Master the Art of Selling without Selling

You're listening to the PT Profit podcast, episode number 147. Today we're talking all about how to master the art and science of selling without selling. Are you ready? Let's get started. Hi, I'm Beverly Simpson, former fitness manager turned online personal training business owner. And this podcast is where smart fitness professionals, including trainers and clinicians, discover how to increase clients client performance and movement, package and position their products and services and get out of their own way so that they can increase their revenue to live a life that they love without sleazy sales. Welcome to the PT Profit Podcast. What's up coach? Thank you so much for joining me on another episode of the PT Profit Podcast. I'm your host, Beverly Simpson. And if this is the first time you're hanging out with me today, thank you so much for pushing play. I'm super pumped to bring this episode to you. All about mastering the art and science of selling without selling. And now I actually, when I went to record this episode, I searched on my, on the, the 140some episodes because I could have sworn that I've recorded this episode before. So if I have and you've heard it, then this is the new reiteration of it. And if I haven't, which honestly, it does surprise me because it's one of the most important concepts and components that I can teach you if you're trying to start and grow your business. So last week I really talked about the, in one of the invisible components or the main invisible component, which ultimately comes down to you, you start, you really just ultimately getting super clear on what it is that you want in your vision. Right. So now we get to talk about executing that and taking the inspired action and what has come up for so many of both my formula students, my accelerator students, and also people that I've been interviewing and, and talking about and having clarity conversations just around this idea of selling. And so I really want to just unpack it because the truth is that most people just quite frankly are not sharing their offers enough. If you want to generate more revenue inside of your business, you need to share your offers and give people the opportunity to work with you and say yes to themselves more times than you are currently doing. And so we need to take a look at your relationship both to money and to selling and then go deeper and unpack it even more. And I'll share with you a little bit about what I mean about that because I've kind of been talking about it in 2022, but, but I'm going to go deeper on it. And here's why. Because I'm such a strategic person and I really do believe in plan. I really do think that you plan time to save time, just not 100% of the time like it is, just without fail, if you want to get more productive is to batch your time and organize it and just be very clear on how you spend time both with grace and not at the expense of not at all costs. Okay? So I say this and I share this with you because what ends up happening is that people will end up falling into the trap of planning these really big epic launches. They spend all this time building no like and trust and then they build this launch and then they go into sell and then they what. Which can be great and lot. And I know why. I get why. A, people teach that B, people. People are super successful doing that when you look out into this space. However, if we don't look at our relationship to money and to selling, that's not going to be successful. And the reason why I say this is because if you do that, even if you're launching every quarter, you're putting an immense amount of pressure on yourself to get it right. And for high achievers, high performers, smart and struggling coaches like you and me, this can be very hard for us because we are in high pressure situations and we really pump up the pressure for ourselves to get it right. Because this is going to be the launch that's going to do X, Y and Z. I'm going to make 100k on this launch. Oh my gosh, I'm going to make eight figures, seven figures. Whatever it is, the goals become pressure and then that is just not going to create any room for, for success, for flow, for experimenting, for. For guessing, testing and assessing. Because honestly, that's what this game is. So you have to know your numbers and you have to be crystal clear on what specifically it is that you need to generate the kind of income that you want. Right? So let's just. And it really is going to start or not star. But. But selling is a huge component of that. And I said a couple of triggering things, not intentionally, not on purpose to, to some of my people on the Instagram, based on some of the DMS that I got after I posted it, which was that if you're not in, if you're in business and you are not selling, then you're not. And you're not generating the income that you want, then you're not a business, you're a hobby. And if that's and it's not that that's bad, that's okay. You can be a messenger, you could be a service provider, you could be a hobbyist and there's nothing wrong with that. But a business needs revenue. And if you're a not for profit business, you still need revenue. So either you're fundraising and you are generating and you're still asking