of content, whether it's a real, you know, they may not work with you, but you've helped them in some way. And I think that we need to put the energy out there. It's like we're going to help somebody in some way. It doesn't need to turn into a sale every single time because that pressure just is so relieving. We don't have the pressure on us.
[00:15:48] Speaker A: To have that sale. Right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. I was going to say, too, in terms of, like, I need a sale today, you know, to be open to anyone that's struggling to make sales, you know, and this is so, there's so much shame around this, especially in the online space. Like, I saw a post yesterday about, it was called income marketing. It's, this is the post where it says, I made 20 grand today and you can pay me if you want to find out how. There's so much about, like, the top earners making the most, the most, the most. And what I know behind the scenes is even the millionaires and the top earners, some of which I am lucky to have as clients, they struggle. And then there are people trying to make their first, I don't like the money benchmarks, two k, five k, ten k, but they're struggling to, like, make ends meet, especially over the last six months. They're not making what they used to, or they're not making enough or they're just getting going. So for people that are in that situation, that need to be making more, but it's really hard, I think sometimes to relieve that pressure because, like, maybe you decide, I'm going to sit down today and do lead generation, and you need to make a sale today or yesterday or last month. And the unfortunate catch 22 is that, and I'm in this space. Luckily, right now, it's so much easier to make sales when you don't need to. Make sales way easier when you really, really need to, then it kind of sucks. You're like putting your desperation on people or trying really hard not to. I have community members that were just talking to me about this today, that they accepted like 20% of their full rate. And you make a little money, which is better than none, but it doesn't feel as good. So my advice to any of you that have had financial struggles or are right now is start now. Whether you're booked up right now, even if you're doing well financially or medium, financially or not, well, start talking to people now, because in three months or six months or one year or two years or three years, you will need to get another client. I just had a client come back from three years ago at a perfect time. So start now if you need somebody in a year, because it could take some people that long to be in a place where they need your support. And I was going to say also, you know, sometimes showing up, whether we're needing to make sales or life is being life, if I'm a salesperson, and even so, some days I don't want to do it. I love the people I'm talking to, but I don't feel like talking about offers and questions and concerns like, I'm just tired or I want to do something else. And through my recovery experience, they talk about, like, when you're having a hard time, go help somebody else. And that's true for lead generation and goes to the selling is helping, too. If you feel like things suck right now in some area of your life, going to talk to other people and offering to help them and have a real conversation about, like, real life stuff can be really impactful for you and also for them. And I am honest with people and have very little filter. So if I'm having a hard day, I'll tell them I'm having a hard day. And that gets me so much vulnerability back from leads who otherwise may not be sharing it. And I think, like, we can talk about this this time or on some other time. I talk to clients about root objections. So Dana was talking about, like, people just want it for free. Or they tell me my offers are 3000, but they can only afford $300. But these objections are usually like the top. So saying I can't afford it or I don't have time or I don't need this right now. Those are the top objections, not the root objections. When you will be vulnerable with people and really figure out what's going on in their life, because business is a part of their life. If you can be vulnerable and have that reciprocity where they'll share back, then you can really know why they will or won't sign and whether they do or don't need to become a client of yours. So that openness and vulnerability, I think that Dana mentioned maybe just like the authenticity of being yourself in business and life helps more than anything with sales. It helps a lot.
[00:20:14] Speaker B: And we're going to go into it in a minute, but about daily efforts to sales, because we do need to sell every day or sell in some way, some kind of selling tasks we're going to get to. And you have some amazing things on that. But I would love for you to share just a client story or someone you've helped. I always love to hear these because it really puts it into a real perspective in a real situation on how someone has kind of applied human first sales and what that looked like in their business.
