How You Can Be a Selling Rockstar with Erika Tebbens - 52

Creative Counsel Episode 52: How You Can Be a Selling Rockstar with Erica Tebbins. Welcome to Creative Counsel with Brittany Ratel. I'm your host Brittany, an attorney for creatives who believes in solid contracts and cute office supplies, and who wants to empower you to be a more confident business owner. Whether you're a creative, influencer, maker, artist, shop owner, or content creator, you are not just a blank. You are a real bona fide business owner. So let's help you own your business and get you legally legit with Brit. Thank you so much for being here. Hello everybody and welcome back. Thanks so much for joining me and for giving me some of your precious time today. I wanted to jump into our episode quickly because I love our guest, Erica. In addition to be a really fun person, a really, really talented saleswoman and business coach, and also a fellow Lord of the Rings aficionado. You know how great it is when you're just a huge nerd about something and you find something cool on the internet or that Instagram learns that you're also a nerd about something, they start serving you targeted ads, and you could share those with somebody and laugh about it. Erica is my person for that, for all things Lord of the Rings. So before we get too deep into the Tolkien universe, I just want to share a review just to thank people for taking the time to leave reviews on Apple Podcasts. It means a lot to me. I read every single one of these, and it's a huge boost to me and just to keep the— this content moving forward, because this Content, as you guys know, is free to you, and it costs me money and time to produce it, but I feel really strongly about it in that it's providing good value for it. And so I love the feedback that I get and always appreciate any shares and DMs or whatnot, but the reviews in particular are something that allows other people to see, and it helps that when people are searching for these kinds of questions, that this podcast comes up as a resource for them. This review is from Extreme Hiker, and she says, perfect for small shops like me. "I love Brittany's podcast. I tried listening to some other biz podcasts, but they were a snooze fest and I had a hard time paying attention. Brittany's topics are perfect for me and my small shop." Oh, this is from the Kiki Department. Oh, thank you so much. "I do not have a biz background and I'm a teacher by trade, so I've learned a lot about what I need to do legally to get my biz totally legit. Some stuff I'd figured out on my own, but some stuff I didn't know. I even did the free 20-minute consult with Brittany, and when I make time for myself to work out, I'm a new mama to my third babe." I love listening to her podcast. Thank you, Brittany. Thank you so much for taking time to do that. Really appreciate you doing that Kiki Department. And if you are taking that time out for yourself, if you're multitasking, which I'm totally both hands up there, that's normally what I'm doing when I listen to podcasts is I'm mommin' it or I'm driving around or I'm working out or I'm doing something where I don't have to have all my brain power. I can divert some of it to listening and learning and engaging. If you're doing that today, thank you so much for just showing up and investing into what I know be somewhat less sexy of a topic about building and scaling your business. That's what we're here for, and I promise you that we have good value in return for your investment today. So I want to tell you a little bit about our guest so that you guys can get primed for her, because she's just— she's amazing and you're going to love it. So Erica Tebbens is a sales strategist for passionate and highly motivated female entrepreneurs. She's been running successful businesses and teaching others how to sell for more than 15 years. She believes selling doesn't have to suck and is on a mission especially to teach women to love selling so that they can make more money and take over the world. She believes that women deserve to have to make money doing what they love and without cringeworthy sales conversations or complicated business practices. Her unique method is based upon building relationships between business owners and consumers. When she isn't working, you'll find her sipping coffee and listening to true crime podcasts. Okay, so without further ado, we're going to introduce and have our great conversation about how to sell it and how to make sure that you are turning away from any of that cringeworthy stuff. So whether you have not gotten into selling and want to start, or you want to uplevel your selling, I know that you're going to find some good nuggets today.

Hello, thank you, Brittany. I'm so excited to be here.

Us too. We're really, really grateful to have you. So, you know, as we talked a little bit about Erica, she is just such a master of helping, you know, helping women and really getting their full potential to their businesses. And so in that vein of Talking about women's stories and where they've come in their business and where they want to go, we'd love to kind of hear your origin story. So tell us a little bit about how you got started and what you're doing and how that's grown into what you are doing for clients and how you're helping people today.