for revenue or marketing and positioning and getting in front of new people and you are generating revenue for yourself or, and you're generating revenue regardless whether you're not for profit or, and you and, or you are for profit and you are running a business. This is going to require you to look at, at your relationship to money and to selling. So the first thing let's look at money in terms of this is a big topic and we could talk about this all the time for a very long time, is that a lot of people have a lot of feelings about accessibility and generating revenue. Now I actually understand this and you're right, I get it. Not everybody has the same level of, of accessibility. We are all not starting from the same point zero. And I can get why sometimes it is scary to charge prices or charge rates that are going to essentially put a barrier up for some people. So in the next episode I'm going next week I'm going to give you some options, some ideas in ways that you can both value your time, value the value you bring to the market, space, space, as well as provide accessible options. So we're going to talk about that next week. Otherwise this is going to be a three hour episode. However. So I get it, I get it. I get why it feels hesitant and to talk about money and why it can feel taboo and why it could feel like you're greedy and selfish if you want it, it could feel greedy and selfish or it could feel like you are, you are hurting people by asking for money. That is one of the two of the biggest things I see is that people are worried and concerned about being greedy if they already have what it is that they need and they feel bad for wanting to grow and, or there is this, this concept or this belief that somehow you are taking away from someone if you are asking for money. Okay, so we're going to look at this, right? So we need to look at our relationship with money and you need to identify and just get clear. And in our time together we can start unpacking it, we can start talking about how you know our relationship to it and, and really kind of work through that, really get present to some of the things that we feel about money and conversations about money, because it has a direct impact on your ability to. To price your offers and to value the value you bring into the market space and to generate the kind of revenue that you want. So we need to look at it. And. And so some of the things that you can ask yourself is, on a scale of 1 to 10, how comfortable are you looking in your bank account? On a scale of 1 to 10, how comfortable are you pricing, having conversations with money and. And how convicted are you in. In. In the value and often in the offer that you bring? So that's, like, really important. So that's one component of it. Okay. And honestly, it probably needs its own episode on how we can really look and unpack our relationship to money. Because right now, I really want to focus on mastering selling and selling without selling. Because honestly, the truth. And honestly, the. The truth is we're selling all the time. So we'll talk more about that in this episode. But the first step for you is to really just get clear and present to what your relationship is with money. And then what is your relationship with selling? How do you feel about selling? So there are typically four different types of sellers. Okay? So the first one that I will see is the aggressive seller. This is the seller that no one wants to be. This is the type of person that is like, you know, the sleazy car salesman. Okay. This is like that desperate, urgent energy of, like, you're just chilling in the bar and you're hanging out, and someone comes up to you and they're like, oh, my gosh, I want to. Can I buy you a drink? Will you marry me? And no one wants to be like that. Like, oh, my gosh, annoying aggressive. Like, I totally get it. Nobody wants that. Nobody wants to be that. And I. I 100% get that. And unfortunately, there are a lot of MLMs out there, at least at the beginning, maybe not so much anymore. I don't really know much about network marketing as much anymore. But back in the day, any person wanted to friend you, they would be like, hey, you know, I got this great opportunity. Come to this party and whatever it is, right? And you're like, I'm just chilling. I'm just hanging out with my kids right now. I don't want. Like, this is annoying to me. And so maybe you've even felt that maybe someone's even said that to you before. Okay, the second thing is that, you know, or you know, they'll bait and switch you. The aggressive sellers, they'll Be like, hey, are you taking clients? And you start to think, oh yeah, I am. Are you interested just to have the conversation with you, to get you on the phone and sell you on something. Right. So super aggressive. And no one, people fear that and they don't want to be that. Okay. So the second type of seller that you'll see out there is the apologetic seller. And they'll like, I'm so sorry. And honestly, this is one of those conscious paradigms that I was kind of operating from. The truth is that I love to sell. I think selling as a service and, and I think that I never go into the grocery store expecting an apology for them selling me avocados that I need. Like, I just never do. Right. So I, but I recognized