[00:20:40] Speaker A: Yeah, definitely. So I love all of my clients, and this is one that I was lucky enough to work with for about four months last year. So her name is Christina, and she runs confetti Creative, which is a boutique public relations agency. So Christina is actually one of my clients that became a client by upselling herself. And then we laughed about it afterwards because she was telling me, man, you weren't really trying to get me into that bigger offer. You told me which one would be best for which situation, and then she upsold herself. So originally she wanted the $100 thing, and then she ended up getting a $1500 thing, and then thousands, thousands and thousands more because I talked to her about which option would be best for her, even if it wasn't the most expensive. And after she considered it, she decided to go up. So anyway, I say that because Christina is one of my clients that was, you know, laughing with me because she was like, I knew that you were selling to me, but I loved it and I wanted what you had to offer, and I wanted to learn how you were doing, what you were doing while you were doing it. So we did a vip week, is what I call that. We did a lead generation vip week where I get clients 100 new leads. And then we worked together for three months after that for our done for you lead generation and sales process. And the thing about, like, holistic sales and selling every day is that, like I said before, everything goes into sales. So even though for the last three months of our time together, Christina was getting our done for you lead generation services, I'm still sales coaching her the whole time because all these different pieces affect my end game of the lead gen results as well. So one of the things that, you know, one of the things I was going to say is that she got loads and loads and loads of leads. But like I said earlier, sometimes it will take people two months or three months or six months to make a buying decision. So Christina really understood the value of getting in touch with the volume of people, but really going deeper into building the relationships and the time and energy and value that provides. A lot of people still in the online space think I need as many leads as possible. I need hundreds. I need thousands of followers. You really don't. If you need, like two or three clients, you probably need ten or 15 leads. So Christina really understood that, like, let's put us in touch with as many people as possible that within reason and then really go into building those relationships. So we worked together for three months and she had a couple sales during that time. And then as she continued the relationships afterward, thats when she was able to get booked out. And I mentioned the sales coaching part, too, because Christina kind of did two things at once. She was having us do lead generation, but she was also learning how she could do it on her own if she needed to. So that really helped her afterwards because she was able to continue those relationships and get booked out with new clients. We also worked extensively on something Dana and I are going to get to, which is her sales content. So we worked on how we could talk to people and her content about her offers in a really visual way. So we will get into that. But those are a couple things that we did together. And one of the other things she said in her review is the sales coaching was really helpful to her because sales is emotional and we're going to talk about this also. But the ups and downs can be a lot. And to put it really simply, I find in business for myself and my clients, if we like what we're doing, we'll keep doing it. If we hate it, we probably won't. So for Christina and for sales in general, I find, like for clients, that if we can find a way for them to build consistent ethical habits around sales, like, we keep doing it unless we really, really can't, if we can find a way for people to like doing lead generation in sales, then they will keep doing it. And part of that is emotional, too, because if we feel defeated or we don't feel confident or someone turned us down, or the flip side, we got a really big client. So now we're done with it. We're not doing lead gen anymore. We're going to be good. Now. Both of those polar opposites really are the roller coaster ride of lead generation and sales. So I helped her out through that, and then she was able to find a way to keep doing lead generation and sales. She really liked and she felt confident about it. She's having fun doing it now, which I know we don't all think that sales and fun should be in the same sentence, but I promise it can be that way. I mean, to be really blunt, guys, like selling makes you money, and money is a lot of fun. You can do a whole lot of things with that, and you get incredible clients and relationships from it as well. That's a little bit about our work together. The last thing I'll say that she said is that sales had gone from something that was this random thing that she was hoping and praying might maybe work to an actual repeatable daily process that is working. And I said before, just start. Just start talking to people. A lot of the reason it's working is because she started and kept doing it. And you get better and you have highs and lows, but if you can start now or tomorrow or yesterday, it's going to do you really well for the future. Yeah.
[00:26:19] Speaker B: I love, I love that you talked about the sale experience, like, not just a strategy that you follow, but really finding a sales experience that you really love to do. And it really, like, brings you energy because, I mean, if we have a business, we need to sell. Like, you can't, you can't get around that part of business because your business will not run. You do not have money coming in. And so we might as well take it and make it the best it can be. And so I love how you did that with her, is created something that works for her, and that feels really good because it can, and it can be fun. So I love that you would think.