Yeah, so it's kind of funny, you know, how when you look back and you see how all these random pieces kind of end up fitting perfectly together to make something new. That's basically the, the short of it, but The longer version is when my son, who is 14 now, when he was really little, I actually had gone to school to be a high school teacher and I did teach for a little bit and then I had him and I was going back to work and we had moved to a different state so I couldn't teach there. My husband used to be in the Navy, so we moved a few times and I ended up working as a store manager for Calvin Klein just north of Seattle. And so odd, I never really envisioned myself doing retail management. I had had retail jobs since I was 15. I always did really well with them, but I never thought that would be in the cards, but it was. And so while I was there, I had a really huge, very busy, high-volume store. We were the 5th highest volume in the country. I had a staff of over 40 people, and I actually, besides the really horrible working hours, I really loved it, and I loved Helping people find the perfect items. I loved working with my team to teach them really good sales and customer experience information so they could, you know, treat our customers incredibly well and we could make a bunch of money as a store. And then we got transferred again with the Navy to upstate New York. We knew this was our final duty station, and so we settled in and I knew my son was about 4 at the time. That I just did not want. Even though the pay was really good, I did not want that schedule anymore because I was working, you know, nights and weekends and every single holiday. It was just awful. And so I ended up very randomly again, uh, working for a large organic vegetable farm in our area. So I was just doing a little bit of part-time work. I ended up taking over their weekly newsletter and then I, because I had a history with selling and visual merchandising and all of that, I helped them with that and ended up becoming a manager. So we, we had markets all year round, two different farmers markets, and I ended up hiring and training and doing all of that same stuff all over again. And I loved it. And then I accidentally ended up with a very successful direct sales career. And I think part of why I was able to succeed is because I had this vast background of running other people's businesses successfully. And so I transferred a lot of that over. And even though we didn't have family in the area, even though we, I didn't have a huge network of friends, which a lot of people assume you have to have in order to have success in that industry, I was able to really grow my business very quickly. And 15 months later I promoted. So I was the top 3% of the company. And again, I had a team and I was training people. Like it's the same cycle over and over again. And at the end of 2016, after I'd had that business for several years, and I really loved it, but I started getting the itch, and I was helping two girlfriends grow their businesses from the ground up, and I really loved it, and it was fun and exciting. And it was at that point I realized I wanted to be able to help teach women outside of just the world of direct sales and network marketing. And so I did a big scary leap, and even though I was kind of at the peak of my business, my previous business. I actually closed it all down and then I started this one just kind of thinking, you know, I don't know, I'll just figure it out as I go. And it's, it's been absolutely amazing. And I'm so glad every day that I took the leap. So that was a very long version, but basically I've worked corporate retail and small business retail and direct sales, and I've woven the common themes throughout each of them that are so essential to really good selling and customer experience. And now I teach that to other women.

Yeah, well, that's just amazing. I love hearing in your story. I mean, what's, what's so great about it, which is what I find so many of my guests, is that there are things that seem totally disparate sometimes when we look back, you know, when we're, you know, and looking in the past of our business experience and what jobs we had and our touch points of where we moved around. And yet sometimes really they're not that different when we think about the skill set or what we were always attracted to, what we found that was in with our zone of genius. And then, well, we kept on coming back to you and, you know, and like you said, you know that you like training people, you like helping to develop systems, you like, you know, energizing and improving that human capital so that people can be selling and be delivering the value that they want to be.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah. Okay. So, so tell me, you know, I just want to say a little bit more because I think that that leap that you took in terms of you had a successful business, you were doing direct sales, you know, consulting, you were killing it, and yet you had the itch for something else. You know, tell me a little bit more about that because I think that leap is— it sounds so scary to people. And that leap could be the same as someone who's maybe just selling as a hobby, or they're still in corporate, or they're doing something different, and yet they want to make that leap to doing something else very different. Maybe it looks very different in their business. How did you approach that? Um, you know, walk me through what your mental process was like.

Yeah, so I actually, I had realized over the years that it was kind of funny when we moved out here and I had said, oh, I want a different schedule for myself. And then obviously farmers markets happen on the weekend, and so I ended up being back to working on the weekends. And then when I was doing home parties, I was back to working on the weekends. And granted, it wasn't always the weekends, but it was a lot of the weekend. And even though I was setting my own schedule in my previous business, it was still, you know, that's typically the time when you're gonna have the most success doing home parties. And so I started to realize, like, hang on, this is not lining up with my values of having family time. So why have I dug myself back into this hole? But now it's of my own making. It's not— nobody's like forcing me to do this. I am doing this to myself. And And I started to really think like, how do I want my life to actually look? I love to travel and I love to have flexibility in my life and I realized that having that product-based business was just not going to work for me in that way that it was structured. And so my friends, I have one friend Jillian who has a product-based business and my friend Kristen who has a service-based business And right around the same time, they were both building theirs, and we would get together for lunch, and I would help them. And every time we would leave those lunches, I would just feel energized. Like, I was like, I could do this all day long, like brainstorming and teaching and training, everything. And it made me realize, like, okay, if this— they always say, you know, do that thing that you would do if nobody paid you, right?

The thing that gives you energy instead of taking it away. Listen to that.