that unconsciously I was like wanting to build no like and trust. Really trying to build relationships for an X amount of arbitrary time. And then I was going to do this one week promotional and put all this pressure on me. And it was not as this, not from this fear of like, oh, I just need to, you know, I, you know, this is the one week that I'm going to sell. It was more so from just a strategy that I thought I learned and had adapted. But the truth was that is, you know, the truth is that I, I was just living from this place almost of, you know, how I see it in the apologetic sellers is that they're like, okay, well I'm just going to post for this short period of time and then I'm going to go back to my note like and trust. And so just bear with me as I promote on this in this week. Now I wasn't ever really necessarily apologetically selling, but I was operating from this place thinking that selling as a service. But if that were really true, then why am I not sharing my offers more offer more often giving people the opportunity to work with me, me. Okay, so the apologetic sellers is where I see some people where they're just like, I'm going to do this really fast, I'm going to rip up the band aid and then it'll be done and then I can go back to whatever you're selling all the time. Whether you're selling your perspective, whether you're selling your time, whether you're selling your products, your services, you're selling all the time. All selling is, is making a case for your point of view, for your offer, for the next step, for the action you want your people to take so that you suffering for your ideal client. So after your apologetic seller, then you have the Teaching seller. This is, this, this is the type of seller where they're like, oh my gosh, I'm just gonna teach you everything I can. I'm gonna overwhelm you and, and I'm gonna just give you all this how to and then you're gonna go and do it. And then, then hopefully I've given you enough value that I'm going to, going that you're going to want to buy. Now I'm laughing because this is also me. I still tend to do this because people think I'm just going to tell you what to do and just go do this and you're going to have 20 calls in next week. But someone who is. You can run the risk of overwhelming people and overwhelm will show up in two ways. Number one, there's so much to do and I'm just never going to be able to do it. I just can't do it. I don't even know where to start. Or number two, I'm overwhelmed because I don't even know what the first step is to take. And you just gave me 100 steps to take. So, so that, that's not going to be an empowering buying decision. That's not even necessarily going to harness demand. And so sometimes when I can feel and sense that people are just right there and they just need a little bit of, you know, belief in themselves and they just need a little bit of clarity, then I'm going to give them some how tos that are going to be actionable and I will run that risk of overwhelming. And sometimes my, on my clients who get onboarded because my accelerator clients who get onboarded, they get a, you know, their first call is, is a, you know, 30,000 foot view where I just really map out the entire customer journey. And that can feel overwhelming. I get that. So, but I, and I do run that risk because I give them the 30,000 foot view and then we narrow it down and we chunk it down and we chunk down the vision. But we need to know what the vision is before we start taking measurable one, we start taking actionable steps. I can sometimes still fall into this trap of over teaching. Right? But, but if we're not harnessing demand and now I used to say create demand, but here's the, here's the truth is that we're not creating demand. The demand is already there. The demand is already there. You're not convincing anybody of a problem. They already have a problem. But, but here's the thing. Your people, they have like level One, problem awareness. We need to get them to level three, level five. We need to get them to the highest level of problems. So what does that mean? That means that they are operating and living from this place of being unconsciously. Unconsciously not realizing the root cause of their problem. They're just naming symptoms. Oh, I have this symptom. I have the symptom. This is happening to me. This is happening to me. And they're describing it in their brain as problems. But the root issue is what causes the symptoms. Right. So I'm using problems interchangeably. But because it's a level one of problem awareness, they don't. They, they know that they're having symptoms and the behaviors and the, and the of experience of what's happening is, is unpleasurable. And they call it a challenge and they call it a problem because they have also have a vision of where they want to be and they're not there yet. But it becomes our job to provide clarity on what the root cause is. The root problem. What is the root problem? Oh, you're posting every single day and you're not generating any revenue. So that is what the issue is. That is the symptom, posting every single day, the experiences that you're not getting any revenue. And that's because you don't have a strategic proven process in place. Persuasive proven process in place. Right. We need to