[00:26:54] Speaker A: That we as business owners wouldn't get around sales, but I promise you, I have clients right now and leads every day that tell me they haven't sold in six months to three years because it's easy to just kind of, like, rest on our laurels. I did this last year and then it shot me in the foot. I was booked out more than for majority of the year. I stopped selling, and then the months afterwards were really, really, really hard. This is a very, very common problem and pattern for a grand majority of my clients. And they could be making five or ten or 20k months or they could be millionaires. Well, over that. And we do well and then we just kind of rest on it. So, yeah, it does need to be a part of your like, daily task list, calendar, business plan, etcetera.
[00:27:46] Speaker B: So what do we need to do in our daily lead generation efforts? So, like, what is, what does a day look like? What should we be doing every day to not stop, not have that pause and regret it six months from now? Hey, this is Dana from society gal, and I wanted to take a quick break to tell you about the society gal Academy, the exclusive membership that helps entrepreneurs like you launch, grow, and scale your business. Join weekly expert led workshops, access to on demand courses, and connect with a supportive network of go getters just like you. Are you ready to elevate your business? Visit society gal Academy today.
[00:28:22] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. So a little like a short amount of prep, really. It's short for me to tell you all. It might take you a little bit of time, but the first thing that I'll go over is prepping for, like, a sales plan and your daily lead generation actions. You do want to have a plan and tools for us to easily measure what we're doing. So there's a little bit of prep, and then I'll give you all kind of like a weekly agenda of what I would do each week. So the prep is really round up your leads and put them somewhere. I hear all the time, I'm going to give detail on that, but I hear all the time I need you because I don't have any leads. I don't have any leads. I don't have any leads. But I'm going to tell you all a secret, which is that if you've ever had a client before or if you've ever known anyone in your life, you have the potential to have those past clients come back, to have them refer to you or just your network. You know, Dana and I could refer to each other. Anybody I met at a networking event could become a client or refer to me. So the first thing that I would do, we have a Google sheet, really simple lead tracker that we're going to give in this podcast episode so that Google sheet you guys can utilize. And then I would start rounding up the people that would be the warmest relationships to you. So that would be anybody that has referred to you in the past. Like if Dana sent me a client, she would be a referrer. So anybody that's referred to you, anybody that is a past client, anybody that's a past lead. So if I booked a discovery call with Maria, but I decided not to sign at that time, that would count. And then we can go further in from that. You know, your past leads could be people from Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, emails, etcetera. And we also have options like looking at our brochure downloads or looking at our inquiry forms or if you have leads from ads or networking events. Basically just sit down and do a brainstorm of the top people that you would like to work with, especially ones that you have already talked to and have a relationship with. And then you're probably going to need to do a little bit of computer sifting and look through past clients, past leads and all the different places that people can contact us. But that would be the prep part to get started with a plan for lead generation. And the other part that we've kind of circled around is just commit to yourself that you're going to do it because you have a business, you want to help people and you've got to talk to them before you can help them most of the time. So commit to yourself. You're going to do it and then do a little bit of prep. It probably will take you all an hour maybe to get your lead tracker set up, which is the Google sheet. Then after that, there are two things that really are happening on an ongoing basis. And one of those is you making content about how you help people. And the other one is talking to potential clients about how you can help them. I like to put things really simply so people can remember them. But essentially what I'm doing each day and have for nine years is talk about how I help people publicly. So in my marketing content and then talk to people about how I can help them privately. So indirect messages, it could be a discovery call, email, in person, event, etcetera. So once you have the prep done in terms of just adding those leads to your tracker, what I would do on a weekly basis is Monday you're going to look at the tracker to see anybody that you need to follow up with or that you want to reach out to that maybe you haven't gotten to talk to in a little bit, a little while. So Mondays I do that. So you check your weed tracker and then we go make content about our offer. I call this sales content for short. Or ethical sales content. So we're going to check the lead tracker on Monday, make some ethical sales content and then answer direct messages or start new ones. This could be wherever you all are talking to people. Maybe you're talking to potential clients through calls, text, email, social media, wherever. But basically we're talking to potential clients or finding people that could be potential clients. So that's what I do on Mondays, check the lead tracker, make sales content, talk to leads or potential leads. And then Tuesday through Thursday, I cut the lead tracking, to be honest, which might surprise people. But Tuesday through Thursday, I do what I