Yes, yes. And I think that especially as women, we, um, you know, we tend to be caring for a lot of people in our lives and juggling a lot mentally, even if we don't have kids or anything. You just have a lot. And, uh, and I think it's easy to ignore your intuition for a very, very, very long time. And I think that mine was finally just like screaming at me and I knew I had to listen. So my next step was, okay, how— I know there are people who have businesses online and I know there are people who do business consulting. What the heck? Like, how does this work? Like, how the heck do I do this? I don't know. And so I actually hired a mentor myself and she kind of gave me some good groundwork. And then honestly, it was just a lot of trial and error and pivoting and different, all, you know, all of those different things where, you know, successful entrepreneurs always say like success is not linear. And even in my past businesses, you know, I could see that. So I kind of just knew that my faith was bigger than my fear. And I knew that if other people had figured it out, I would be able to figure it out too. And it was just a matter of staying in the game, long enough to see that success that I knew was possible. And because I really wanted to be helping women, like I knew there was women I could help. It was just like I needed to put the pieces of the puzzle together to figure out how to make that work.

Oh, I love this so much. I mean, it's no surprise because you are, you are like my, you are my spirit animal and a consultant with the sales experience. Um, because yeah, it, you know, it completely aligns with everything that I feel on the inside. Um, but I love what you were talking about, which is that you know, you looked at your business at what the lifestyle was, you know, what did you design for you, the gig that you had, and it wasn't— you said it wasn't lining up with my values, which I think is so smart because it's easy just to, especially when we've been financially successful in something, just to keep on doing it and not to have that space to pull back a little bit, to zoom out and say, hang on, you know, I didn't want to work in this because, you know, I didn't want to work in corporate, or I didn't want to work for someone else because of this, or or whatever reason, and yet we've set ourselves up in a way that still success is not going to be in alignment with our values the way that we've set up our own system.

Yeah, it's true. And I know, you know, I definitely work fewer hours a week now than when I first was starting this business because, you know, when you start, there's just a lot of things that need to get set up and you're also learning. Like every new thing has a learning curve. And, but over time, those things that you learn, like, how to set up a webinar where, or, you know, how to make a sales page or whatever that maybe took you a week or 2 weeks before. Now you can do them in an afternoon or you can do them in an hour. And I think it's just getting past that initial hump of frustration and really keeping your, your why for your business and your values and whatever motivates you, just keeping that top of mind and believing that you will get there, you just kind of have to, you have to get through the mud of that initial setting up of your business.

Yes. Amen. Yeah. All, all of that. So, um, and so as you said, you sought out mentorship, you recognized that there were things that you knew and felt comfortable with, but then there were also some gaps in your knowledge. So you said you sought out mentorship. I'm sure you were consulting the Google machine. Um, All the things. Yeah. In terms of building this business. And like you said, there was a lot of trial and error in that process in terms of you would try something, you would, you would launch it, you'd put it out there and then you'd reiterate and get feedback from it.

Yeah, absolutely. Even my client work, my one-on-one client work now is so much more streamlined and efficient than it was when I was first starting and both efficient for me and for my client as well. But really that was, again, just a lot of I did it one way and then I thought this is not sustainable so I'm gonna pivot and actually the pivot was really good and now I love the way I have it set up. But of course I'm always open down the road to if something else feels better at that point then I'm gonna tweak it and pivot and go down that path.

Exactly, exactly. So smart, Erica. I mean that you define what your calling is and to just embrace it. So tell us about, you know, who are you working with today, um, and what are the kinds of things that you're helping your clients do?

Yeah. So my tagline is sell smarter, earn more, and create raving fans. And what that really looks like is I work with both product-based and service-based businesses because the methodology that I teach is pretty universal across the board for businesses. So, What I like to help women do, I primarily work with women because I find that women tend to have the most hangups around selling because we view it as icky or we don't want to be pushy or any of those other things that we conjure up when we think of selling. Exactly. And so I really love to take women through a framework. It's called the sales, my sales my No Sleeves Sales Formula, but sales is actually an acronym. You can actually, on my website I have it for free, like you can just opt in and you can see what all of the whole acronym means. But I take people through that, and then from there when I work with people either in my mastermind or one-on-one or through my courses, is taking that and then also looking at ways to tweak your business so that you can actually earn more. So a lot of times we are just so close to everything in our business. It doesn't mean that we are not smart enough to figure things out, but when you are so close to your own stuff, it's really hard to see opportunities that you might be missing or small tweaks that you can make that will make your life easier. Or maybe you can end up working fewer hours and making the same or more money, just all of those things. And then the end goal is to get people comfortable enough with selling and with optimizing their offers that they can spend that time really nurturing their clients and customers and working with them so that people want to come back and they want to tell their friends, which is the raving fans component. Because the more people who you have that are raving fans, the less legwork you have to do on the front end to really hustle to get people to know that you exist.

Right. You know, the acquisition cost for a new customer is a whole lot higher than getting someone who already likes and knows you and trusts you to just buy something else, you know.

Yes, exactly, exactly. And I think that that's a big part of— it's interesting, when I started my business, my whole focus was going to be on the raving fans component. And then you know how when there's something that you are good at, you forget that other people struggle with it?

No, as an attorney, no, I don't, I don't know anything about that. I don't know what you're talking about. Everyone loves the trademark website like I do, right?

Yeah, everyone loves reading contracts. It's so—

I love it.