get to the root problem and then help people see that that's what the root problem by connecting through content, through the pieces of the symptoms and describing it. So we're getting a little ahead of ourselves here. But that's what I mean when I'm talking about harnessing demand. Demand is already there. You're just opening up problem awareness conversations instead of the teaching conversations, which is what we do. It's all teaching and solution based. But that's like giving someone Advil when they have a headache instead of getting down to the root problem. So then the last type of seller, this is the seller that we want to step into. This is the magnetic seller. This is the seller that can literally, it's like this is the person that goes into the bar and is often like the most popular people person. Everybody knows them and they're just like, hey, how's it going? Can I buy you a drink? And everyone's like, buy me a drink, buy me a drink. Oh my gosh, they didn't buy me a drink. This is the seller that literally goes, hey guys, check out this. Awesome, remarkable. And then everyone goes out and buys the Remarkable, right? This is the seller that seems to just do everything with ease. This is the type of seller that we want to become. This is the type of seller that creates demand. This or heart. This is the type of seller that harnesses demand, the demand that's already there. This is the seller that is, is always operating from that, that seems to do everything with ease. And so how do we do that? Well, we have number one step into knowing that selling is a service. And if you have not felt like that and if you felt apprehensive around selling, then it's ultimately because you've had experience of either being someone's told you or you've felt what it's like to get propositioned, for lack of a better word, by people that you have no interest in engaging in. Right. But here's the thing, and the truth about selling is if you go and look at your trash can right now, every single thing that you have in there that you have literally thrown out was bought. Was sold. Okay? And so we really need to look at that relationship. And so if you don't feel like selling is a service and you feel like selling this lazy, I'm going to give you two quick tips that you could implement today, right now to just automatically avoid the idea of like even remotely being interpreted and considered aggressive, which is number one, active Listen, honestly listen. Listen is the number one most valued self skill in selling and in service. Listen and don't listen based on what your evidence and experiences. The more experienced you are in doing calls, in doing sessions, in doing, in doing sales webinars, whatever is, is our lack of, or our ability to try and automate and, and, and use evidence to protect ourselves. Meaning we go into these calls being like, oh, this person's not going to buy. I already know that no one's going to buy this. And we come in with that energy and so we stop listening because we're using our past evidence to try and make the experience and evidence faster, which is one of the biggest mistakes that we can make. Listening is when people feel heard. And when people feel heard, they feel loved. How do you know if you're listening? Repeat back to them what you hear. So what I'm hearing you say is the second thing that you can do is empathize. I get it. I know where you've been. I understand empathy is going to be the second number tool that will automatically pull you out of that aggressive seller. Now I have fallen into the aggressive seller case and for me it's come down to it's because I've A, already think I know what's going to happen, which is a mistake, and B, it comes down to, you know, not. Not having empathy and not. And not listening. And so when that happens, you'll get put into that aggressive seller, the annoying seller will sometimes come from, because you're feeling desperate and you're making decisions, being urgent, and that does not magnetize you. You have to go back to the invisible components of what we were talking about last week, which is stepping into you, the you that already has it, that you does not stress, does not need the sale, that you might not even be having the sales conversation. So this is a pleasure and a privilege to talk to you. Now, that doesn't mean that you're better than. I'm not trying to pedestal anybody myself or anything. No, we're all human. We are all having a human experience and we are all. We are all doing the very best that we can and we are all equals. That's not what I'm saying. It's just this energy of knowing that you are providing a service and that this is highly valuable and it has nothing to do because you are you or because you are, you know, the queen or, or whatever. This is everything to do with valuing the value you bring to the market space and you get to be paid and compensated for that. Because here's the deal, and we can talk about this a little bit next week, but, you know, you might even be walking around and maybe you listened to me earlier and said, okay, but I. Then I am a hobbyist. I am a hobbyist and I just want to be doing. Do a hobby, and that's cool, but. And I want to offer to you that, you know, because you might be walking around saying, I just want to help