like most and what I want, which is I make sales content and I talk to leads. And in case you all come find me on Instagram, you will uncover another one of my secrets, which is I mostly just do Instagram stories and that's not me telling you all like that's the only way to make sales or that's all I recommend or it's the best way. I like it and it makes me money and gets me really good clients. So that's really like all I'm doing. That's all I'm doing right now for marketing. So Tuesday through Thursday I make sales content and then I talk to leads and direct messages. Then Friday I will look at the people I've chatted with and update the lead trackers and then make sales content and talk to leads. When I'm updating my lead tracker on Fridays, I will move people around the statuses which you all will see based on how hot they are, basically. So if somebody tells me, you know, I think I'm interested, but can you come back to me on June 15? I would probably move them down from hot to warm because there's someone I want to work with. But it's going to be a little bit of time. If I'm talking to Sarah and she says, you know, I thought I wanted to work with you in August, but actually let's do June, then I would move her up. So that's one of the things that we're doing is moving people around the lead tracker based on how soon they want to work with you. Really? And then I'll also add notes in and you guys will have the tracker so you can do this. I'll add notes in about what we're talking about and also what we're talking about in relation to the offer so that when we get to the point where we're talking about next steps and if we want to work together, I can reiterate why we would do this. So if someone tells me like, you know, I really want to work with you, I'm hoping to retire my husband and go on our first vacation in two years, that's real. Like, that's what they want and that's what, you know, we're working for. Literally we're doing our business because we love it but also to hit other life goals so we can take notes like that in the lead tracker so that we don't have to keep it all in our heads, which are busy places and also so that we can go back and talk about what they care about when we're closing a sale.
[00:35:04] Speaker B: Awesome. I love the lead tracker and being able to just be so I think, I mean, I hear, you know, people probably hear a lot of strategies about DM's and DM marketing and just talking to people. I mean, even just an Instagram when you, I'm a big story person too. I love stories. And you just get so much interaction, so much conversation happening and even those, I mean, leads coming in just randomly, things responding to, you know, responses from Instagram stories, those are all, that's a lot of conversation. So it's nice to have something. I can track it and, and even if someone, let's say, you know, interacts or something and they don't reach back out for another six months, you'll go back to that and then find out a more like remember them and then be able to go back into the conversation with intention, which is really cool.
[00:35:46] Speaker A: The lead tracking. So another thing I hear all the time, no one's tracking their leads. No, no one's tracking their leads at all. And seriously, I mean, I have clients to use this.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
[00:36:01] Speaker B: I know why I didn't think of it. Why don't we think of these things?
[00:36:04] Speaker A: I don't, I don't know. It's just, it's just busy and there's a lot of, there's all these different terms for lead tracking and it just gets damn confusing for people. We talk about lead tracking and CRMs and go high level and honeybook and Dubsado and all of this crazy stuff and there's a million places that people can find us and really we just need to like even have the names and the contact info of people we might want to work with because we can't keep it all in our heads and it's really exhausting to try. And then you go into your dm's like, I have thousands. Then you go in there and you're like, what are we going to scroll forever to find the people we're looking for. It just makes it really complicated. Even just having a lead tracker and doing that prep work of like go through my past clients and put their names in here, even having my clients do that exercise, Chelsea, my client said two or three days ago she was like, just because I'm working with you, it makes me keep remembering more people I wanted to work with and they just fell off the face of my earth. They just came out of my brain and I couldn't remember them. So just that exercise of putting people in a google sheet, just putting their names in a tracker is really helpful. And then also so on the days where it's a hard day and you think you have no leads and no one's going to buy from you, you can open a simple google sheet and see a all the people that already did buy from you. So it boosts your confidence a little to know you can do it again. And I like simple instructions. Then you have a really easy thing to do which is go down the list and go talk to them. So you have potential leads in there as well. So it's a magic tool. I've had clients that paid thousands and thousands and thousands to me and then in the end they say like one of my favorite things of a few but one of my favorite things is that you gave me a lead tracker and got me to use it. That's like transform my sales and my life and it's so, it can be so simple, which is really what I want people to take away from this is that sales can be simple and all of these like really expensive programs and 83 methods and twelve different marketing platforms. Like all we're doing anywhere is just talking to people and offering to help them. And I think making it so complicated deters so many people from doing it when really if you just did it and made it simple for yourself, you would help yourself and so many other people.