They dig it.

It's so much fun. It's so much fun.

So much fun. But yeah, like, I— so I just— I've been selling since I was 15, and I— selling is just— it's a very simple thing for me and a very natural and comfortable thing. So I realized I was trying to help women get more repeat and referral business. And what I realized was nobody was interested in that because what was really happening was they didn't have enough at the top of the pipeline because they were too afraid to even sell or they didn't have the right language around it. So early on, I actually did an adjustment in my business and focused on sales because I was like, hang on, we're— I'm putting like the cart before the horse here. I got to get them this initial sale. And then they can work on nurturing the person and giving them that great experience.

Yeah, which I think is, you know, certainly something that's— there's still— there's tactics and thoughtfulness and intention that goes in with that. But I think for most people who are good at what they do, they value what they do, that's a whole lot easier than that, like you said, like the onset of getting people initially. It's— I think that offering, that sale, and switching into that mode that I think is the most— the biggest leap that I've seen, certainly with the people that I've, I've worked with and I see in their stage in the business. And it sounds like that's what you were seeing pretty universally with your clients as well.

Yeah, I, I would say pretty much across the board, all of the people that I work with are— they might not call themselves experts. I view them as experts at what they do. So whether they're creatives and they make beautiful artwork, you know, or they're, you know, a sleep coach or whatever it is they do, they have a ton of knowledge and skill in that area. They just don't understand the business side of it, and that's where I come in because I have so much experience running successful businesses that I feel like when we marry their expertise in their own business and my business expertise, it just makes everything better for them, and it makes their running their business a lot more enjoyable and profitable.

Ah, so good. Okay, well, we don't, we don't want to keep everyone on, on, you know, the hook here, um, because you've got some actual tips for us to sink our teeth into right now. So, um, why don't you tell us about kind of your 4-step process, um, that we can, like you said, try to sell and without complex systems, without the sleaze, um, but with all of the, the money honey benefits.

Yeah. So I think that one thing that gets lost in this digital age, and I love that we can learn so much and do so much online now, But I think that we have developed so many new apps and programs and all sorts of different marketing things that are online now that we forget that selling is really simple. Like sometimes, like I know there's a lot of automation and systems and email things and like all of that that are great and they really do help people streamline their work and work smarter. But at the very baseline, all selling comes back to some really, really simple concepts that are important to understand first, because when you understand these few things, then you can transfer it over into, you know, doing a nurture sequence or, you know, a sales page or your social media. And so I wanted to share that with your audience. And the 4 steps are get noticed, build trust, make sales, and work smarter.

Ooh, so good. All right, so tell us, tell us about all of those.

Yeah, so I think that you are actually a perfect example of what I teach about. So you have—

I didn't pay her to say that.

She did not. No, I was thinking of this this weekend. I was like walking around running errands and I was like, oh my gosh, she's actually like a perfect example. Of what I want to talk about. And I will say, because, so to get noticed, you have a big Instagram presence and you have your podcast. So those are two ways to get noticed. But again, where I think a lot of people miss the mark is they try to be like everyone else in their industry. So for instance, in business coaching for women, there tends to be a lot of the like, the real big lifestyle benefits, like the going to Bali and the Louboutin shoes. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but there's this image that a lot of people, I think, aspire to. And I'm like, that's great if you want that. It's just I'm kind of like a nerdy person. I'm really quirky. I have this funky personality and I want that to shine through. So why I say I think that you're great at this is You aren't just trying to get noticed. You are very authentic. Like, you— part of why I resonate with you is you embrace Halloween, as do I. Like, you're a big Harry Potter fan. I love Harry Potter, but more than that, I love like The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings and nerdy stuff.

Oh, I saw Return of the King 13 times in the theater. So, you know, yeah, I, you know, have anyone come at me if they think that they are a bigger Lord of the Rings listener than I am. Yeah, seriously.

Yeah. So exactly. And there might be people who, you know, see you dressed up for Halloween and they're like, that's inappropriate, she's a lawyer, she's not taking herself seriously enough. Well, those aren't your ideal people.

They're not. They're not my people. Because if you think that having humor or being lighthearted or showing other parts of my life that show me as a whole person aren't professional, then You and I have different ideas about being professional and what that means. And yeah, I'm not your, I'm not your person. So keep on searching.

