How to sell when you are not there

All right.

It's been a while since you've done this with me.

I don't think I've ever done one with you.

I know, but it's been a while since you've gone live in the difference makers community.

Oh, yeah, it's been.

So if this face doesn't look familiar. This face. If this face doesn't look familiar, we have bigger issues. But if this face doesn't look familiar, this is big V, as I call her or Victoria, the one who is like the social media God fairy and does all things so much more than social media, makes the blog posts banners. She basically keeps me straight, so God bless her for that. And she's normally in London, so she's normally not here where I can touch her and spend time with her. That just got weird really quickly. But I'm stoked. I'm super stoked that she's here. I'm super stoked that we get to spend some time together and really plan some awesome stuff for you guys. And finishing out our sales month and focus on sales, which she's the one who brings you the starfish stories each and every week. So thank you for doing that.

Happy to.

And since it. We're also going to talk about gifts since we're talking about birthday week, since I did my birthday video last week, but I don't know that I necessarily talked as much about gifts as I will allude to a little bit today. So selling when you're not there. Victoria is a big part of that for me because she makes sure. Let me make sure that. Okay, I just had to make sure the microphone was on because sometimes I do that. But making sure that you have somebody that gets you and understands you and the fireplace is hot and can be you when you're not there. For me, because of my family life and because of the things that are important to me, it's important that I don't have a company that's dependent on me in order to make money. And this is something that we were talking about this morning. But it's the hardest thing is kind of making sure that your clients are taken care of and your company is taken care of in a way that you would do it despite the fact that you're not there. And when you don't have somebody like you to kind of do those closings or. I think what my biggest issue is is on my website, how to make it feel like me without me being there, because it's a website. And then also Facebook, Facebook is gonna kick me off for saying this, but I'm not a huge fan of Facebook, and we know this. Like, I just. I don't typically enjoy the energy of just trolling around Facebook. I like to come in. I spend time with you guys and difference makers. And other than that, I really don't like being there because I just don't like the energy. And so, you know. But then if you're being told that Facebook is the next sales explosion as it was, what, like, three years ago, when everybody's selling on Facebook, then what do you do? And so figuring out, instead of for, I'll tell you what's worked for me, and then I want V to share her thoughts on it. But as far as social media goes, for me, it's been do what works and go on the platforms that you enjoy being on. Like, I'm not on Twitter. I don't understand it.

Twitter has now developed, and it was great in the beginning because it was all about breaking news and that kind of thing, and it was really helpful. And now it's just following celebrities and the president and just. I feel like it's mind numbing because there's so many tweets. You'd have to tweet, like, 10 times a day minimum for people to see you, and it's just not gonna happen.

So at the end of the day, I buy things that are valuable to me, and it's difficult to add value to something to someone when I don't enjoy it and when I feel like it's difficult to find the value. And so when I'm working on a social media platform where I feel like I'm just noise or I hear just noise, those two things are difficult for me to do and to be present there. And so that's kind of one of the ways that one of the reasons that we don't have newsletters that we made just starfish stories is like, can I deliver an email that can be read in three minutes that is valuable to the starfish in my life? And the whole reason for me doing that was I can impact hundreds of starfish without actually having to have a conversation with hundreds of starfish.

Yeah. And then. And you're really good at keeping everything concise because, you know, you can get bombarded with emails and things, and then it's like they're pages long, and you don't have the time for it, and then you just don't get around to them.

Yeah. The other thing that I like to do and, you know, I like to do this is, like, put Visual stuff in there. That kind of breaks it up. Yeah. And sometimes my visual stuff is hilarious, actually. All the time. It is. And when it's approved, when it's. I know, I do get. That's another point to make, is that, you know, you gotta sometimes save yourself from yourself with your unicorn pen by making sure that you have experts, I call them SMEs, subject matter experts. You're my. You're my subject matter expert. You're my SME when it comes to the surface stories. And then I also have Aaron, who does the blogs and makes sure that saves me from myself. That the way that I speak is the way that I write and the way that people read blogs is not the way that people receive my keynotes or me speaking. Right. So it's important that they can.

It makes sense.

It makes sense. Which makes me wonder how it sounds from the stage, if it's the way that I speak. But why, when you're buying something or when you're selling something to somebody online, like how. Let me just ask you the question of how do you sell something to someone when you're not there?

I'm absolutely horrendous at sales.

Well, okay.

I do my best at selling. I don't know, I'm selling myself. I'm not going to do. Do a smoke and mirrors kind of thing. I'm gonna be like, here's what I am. This is why I do what I do. This is why I'm different. It's kind of a. Is this gonna work with you? Is it not?

Okay.

Yay. Nay.

But you have Amazon in London.

Yeah, we.

We talked about that, right?

Yeah.

Because I was like, can I ship you something? Yeah. I acted like it was some third world country. Thank you, Victoria, for correcting. Not in Costa Rica anymore. Not in Costa Rica. So when you're gonna buy something on Amazon, like, how do you differentiate or how do you choose between products?

I think one of the bigger things is reviews. I think feedback at the end of the day and word of mouth and what people are saying because, I don't know, I feel like if there's a lot of yeses, then it's great. But you also kind of have to vet the feedback because especially, like, I know this is totally random segue, but like, if you're booking a trip and somebody like, books this hotel and gives it a really terrible review because, oh, my kids didn't have a good time. Well, I don't have kids, so that wouldn't apply to me. So you kind of have to follow people that you relate to and that you would kind of agree with their experience and then you can kind of figure out what's going to work for you.