[00:38:36] Speaker B: Yeah. And what are your, I mean, with conversations? We're talking a lot about the conversation. So give us some insight on what those conversations look like and you did a really good job at having organic conversations. And so give us just a few tips on like how can we have organic conversation with somebody to really get to know them and for it to feel good.
[00:38:54] Speaker A: Yeah, I think a couple, a couple things. First of all, don't be afraid to start a conversation with people. I've had people I talked with in my community. The fear really holds people back even from starting the conversation, which is your initial question. That fear of being, like, the one to start it keeps people from starting a conversation with a really simple truth is that someone has to start the conversation. It could be Dana or it could be me, but one of us has to do it. Just because you start the conversation doesn't mean that you're going to be salesy or, like, immediately sell or send them a joy. My mastermind to make a million dollars today message. You're just starting a conversation with another humanity, with a screen potentially between you. But I do the same thing at, like, in person networking events, too. So we really are just offering help is selling wherever we are. A couple easy ways to start conversation. So I'm on Instagram. If you guys are utilizing Instagram for business and potentially clients. I like stories a lot, like Dana said, on my stories and other people's stories. So. So one of the first things that I do each day for lead generation is I look at my direct messages of, like, hot leads that have answered me that I need to get back to. But the second thing that I do, like, without fail, every single day, is look at my stories, viewers of my own stories. And before you think I'm talking about, like, metrics, it's not because of the number of people watching them. I don't have very high numbers watching my stories, and I still make ongoing sales. So I'm looking at the people viewing my stories. I'll look at the story which has the highest viewers, and I'll go through there and see, are there any, like, past leads that I want to go back to? Like, maybe? I talked to Kara six months ago, and now she's in my stories again, and I want to reconnect, even though she's not on my lead tracker or she, you know, is way down the list of, like, cold leads because it's been a while. So I'll look at anyone that's a past potential client, as well as anyone new that has just found me, and I'll start a conversation with them. You used to be able to reply to your stories, and people could you? Well, they can see the story that you're, like, replying to, but then it goes away. So I'll reply to people from my stories. Like, if Dana's watching my stories and I'm talking about lead generation, I will direct message her with that story attached to it and ask her a question about the story that I was talking about, whatever content topic I was talking about. The other thing you can do is basically that on other people's stories. So all those stories at the top of Instagram. You can go through other people's and just engage back, like, send them a reply back to one of their stories. And essentially what I'm doing, whether I'm direct messaging people from mine or answering their stories, basically what I'm doing is finding something I relate to them about and then usually asking a question. So we're having a conversation and not just a statement that I sent to them. That's what I do on my stories, is look at mine and look at the viewers and then look at other people's. Another really good place to find leads is threads. I am not like a huge metrics and algorithm person, but I do know that I see totally different people on threads than I do on Instagram. So looking on there is a really great place for me. And my clients keep telling me this, too, to find new people that you might not have otherwise found. It doesn't seem to be as focused on, like, numbers and SEO as it is. Like, you know, you like Dana and you engage with her, and here's a few other people that are similar to her and her community. So those are some good places to start conversations. The other thing I was going to say is that question I get a lot is about what I call the switch, which is, if I'm having a conversation, it's going from, like, personal to business. I call it personal sometimes, like colloquially, cats and dogs. Because a lot of times we are talking, it's not cats and dogs. I'm talking about my cat was somebody, or my favorite song, or what I ate for breakfast. Like, all this millennial stuff that I do right. And people will ask me, how do we go from that personal conversation to business? And the answer to, for me, the answer to, like, how to make the switch is don't make the switch. Don't, like, be talking to someone about a, b, and C, and then feel like you need to make a hardcore left into another conversation. Exactly. Ideally, if you're talking to an emotionally intelligent fellow, like, potential client for you, who is a savvy investor, meaning they probably have