Yeah, exactly. So in that, I think that it's really important, even though it feels scary and it feels vulnerable and it, it also brings up feelings of lack. Like if people know the real me, there won't be enough people who resonate with the real me that will want to pay me. And that is just fundamentally not true. Because the internet is so vast and social media and podcasts, it's all so vast. There is room enough for all of us with all of our quirks and everything combined. Not, you know, we don't have to keep them hidden. Yeah. So I think that it's really important, you know, there's obviously a lot of lawyers out there, there's a lot of business coaches out there, there are other people who teach sales and selling, but I want to have the people who will resonate well with me. I want them to know who they're getting before they even sign that contract to work with me. Exactly. Um, and then in build trust. So again, like building trust, a lot of that is just giving value that people can interact with before they decide to work with you. So that could be, you know, when you have, I know you've been doing lately a lot of your going live and doing Q&A on, Instagram. So that's free value that you give. And that's just another way to get people to see if they like you, if they like what you have to say, if they trust you. And then it's just nurturing them further. They might watch that and think, oh, I don't know, I, whatever, she's, her voice is annoying or something, you know? And then great. Again, they're not your person, but there are other people who you are nurturing by giving them that value. And in doing that, you're building that trust, which is so, so important, especially in a digital age when anyone can just put up a website and say that they do XYZ.

Yeah, especially I think if you're in a field like mine that is, um, that can be a higher price point and that seems to be kind of like the coaching, mentorship, you know, mastermind, that vein where people are, you know, they have a high BS filter and they're, they're just, they're very concerned and they want to make sure that they're getting something that's a good fit for them. They're getting someone who's actually an expert in whatever it is that they're crafting and offering to them, and that it's going to be a good fit and worth their time and energy.

Yeah, exactly. And, and there are, because of all of the ways that we have to do this now, there are so many digital ways we can do this. So, you know, IG Live or in our stories or on a, you know, doing podcasts. This is free value right here. Um, or, you know, online free online webinars, things like that. But it could also be something as simple as hosting a free workshop at your local library. Because if you're somebody who's like, I don't like tech and tech freaks me out and I don't want to start a podcast and all of that, that's totally fine. You can speak at local networking events. You can host your own in-person workshops. I've done all of that as well. Just give people a little taste of working with you before they sign on to something larger. Um, third is make sales. So Again, like you can go down that rabbit hole and spend 10 trillion hours a week deep diving into all sorts of online things. But at the end of the day, you have to be making sales in order to keep your business afloat. And so I teach people in my No Sleeves Sales Formula kind of the essence of how a good sales conversation should flow. I will say I do not believe in one-size-fits-all scripts. If somebody is selling you a sales script like that, run fast and far.

Run like mad, because yeah, that, that is not a, you know, a good conversation make.

Yeah, no. And I think that unfortunately this is what has led to a lot of people being turned off by network marketing, because unfortunately a lot of companies provide scripts, and then rather than people adjusting them to their own tone and language and all of that, they just copy and paste in a Facebook message or an Instagram DM. And it's just, you know, it's the copy and paste, hey girl, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That again, it's that BS meter. We all know like that's, they didn't take the time to type that out themselves. It was just a copy and paste. And it feels so gross. So no, I teach a formula. I teach it like a template that you can, Mold to yourself and your customers, because I fully believe that's a better way. And then lastly, work smarter. So you actually mentioned earlier zone of genius. I like to teach my clients how to figure out their own zone of genius and really get clear on where they should be spending their time and to leverage it, and also figuring out who they should be talking to, who they won't have to convince to spend money with them, like who's going to be an easy yes, who's going to be excited to spend that money.

Yes.

So that way they're not on that hustle hamster wheel week after week after week. And, and ideally too, I like to try to get my people towards outsourcing as quick as possible. I know in those early stages it can be really hard when there's not any capital coming in, but as quickly as possible you should try to outsource stuff that's outside of your zone of genius, that you're not—

that you said that you're not stuck behind a computer doing tasks that you don't have to do. And, you know, I think that's really good advice. I mean, I've heard, um, you know, especially in the beginning, some of us, we have to, and we're in a position where, yeah, as you said, we're not— we can't outsource yet. But I think it's really helpful to have a good handle on what your activities are. It helps, you know, you can hire a better podcast editor and someone to help you with that if you've done it a couple times yourself. You know, you can hire and know what you're looking for in a good copywriter if you've had to do that yourself. So I think that there is, there is certainly a really good inflection point in knowing when it's time to let go. But there's also a lot of value in, yeah, just hustling and wearing all those 17 hats at the beginning.

Yeah, absolutely. And I know, you know, I've definitely had to do it, and it's only been recently that I've started outsourcing more and more. But at least having a working knowledge of when when you are able to, what are the things you're going to offload first so that way you can really optimize your working time?

Yeah. Do you see one that comes up? You know, if you were going to put— as a betting woman, what would, what would you put money on as the first thing that people probably need to outsource?

I would say that if you are older than a millennial, probably social media. Because I think that it is less, um, I mean, I'm technically not a millennial. I'm like just at the cusp, and I use social media and I feel very comfortable with it. However, um, people who are not on it all the time, it can feel incredibly daunting to have to learn a whole system and then remember to schedule content. Yeah, all of that. Um, and I think for me, even though I'm a comfortable user of social media, I, and I can do it and I've grown it all on my own, it's not even in my zone of like excellence. Like I know there are people out there who can do it even better than what I can do, or at least like those few hours a week that I might spend creating content, I could spend that doing client work or something else.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, well, that's, that's really smart. I think, yeah, social media is probably, yeah, one that's concerning for a lot of people. So, and then probably like graphic design, like if you're getting bogged down, guys, in Illustrator, or, you know, up night crying into your keyboard on Canva, then, um, you know, tap out, guys.