people. I get it. Me too. That's why I create a whole bunch of free stuff like this podcast. But it's not free. It's my time I can't get back. It's my team that I pay to. To create it and to get up there and get it out into the world. It's my time to promote it. So it's not free, but it is a free resource and it's accessible to most people no matter what the circumstances are, because you could go to the library and listen to podcasts on the, on the, on the computer there. So it is not. Might not always be easy and convenient for everyone, but it is accessible. So it's not free. So I just want you to remember that there are plenty of ways and we can talk, we're going to talk about that next week. But plenty of ways that you can have accessible options. You still have to value what you are creating and this and so and then the next component to that. And something else that's really important to consider is that when you ask someone to invest in themselves, whether it's time, email, money, whatever, it's an opportunity for them to say yes to themselves. Because have you ever noticed that the clients that want the discount or ask for the discount or tend to be the ones that cancel all the time or don't show up for themselves? And also expensive compared to what? $27 might not be expensive to me, but it certainly is expensive to someone who hasn't eaten in three weeks or two weeks or ten days or whatever. It's not for us to decide what's expensive and what's not. And so what is it that the magnetic sellers, what have they figured out that most people continue to just miss and struggle with? And the truth is that, well, they're missing they most people have this, this relationship with selling like it's bad or like it's wrong. And you presenting an opportunity for people to say yes to themselves can be very powerful and moving and impactful and it can motivate someone to take serious action. And how is that a disservice? It's never going to be a disservice. And so in this episode, so mastering the art of selling without selling is to remember the first step is to just really understand what your relationship is to money. The second is what you understand what your relationship is to selling. And then the third step is to, you know, once you identify what type of seller you are, then we get to really take the action and move people and we get to take the action and start to make a case for what it is we believe in. Right. So and what that is going to mean is that whether you want them to take action in terms of like Comment Share Post that is going to be you being super convicted in the value that you bring. Okay. And, and people will pay for three types of four types of values. Number one, they're going to pay for the value you bring, which is going to be your social proof, your processes the way that you knowing that you can get them a fast result, they're going to pay for entertainment or, or edge education and the and what is fulfilling to their life. They're also going to pay for the value that you can communicate. So you need to be able to communicate that value and they're going to be able and they're going to pay for the, you know, does the market need it? What is the demand for the market? And if you're in health and fitness, there's demand. Okay. And so you owning that and knowing those four components and really just crafting the messaging and showing up and highlighting problems, solving the problems and making a case for the next step, this is going to be mastering the art and science of selling and then presenting the opportunity to get on the phone with you, to take the next step to say yes to themselves more often than not. So now it ultimately begs the question, Beverly, are you still doing your process? Are you still doing your strategy? Are you still still doing how you did it before? Yes, I absolutely am. This is why inside a formula and accelerator, I show you how you can show up, sell every day, do a revenue generating activity every single day, as well as line out, execute on the plan. Because here's the deal. New people are coming and starting their customer journey, their own personal unique customer journey with you every single day in a different way. And you get to be the facilitator of that. And you want to have those systems and processes in place to start these conversations, to capture these conversations and keep track of it, nurture it, and move people along their own personal customer journey while you are standing in your personal power and living the best life. Okay, so I'm hopping on a call right now for my students. I will catch you on the next episode. Thank you for listening to the PT Profit podcast. If you like this episode, chances are your friends will too. So it would be a huge service to us if you would please leave us a review and share with your friends on your social media channels. When you leave us a review, be sure to take a screenshot of it and you and email that screenshot to my team@info simpsonfitness.com and we'll send you a very special Instagram podcast that will show you how to create compelling content so that your ideal clients come to you and you go from wanting clients to a wait list of clients ready for your services. Thank you so much for listening and we'll see you on the next episode.