purchased something before they could purchase one of your offers or services. Ideally, someone like that knows that life and business are, you know, integrated into one another. So the way that Dana and I are having this conversation, conversation talking about life should naturally flow into business. Again, to go back to the fear, and I'm a female identifying entrepreneur, I think there's so much fear of being salesy and really like business for those of us that are business owners, is just a piece of our life. And you can bring up business without like a hardcore pitch. Like, Dana and I both have lives and we both have businesses. And naturally conversations will go into different topics. I just think there's so much fear around sales as female entrepreneurs. And I'm not a mindset coach. Like, I'm not a sales mindset coach. I don't talk about it a lot in my content, but it is something really, really important for us to not feel like we have to go like, into this really masculine, hardcore sales efforts and pitch people, really, we want to get to know them and what they want and need and then be able to naturally integrate that into a conversation. A lot of the things, you know, people will talk about, like emotions that inform selling, right? Like emotion based sales. The big drivers that most people are looking for when they purchase are going to be emotions. So we're talking about, if I'm selling to someone, I'm thinking about, do they need to save more time? Do they need more peace? Do they need to make more money? Those are really big ones. I mean, there are basic needs, like, can I afford the life that I want and need? Can I have peace and clarity in my life? Do I have enough time to do what I need to do? If we're thinking about those things, business and life are both so integrated and attached to them that the conversation should naturally flow into there. Just don't be afraid to talk about it. Or like, business is a bad word that you can't bring up in a conversation. And the last thing I was going to say, just to make sure we mention it, when you guys are doing your Monday through Friday lead generation, and you're checking the tracker on Monday and Fridays, and then every other day we're doing sales, content and lead generation, I would recommend that you're doing lead gen for 15 to 30 minutes a day. Ideally, you're talking to about three to five people a day to start. So if you are listening to this podcast and you're thinking, I have no leads, I have no leads. I have no leads. That means that your three to five people are going to be you finding three to five people that you might want to work with and telling them something you have in common and asking them a question. If you have leads already, then I would split it. So let's say that you have three direct messages back from potential clients. So that's three. And then I would try to find a couple of new people, one or two new potential clients or new leads you can talk to. I can usually talk to three to five people in 30 minutes, because I'm quite loquacious. And the other thing I'll say, too, is that the warmer, the hotter that leads get. So the closer that someone gets to paying you and buying from you and becoming a client, usually the more time it will take to talk to that person. Because we might be using voice notes, which I use every day, we might be going into questions and objections and concerns. So I can talk to, like, three or five and 30 minutes, because I'm sending them five or seven minutes of voice notes, going through their questions about us working together, even after I've made copious sales content to make sure that we're both comfortable with the decision. So that's what I would do. If you guys take anything away from this podcast, I would commit to yourself to talk to three people each day for 15 or 30 minutes. And that's gonna. That's a big win and big progress for most of us just to get going.
[00:47:58] Speaker B: I love the conversation and how it can flow. I think that's a really big block for a lot of people, thinking they go in and pitch to people. But seeing that you're starting a relationship, and I feel like your business is a part of you, your business is something to be excited about. Your business is. It's something to share, you know, like, I'm so excited about working on this right now. You know, there's just. I think we need to be more fearless with owning what we're doing and being okay with it. Not feeling like we're selling, but we're just sharing. We're sharing how excited we are. We're sharing, you know, our enthusiasm for our business and what we do. And also with these conversations, people will naturally go look at your content. They'll go look at your website, they'll go look at all your stuff. You don't have to force it. They'll go look at it because you're creating a really great conversation, and they like you and they like your vibe. So, like, oh, if I like your vibe, then I'm gonna go look at your other stuff. What do you do? So, I think there's. I mean, it's a long term game, that's for sure. It's not like we're not doing that stuff.