Yeah. And I think too, uh, some that I know, you know, right from the get-go, I— things like law and accounting are not— they are in my zone of incompetence. Like, they are fully out of the realm. I don't— like, they make me sweat. So from the get-go, I have had a CPA, and because— no, like, I don't— I don't want to deal with that. I can put in my, like, receipts and all of that, but when it comes down to all of the rest, like, there are way more qualified people to be looking at that than me. So I am happy, happy to pay for that. And I would say one good tip about outsourcing is I think a lot of times people make the mistake and they think, oh, I have to hire like a full like VA and, you know, have to have them working X amount of hours a week and I just don't know if I can maintain that. One of the ways that I have started with outsourcing is doing project-based outsourcing. So if it's a little thing, like when I was building my course, I can go onto Apple Pages and make worksheets. I can totally do that, but I was in a time crunch to release my course. So I had a designer make all of the worksheet templates for me, and now I own that, and then I can just create my own over and over and over again. So that was just a simple one-time project. Project, I didn't have to worry about coming up with work for somebody to do week after week after week, or the money to pay that person week after week after week.

Yeah, and I know this question comes up a lot. So where, where do you like to go to find helpers like that? Do you— where are your go-tos?

I really like— so I used Natalie Degoe for the worksheets, and she actually, on my website, my manifesto, Once I had it all complete, she made it all beautiful in this beautiful PDF that I have there that I love. So she was incredibly helpful with that. I have a few people who are great with social media. My friend Kia of The Social Crown is just— she's phenomenal. And I have a local one to me called The Social Localist, which I think is really cool because she actually goes into local businesses and takes photos and stuff for them. So super cool.

That's a really smart business. So guys, if you are— if there's not one of those in your area, look into that because yeah, I mean, you think of like, you know, dry cleaning places or landscapers or whatever, like they don't, they don't know what to do.

Yeah. And they, a lot of times too, uh, you know, they're just, they are way too busy. I mean, I have a friend who owns a local yoga studio She has 4 kids. Like, she's just— she is so busy that it is— it's such a time suck for her to come up with Instagram content and all of the time. So yeah, yeah, yeah, it doesn't mean you're stupid. It doesn't mean you like can't do it. It's just sometimes it makes more sense. Like, if you can make $50 an hour doing something and then in that same time pay out somebody $20 you're still up and you saved that time and you can actually use it for more paid work.

Yep, yep. It's, uh, you, you're such a smart woman. Just because, just because you can doesn't mean you should.

Exactly.

No, it does not mean you should. Ah, well, that's so, that's so great. Well, I love hearing about just, um, as you said, you know, that sales can be really simple, and if we approach it with kind of the right framework, that We don't have to have, you know, we don't have to be stuck in the same hangups as we did before. So, so when you have clients that come to you and they, um, they already seem to be having some kind of blocks, you know, other, other than having kind of these tools to work through, where do you have resources or other things that you suggest to them in terms of working on their mindset so they're in a place where they're more comfortable making their offers?

Uh, yes, I actually always Always, always for money mindset, because again, like, just like with selling, women tend to have a lot of money mindset issues. I speak for myself as well in that.

Yeah, I'll throw myself under that bus. Yeah, yeah, I'm sure there's, there's a lot of room down there.

Yes, exactly. So, uh, Denise Duffield Thomas, uh, she is— she's an author and she runs the Money Boot Camp, and she is just amazing. And I always tell people to check her out because she is so good around removing money blocks. And her money boot camp, I've had it for a few years now. And every time that she does a, like, a live round— she's doing one right now— I will go back through certain parts of it. And sometimes I only need some parts, and sometimes I need, you know, other parts. And It's just kind of amazing because I feel like money mindset, even though you can get vastly better with it, you still uncover these weird stories and emotions and things all of the time. And I think it's really important to have tools to deal with that, especially as a business owner. It's really crucial because I think, again, a lot of times with women and selling, because the selling part feels icky or the receiving of money part feels icky, we try to weasel around that and we'll discount things for our friends or we'll do freebies or trades or all of these things that ultimately hurt our bottom line, but we feel so dirty about taking full payment, like receiving that full payment in our own businesses. So yeah, definitely check her out. And the thing I like about her too is she's very real. She's a mom of 3 little kids. She is super real on her Instagram. And, and I like that. Again, I, I resonate with her as a human being. I'm sure there are plenty of other awesome money mindset people out there, but I just feel such a connection to her.

And like you said, you noticed her and that she's real. And she's, yeah, you know, she is practicing what you're preaching in terms of making that connection to people so that they want to trust and know and and get to know her systems and her zone of genius.

Yeah, definitely.