That's. I mean, so if you think about a better place or your company around, kind of if you were to sell it on Amazon, like making sure that you have reviews, like we have reviews up on the website.

I mean, at the end of the day, it used to be word of mouth from people. And then like if your friend was like, oh, these are really great people, you'd be like, oh, okay, I'll keep that in mind if I'm having a kitchen renovation or whatever.

So that's like testimonials, that's reviews. You can do those on websites, I think. Good photos.

Yeah, that helps.

Right? Like on Amazon, specifically professional looking photos.

And not like the little tiny boxes where you can't make out what anything is.

And being able to scroll through like five photos, six photos, not like 15.

No, you don't want like a million. But you also don't want like too.

Yeah. And. And you said word of mouth. I mean, going to. That's why we do our book list for ABP at the end of the year is because people want to know. Not necessarily. People don't necessarily care what I'm reading, but best business books in my opinion. And it's always in my opinion. So that's kind of my word of mouth. If we were having a conversation and you said, what are the best business books? Right. I gave you a book last month.

You did give me a book.

Yes. So that was not a business book, but I think it was in a manner.

It was a life book. Yeah, I'll call it. Because it was business and personal and other things. But it helped.

Yeah. And it gets. If it benefits in life, then it also benefits business. So that is kind of what I've found that's worked for selling when you're not there. And then since we were talking about gifts, you having you to be able to have the conversation with, to be like, hey, because like what, maybe two and a half, three years ago, I wanted to make a program like every single week. Like I just wanted to have this thing and like have it created for people. And I think that's why we ended up with Defy and it has seven steps is because those were initially like seven things that I wanted to make. And being able to say it out loud and kind of watch your expression or hear like the dead silence on the other end of the line to be like, all right, Bunny. Like, this is not. You can sell it, but you have to sell it.

How do I sell it?

Yeah, so it's like, I have to make this make sense online, and you're not going to be there. So other. Other than I do give you recordings, like, I give you videos. I give you. I actually do think that we have client testimonials of people that have been through Defy. Yeah, we don't have video testimonials, which would probably be great if anybody wants to do that, but being able. So I'm going to count you both as a gift and as a SME, but a tip for individuals to use if they. You as well as their own version of you, your own Victoria. If you're trying to sell something, go talk to somebody who knows your company and knows the product that you're trying to sell and talk to them about how they would sell it online. Go and talk to you. We've talked to clients because initially Defy was the in person roundtable that we were meeting here in Richmond and doing that, and that just got laborious and we had to cut it off at a certain amount of people. And so we ended up trying. Are you laughing at my big word again? No. Okay. I had a. I had a huge word earlier, and so I feel like laborious was a good. Was a good big word. Okay. So being able to kind of run it by somebody. I would never recommend trying to figure out how to sell something online. In your own head. I think that asking your clients.

No, because I think sometimes you can get so stuck. It's like when you're editing. I know I'm going off weird tangents here, but it's like when you're editing like your own, like, dissertation or like your paper in college, and then you just keep, like staring at it for hours and. Yeah, nothing's gonna look different. Give it to one of your friends. It's like, yeah, here. What. What am I missing? Yeah, what am I. Where is it not clicking? And then they're just gonna be like, oh. And you're gonna be like, why didn't I think of that? Why didn't I see that?

Yeah, well, tribe. I like it. The Starfish tribe and the difference makers community and make it all work. And then also don't. This is one. One huge, huge thing is know your core values and don't try to. If you're going to go with a program that sells or a platform or a client relationship management system, which I think is called a CRM. Make sure that it goes within your core values. You know, like, it would be weird if I ended up plugging into some inauthentic, not fun sales system. Like that just would feel weird. Or if the Facebook ads and the YouTube ads that we run or the. Some people have seen the little banners that haunt you after you go to my site.

Yeah, yeah.

They're like, your face is everywhere. But you know, if those said something like, you know, ditch your family and spend more time on your business, like.

People feel like what.

So make sure that the communication, even when you're not there, is well within your core values.

Yeah, that's. I mean, when I'm you, I have to make sure it's not, oh, hey, I'm just, you know, posting on behalf and it's still me. It's like, how do I kind of become Bunny? But it's more like get in Bunny's head, which is also scary.

That's also scary. Scary. We're probably going to have some personality issues later on in life, but the, the very last thing that I wanted to tell you guys and share with you guys is I'm stoked and also kind of dreading the fact that Vee has agreed to. Well, she's going to spend more time in the States for the next couple months and so she's going to be a bigger part of my everyday life and therefore a better place is everyday life. So I'm stoked about that. And you'll probably be able to see more of her face in the difference makers community. Even though she's going to be in Richmond and the difference makers community is all over the country, but she'll be able to actually all over the world, I guess, since we have some international members of the difference makers. But that you. And she's also going to be handling some more of the business stuff too. And so you might get an email from her or you might get her response. Sending you to my calendar link so that I have more time to spend actually face to face with you and doing the things that I am best at and impacting the world and making the world a better place. Which brings me to thanking V and also thanking her again and making sure that everybody knows that. Super grateful not only for her being here and keeping me straight, but also to be able to spend more time in difference makers community. And I'd highly encourage you to go find your own V if you don't already have one. I have two. I have a big one and a little one. But the two year old is probably not licensed, although she has been on a fair amount of Facebook lives with us. She is so, so. Well, thank you guys for joining us. That was how we cover sales when you are not there. And most of all, thank you for. What do we always say at the end of Facebook Live?

Making the world a better place.

Oh, look at that. I was like, I'm gonna put her on, and she's gonna rock it. All right, bye, guys.

Bye.