[00:48:55] Speaker A: It is a long term game. And also, I mean, we could do five podcast episodes. But I talk about this a lot in my context. And if you got the other thing I would say, besides having three conversations each day with potential clients, is come look at my Instagram please, just for an example. And I can show you all way more of other people doing this. Well, clients and not clients, but have stuff about your offer at the top of your Instagram. Like, I don't know, somehow I phrase things, I think, in ways that just really make it super, super, super simple. But, you know, we want clients and we want clients, and we want leads coming to us. Don't make it that hard for people. Find what they might be looking for or what they might want, but they don't know they want it yet. So basically, I do like a grocery store analogy, which is like, Costco is a grocery store with no signs. I find it quite frustrating, but very cheap. I like the cheap part of it, but I can't self navigate my way around because there's no signs. If I go to a kroger or wherever you guys are, if I go to any grocery store that has titles like their aisles, have what's in the aisle, then you can self navigate and I can find what I need or things I want that I didn't need as well. So I tell people, make your instagram like a grocery store. Which means you put a title on the majority of your content pieces, even your reels, that tell people what it is. So whatever they're looking for, they can find it. So at the top of our feed, I have a formula that I use of what should be up there, which is basically a post about your offer offers that says visually, you can read that it's ways to work with me or my one on one coaching offer. Like, it says what's in there and what you talk about. And the second one would be what Dana asked me. Talk about client that you've helped or a client that you could help. And the last one would be faqs. You know, I mentioned that, that I'll have five or seven minutes each day with each lead of questions and concerns about working together and making faqs content. And like, my faqs content piece at the top of my instagram would say, faqs, like, very, very easy for people to read and find what they want to look at. That doesn't mean you don't make a bunch of other content about a bunch of other things, but I would make at the top of your socials, at least in the top, like six posts, but ideally pinned to the top top, I would have a post about your offer that says it's about it about a client you've helped, that says that on the title, and then faqs that says it FAQ's one is sorely missed and you would be shocked how much easier it will make sales. It will get you those dream direct messages of, hey, I want to work with you. Can you tell me when we can start? And that's like the first DM that they sent because you've answered 99% of their questions before that. And showing up with your face and like actually showing people who you are and what it would be like to work with you also is a major piece of that. But the faqs having that content up will get people reaching out to you. It will make your sales process shorter, which means, like, I have a sales conversation with Dana for a week rather than three months. It also increases the volume of sales because it just makes it easier to talk to more people. So I was going to say that because it's just going to make your sales process process easier. And then in terms of being afraid of sales. So the part about content is just telling people how you can help them. That's everything I just said, is visually making it easy for people to know how you can help them when they're ready. And then when you get to direct message conversations and lead generation, a savvy buyer can identify when they are ready. They can navigate to the info that they need. The last thing I was going to say about pitching the majority of the time, 99% of the time, I'm not pitching. But if I found somebody, like society gal, if I found somebody that was a dream client and I really, really wanted to help them and knew I could do an epic job. One of my past clients who has a big female entrepreneur conference each year, this is what happened with us is I reached out and I said, I've been to one of your events before. I love that event. It actually, like, drastically transformed my business from going to like a two hour thing. I really, really, really want to, like, get behind this event you have coming up and help you get more incredible people there and make it easier for you. She signed that day. She signed a contract that day because I reached out and was super excited to help, believed in what she was doing and told her that I wanted to help and I could do a great job if she wanted it. And she said yes, which is like 1000% different than pretty much every pitch I've ever gotten for nine years. So anyways, that enthusiasm and, like, losing a lot of that fear of selling and, like, recognizing that selling is helping can be you having conversations with people and it naturally goes into how you can help them. And then sometimes for me, I will ethically pitch and offer somebody help. And a lot of the times, if it's done well and genuinely, that works, too. Just don't send like ten or 20 or 100 people the same tempesthe template with manychat or flow chat. I wouldn't recommend you do that. It will probably hurt your sales and reputation.