That's so great. So, um, okay, I have some rapid-fire questions for you, and I didn't give you any notice, so that's okay. As you can tell, Erica is amazing speaking off the cuff, so I don't think she's going to have any problem. Okay, um, so I know you've already told us about a couple different resources, but is there a business book that you recommend, either one that you, you know, recommend to clients consistently, or, or even just you know, going around town?

Yes. So I would say there are two. One that I love is Playing Big by Tara Moore.

Ooh, okay.

And that, whether you have a business or not, whatever, it is just such an amazing book all about how women, even high-performing super intelligent, amazing women play too small. And there's a lot of psychological reasons and societal reasons and everything for that. So even if you want to, you know, just chase after some big dream in your life, I feel like a lot of times we are good at minimizing why, why it's not your time, why you're not good enough, why you need to have something else before you do that. And so, or even minimizing what you do.

I can't tell you how many times that someone gets on and I say, oh, okay, So tell me about your business. Well, I'm just, you know, I just sell a couple things here, or I just have a, you know, a little e-commerce site. And these are people who are making serious money doing serious business things, and they're minimizing to me, another woman on the phone, like a trusted advisor. And I'm like, you know, why? Why are we doing that? Ladies, we need to knock it off.

Yes, yes, it's so true. And what I love in the book is there are case studies of women who universally we could look at and say, oh my gosh, like, she's amazing. And, you know, of course she's qualified to do that. And, but in their own words, they talk about how they did talk themselves out of things and everything. And so I just, I think universally for women, it's such a good book. And then another one that's been really helpful, and I actually talk about it in my course, is The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks. Because again, that is a really good way to— you learn all about zone of genius and the 4 quadrants that he has in there. And but also your upper limit problems, which is very, very interesting. And I think that we, you know, it's something that again, we all struggle with is thinking like, okay, well, I'm only worthy of this level of success or this level of happiness or whatever, and how we get really accustomed to that ceiling that we place on ourselves and how to get beyond that. So I think those are two really invaluable books.

Those both sound fantastic and not ones that I've read, so thank you for adding to my, uh, never-ending to-be-read pile. So yes, of course, for sure. Um, is there a product under $50 that's been a game changer for you? Doesn't have to be business related.

Oh, oh my gosh, let's see. I think product under $50. I don't, can I say coffee? I love coffee.

Yes, you can say coffee.

I mean, it's not even necessarily a game changer. I just, I absolutely love it. I would say actually, you know what is a free, I'll give a free one that I love and I always recommend, Trello.

I— Trello is amazing.

Love Trello. Yeah. And I tell my clients, I just had a client call this morning and she was thinking about getting a paid one, which I know is a good platform. I won't, you know, say what it is. I know it's a good platform, but she doesn't quite need it just yet. I'd helped her set up the same kind of thing on Trello before. And she reported back that in January was the first full month that she used her new Trello system. It worked perfectly. She got everything done. She was so happy. And so I think sometimes again, with, you know, we see different people pitching or talking about different digital products or platforms and we get that like, ooh, that FOMO. But I think sometimes a good free thing is amazing. So Trello, I love.

Yeah, I will, I will second that as well. I use that for my contract shop when I'm like going through and getting ideas of like what new templates I want to move. And that's what I use for that. And I want to expand it for more parts of my business, but that's at least one area that I'm using it and I really love it.

So yeah, yeah, dig it.

Okay, well, favorite drink, you already told us, you, you love your coffee.

I love it. Black coffee is my favorite.

Is your jam. That's you, you know yourself and you are at peace with yourself there. Um, yeah. What are you listening to? Are you audiobook, podcast? What are you like digging into, or what are you, you digging right now?

Yeah, so I, let's see, audiobook I am listening to High Performance Habits by Brendon Burchard. Uh, and then I just got Mel Robbins' new Audible book, and so I'm going to dive into that next in terms of audiobooks. For podcasts, I— a lot of the time I listen to true crime podcasts when I'm working. So, uh, the current one I'm listening to is called The Teacher's Pet, and it's one from— it's the from Australia. So yeah, I'm almost done with that, but I love listening to true crime podcasts.

You're one of those who was like the Rescue 911, Unsolved Mystery fan?

Oh yeah, yeah, Forensic Files, all of the above. CSI, the whole thing, all the murder porn. Yeah, yeah, it's so weird. It's like if somebody came in while I was working and I'm, you know, typing away or whatever and then over on the side it's like gruesome and like, oh my gosh, people would, people would be mortified. But yeah, hey, you get, you got to own it.

And then what's a hobby that you are into? Something that's a release, totally different from what you do professionally?

I love knitting. I love it.

You love knitting? I like knitting. Okay, so what do you knit?

