Why You Feel Salesy — and How to Sell Without Feeling Sleazy as a Creative

In today's video, I want to talk about why a lot of creatives feel like they're salesy and why the way you're actually doing sales right now is what's causing you to feel like it's salesy. And so I had a conversation with one of our clients, Daniel, the other day on a case study interview. And one of the things that he mentioned to me is he had this limiting belief around being salesy and closing clients and just being too salesy in a process. And I wanted to break this down on my iPad here to kind of talk through the. The different ways that leads can come to you and why you might be feeling like it might be a little bit salesy the way that you're doing things right now. And so one of the biggest things that we see is when you're reaching out and begging clients to be a client, right? It feels salesy because you're begging them to be a client, and because it feels like you're reaching out to them and you have no leverage and you have no way of actually, like, putting yourself in a higher position, at least the same equal or higher position as them, because nobody buys from you if they see you as a lesser person or someone who is lower than them. Right? So I was talking to Daniel about this, and he said, when I came into the program, I really felt like I had a mindset shift because a lot of the things that I was doing were salesy by, you know, sending people a price, sending people, you know, a link to how much my prices are, not taking the time to walk them through the sales process, not taking the time to actually understand what it is they need. If somebody asked me for a price, I would just give them the price, right? I wouldn't. I wouldn't actually try to diagnose their issues or diagnose their problems. And so I think that's one of the biggest issues with creatives is you guys, and I did this too, can sometimes put yourself in a position where, like, oh, I don't want to be salesy, so I'm just going to, like, send them a price, when in reality, like, that's more salesy because it shows you don't actually care about the person or solving their problem. So what a lot of people are doing is they're reaching out and basically begging people to become clients. Now, the reason this doesn't work is because it puts you in a lower position than the client. It puts you in a position where you are begging for the business. You're not Actually asking them or inviting them into a conversation where you can actually diagnose their problems. Whereas what we do is we simply run ads directly to a page where they can book a calendar. We have qualifying factors where we basically qualify. So if this is somebody who is qualified, this is somebody who is not qualified, which is dq. We boot out the people who are not qualified, and then the qualified people are able to actually book a call and speak with us. And then when we get on that call, we put ourselves in a position where we actually diagnose the problem, right? So we do intro rapport, we do discovery, we do diagnosis, then we prescribe, then we offer, then we close, right? And so this is very different than what a lot of people are doing is, because what a lot of people are doing is they're just getting on a call, they're like, what do you want? As a creative, you're saying, what kind of video do you want? And then you're just basically giving them whatever they want and you're not actually diagnosing the problem. Whereas when you build this gap in discovery and then you diagnose the problem, you become more of a content creator provider or a doctor for content, because you're actually providing them some sort of solution and prescribing them a solution based on their pain points and based on their problems. And so what a lot of people are doing is they're just, they're missing this entire thing. But you have frame in here because they actually came to you, right? They clicked on an ad, they reached out to you, and then I can then say, hey, what had you reach out to me? What had you book a call with me? What had. What had you interested in possibly getting some help with xyz? And when I can do that, I'm able to put myself in a higher status frame than them. And that's the biggest thing, is putting yourself in a higher status frame to where they look up to you and they don't look down to you as a freelancer, as somebody who is beneath them, who is somebody who doesn't know as much as them. And that's when you can actually have more frame and more authority on the actual call. And so when you're doing sales, think about, are you actually putting yourself in a position where you can help this person? Are you actually putting yourself in a position where you can prescribe them a solution, figure out what issue they have, and then prescribe a solution through content? And if the answer is yes, then great. If the answer is no, or you're not getting as many deals as you want. Take a look at your sales process. Take a look at how the leads are coming in. Are you cold calling? Are you reaching out to them? Are you begging them to be a client? And then you get on a call and you're just like, what do you want? What? Or are you actually engineering a process that nurtures them from somebody who is interested to then somebody who is ready to buy because you took them through a choreographed process? So, just a short video, but if you want to learn more about how we can actually help you make this choreographed process, should be a link down below. You can book a call with our team. We'd be happy to see if we can actually help and get you guys to where you want to go. If not, keep enjoying the free videos on YouTube and we will see you in the next one.