[00:54:24] Speaker B: Yeah, I love that. Awesome. So let's, let's end with a failure turn learning lesson in your business. Love to hear that. So tell us a little story about that.
[00:54:35] Speaker A: Definitely. So I touched on this briefly before, but a lot of like, being a saleswoman and you guys are salespeople in your own business as well. But a lot of me being a salesperson person is about the ups and downs, right? Because there are days we make sales and there are weeks and months it goes well and there are times that we wish it went a lot better. For full transparency, I was in a real sales slump for six months, from Q four to Q one, which is a long time. And the majority of my clients, like I mentioned, millionaires and not millionaires, were dealing with the same thing. Their sales were down. They weren't making enough. They were getting free or very low ticket signups only. And it just, like, wasn't cutting it where they wanted to be. And so I think in times kind of like a feast and famine, things can be going really well with sales or not really well with sales, and then it's kind of easy to get stuck there. So when I first started my business, I was thinking everybody was the lead and I would make sales from all of these awesome people. Get this. Anybody that signed up for my email list, like my free, I was certain that they were going to buy. Like, absolutely certain. And that that just wasn't true. That's not the case. Like, not everybody is going to buy from you. So my, one of my biggest failures or mistakes that I've learned from is thinking either everybody is a lead or no one is a lead. And I think the no one is a lead comes from. For me, if I was getting a lot of people that wanted stuff for free, or I'm getting, like, I gave Dana three tips in the DM's and then she says, like, I hate to pick your brain, but I'm going to pick your brain and ask me for, like, a bunch more things, which I now won't do. I'll say, like, you know, I've given you these three great tips. I'm glad you find them helpful. If you'd like to continue on this process. Together we can do a paid consult, et cetera. But I think it kind of can feel like no one is a lead on the opposite of that instead of everyone is a lead when for me, you keep getting pricing objections. I don't get many people that say this is too expensive and also I publicize my pricing and I 1000% recommend that also at least putting your starting rate or starting rate or starting payment plan for different kinds of offers. But if I'm getting a bunch of pricing objections and people want to pick my brain for free or they want a $100 thing when we were talking about a $5,000, I think then it's easy to feel like no one can afford you where you're too expensive or you're never going to make more sales. And really at that point, we probably need to change our marketing and we're just not talking to the right people. I'll tell you all this, there are lots of people that really want to pay you. And those people, because they would pay you, can afford you. I wouldn't say that there is a price that's too high. It needs to be priced for value. But there are people out there right now, today buying $20,000 packages, $50,000 packages. So whether you're selling something that's $200 or $20,000, there are people that can afford you. And logically I know that, but emotionally it can be up and down and all around between no one will ever buy or everyone's going to buy. So trying to find a balance and take a little bit of our ego out of it and just go help people and know there are so many people that need our help that will pay you for it.
[00:58:18] Speaker B: Awesome. Well, thank you so much for coming on. I mean, whoever listening to this probably has to listen like three times just to write out all the amazing tips that you gave. This is like a masterclass. That was so amazing. Yeah, our set, very set to go into sales way more holistically and feeling a lot better. So thank you so much for coming on. Thank you for having me. And where can everyone find you? Connect with you and dm you.
[00:58:43] Speaker A: So you can find me on Instagram. I'm on there every day. I do stories every day. My Instagram is nerve clientstudio. And feel free to ask me anything that we've talked about or otherwise. I've written, like, I've written out notes for people and done master classes and courses and they all still always have questions. So I'm always here for the questions and support, and I would love to meet all of you.
[00:59:09] Speaker B: Thank you. Yeah.