So I primarily knit. So I'm working on a shawl right now. I made my first sweater last year that I didn't hate. I'd made a couple before that just were not good, so third time's the charm. Yeah, on that, a lot of times I love wearing different hats, and it's cold enough where I live I can wear them most of the year. So hats and scarves and cowls, things like that. And in the winter, because back to Lord of the Rings, what I like to do, especially when it's snowy is lay around on my couch and knit and watch the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Well, that, that sounds like an amazing weekend right there. Yes, I haven't showed the Lord of the Rings. We haven't watched this because I don't think my kids are quite ready for it yet. My oldest is only 8 and I've got a 2-year-old, and even some parts of Harry Potter are a little scarier for them or a little intense. And so I'm like not quite sure they're ready for Mordor and the orcs and whatnot. But, um, but it's going to be great when we reach that point, when we've decided that they are ready to be ushered into that era of our family culture.

Yeah, I would say my 14-year-old, he loves it. Uh, like, my husband is not— he thinks that we're both kind of weirdos, but like, he's a weirdo in his own right and other stuff. But, um, he's okay with it, but he doesn't geek out over it like we do. He's more into like Star Trek And so, but my son and I, we super love it. And we're actually gonna go down this spring. There is an exhibit in New York City of a bunch of his art and his writings, Tolkien's writings. And so as soon as I found that out, I was like, it's gotta happen. We gotta go down and see it. And yeah, I just, I love it. Even though I've watched every single one, so many times, I still cry every single time.

Yeah, it doesn't matter. I mean, yeah, I watched the commentaries of it and still, and those were like inside jokes that I would say to my college roommates. I mean, that's the level of nerddom that we're talking about here. But yeah, they're so good though. So good.

They're so good.

Yeah. Sorry, not sorry, guys, if you're not Lord of the Rings fans, but maybe you need to just rethink your life choices up to this point.

Yeah. You need to pick a weekend and just binge it. For sure.

And just, yeah, and you're welcome. You're welcome.

Okay.

From us and all the rest of Middle-earth.

Yeah.

Yeah. Well, Erica, this has been so amazing. So tell us where people can connect with you if they're interested in hearing more about what you've got going on. You've got your course that's going to be relaunching soon. Tell us, tell us about all of that.

Yeah. So you can find me on Facebook and Instagram at Erica Tebbins Consulting. Or just go to erikatebbins.com. My course, so the 4 components that I mentioned earlier, I actually teach you how to go about implementing all of those things in my course called Sell It Sister, which you can check that out at sellitsister.net. And so if you feel like you are really struggling, like you're like, those are great tips, Erica, but how the heck do I actually use them in my business? That is where you can do that. You actually get— it's two courses in one. You get my sales conversation course with that as well. But I also run a women's mastermind, a small mastermind group called the Success Squad, and I work with people one-on-one. So definitely reach out if you have questions. You know, we can always chat, and I really— I'm just such a people person and an extrovert. I just love meeting new people and learning about them and their business. So definitely, definitely find me, hunt me down, and geek out with me over whatever it is that you geek out about.

Exactly, and all the things. So, well, thank you so much for spending time with us and being on and just getting us all pumped up to be better about sitting with what we know is great in ourselves and our business and not being afraid to offer that to the world and to bring value to them.

Yeah, thank you for having me, and honestly, You know, what everyone has, like everyone has something amazing to offer, and by being too afraid to share it, you are keeping it from the people who need it most. So do not be afraid or ashamed or nervous or whatever. You can totally do it. You can be a selling rock star, I promise.

All right, we'll take that to heart.

Yeah.

All right, thanks.

Thank you.

Okay, I hope you enjoyed that episode. Isn't Erica just awesome? I just, I love her spunk and her energy, and I've seen her, um, develop so many good resources and devote such good time to helping women with specific problems in their business and be able to up-level their businesses. So, um, I was just really grateful to have her expertise and to be able to share a little bit of that today. Um, so I just want to recap briefly her main points that she talked about in terms of how you can uplevel your selling. And if you want further information on this, there will be a freebie in the show notes so you can get action— that you can get access to. So please look for the link there. Okay, the first was to get noticed. Okay, you have to get noticed by the, by the right people. The second was to build trust. All right, we, we've heard this referenced in lots of different ways, you know, increase, you know, that trust, that know, like, and trust factor. But you have to build trust. The third is to get sales. And the fourth is to work smarter, okay? Work smarter, not harder. There's a big difference there. So if you want more information about what goes into these steps and kind of recap our favorite quotes and tidbits and goodies from this episode, please head over into the show notes and I'll have the link for you right there. And that makes sure that you can get access to this as well as check out some of Erica's amazing offerings. Her Sell It Sister course is, is really incredible and is a great resource if you are in the business of selling something, which honestly, who isn't, and wanna take some time this year, if that's one of your goals, that you want to just do a better job of making sure that you are communicating your offers well and that you're being able to reach people and close those sales and increase your bottom line. Thank you so much for taking the time to dig into your business today with Creative Counsel. We really appreciate it. Remember that you are a real business owner, so let's own your business in every sense of the word. Thanks so much for being here.