How not to have a sales conversation...

When we're having a conversation with a prospective client, how can we do it in a way that's authentic, that feels from our heart, and yet is also effective for business development? That's what I'm going to talk about in this video. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to read to you a chapter of my book, Authentic Selling. And as I read it to you, I welcome you to post any questions below the video or any comments that you or ideas that you particularly resonate with. And I may also go off script a little bit to give you some additional thoughts from the besides the chapter itself. So how not to have a Sales Conversation Think back to the last time you experienced a sales conversation. Were you in the process of buying something or maybe you were on the selling side? When it's done well, a sales conversation can give both parties a sense of joyful connection, genuine helping, and an expression of authentic enthusiasm. So let me go off script a little bit here. This is not in the chapter, but I wanted to just mention that this is why I call it authentic business and not just regular business. Because regular business is thought of as a means to an end. You do the business so you can have profits and then you can go live your life. Authentic business is itself a worthwhile activity. It's not a means. It's not just a means to an end. Yes, in authentic business you also make a profit and you can go on vacations, support your family, support your life, etc. But the very act of doing the business, the activities of creating your product or service, of marketing it, fulfilling the customer request, etc. Can itself be part of your calling. Can itself be part of the mission, the caring and the growth. Personal growth. That's why I'm such a fan of authentic business. Because I'm not just doing this so that I can get something later. I'm doing it because I care about the actual activity itself. I bring joy and caring into whatever activities I'm doing in my business, whether or not I'm running Facebook ads. That seems like such a technical thing. No, I bring joy, care and mindfulness to the activity, whether I'm talking with the prospective client. I'm not just trying to find a way to get you to buy from me or get you to sign up. I'm in the conversation knowing that that moment may be the only moment I have. That is the only moment that I know that I have with the person. So how can I bring care? How can I bring. How can I make that person's day better just from having had this conversation. Instead of God, did it result in a transaction? Okay, so let me continue with the chapter. Unfortunately, a sales conversation can also feel awkward, anxious, or even manipulative. It can also create defensiveness in the seller and therefore suspiciousness on the buyer's side. Right. Here's an experience I actually had when I was a potential client for somebody else. I had found a coaching program that I was interested in to help me improve my own coaching skills. I filled out the application and then the day came when I finally got to talk with the seller, the coach. I was hoping that the conversation would generate a genuine feeling of connection and helping and go off script a little bit. I thought I might actually sign up for this coaching program, number one. But number two, if it's not the right fit, if we have a great conversation, I might refer people to this coaching program because it seemed like a great thing. Right. Okay. Continuing on with the chapter. Instead, after two minutes of pleasantries, his first question to me was, so, what's your insecurity about your coaching? Literally what he said, what's your insecurity about your coaching? I've studied traditional sales methods a bit and I could imagine what this guy was doing. He was having me feel my fud. My fud. Fear, uncertainty and doubt so that he can insert his solution as the way out of my pain. So let me just pause from the book and say, isn't that how we are typically taught that marketing is about. Well, we're not even taught in so many words, but that's essentially the psychological foundation of traditional marketing, of most of the marketing that you're getting. Getting you to feel insecure about something is not complete with your life, with your work, with your relationships, with your health, with something. Unless you buy this product and use it, then you will be in a better space. But otherwise you should be feeling some fear that you didn't buy it, or uncertainty whether or not or doubt that your life is going to go well. Right. It's usually how marketing is and it creates anything that tries to create more fear in the world is not a good thing for the world. We can do marketing from a way that is a uplifting and is caring instead of manipulative. That's the main thing. Back to the chapter. I paused and I said, kind of surprised that he would be so brazen about trying to increase my feelings of insecurity. He noticed my pause and immediately asked this question. Well, what makes you interested in my program? Before I could answer, he said, is it benefit one? I'm not saying what the benefits are, but is it benefit A, benefit B, or benefit C? There it is. Traditional sales stoke the prospect's fear, uncertainty or doubt and then entice them with the benefits of your solution. We're only a few minutes into the conversation and. And already it felt awkward, especially because I could see the sales techniques he was employing on me. He already knew that I was an experienced marketer. I hope he checked me out a little bit. We had exchanged an email or two and he could have gone into my website and saw what I do. And he probably did. He already knew I was an experienced marketer, so why would he do this? It seemed like he has practiced the technique so much that he's simply on autopilot, not truly connected to the moment. And let me go off script a little bit again to say this. This is again the difference between traditional normal business and authentic business, right? In normal business, you're just trying to get through the day so that you can finally hang out with your kids or, you know, go do your hobbies or whatever it is you do after after work. That's traditional business. You just, you know, following a process, just trying to get through it so that you can come out to the other end and be happy. Finally, an authentic business says, wait a minute, you spend a large chunk of your waking hours doing your work or doing your business. Okay, why are you using that as a means to an end? Why are you just trying to get through it all so you can then have your real life after work, after business, after, you know, on your vacations or on the weekends, and then evenings. Why can't the work itself be such a fulfillment of your calling and of your mission in life and of a joyful activity? The work itself is. Can be how you grow personally, how you grow spiritually. It can be how you truly serve the world, such that you find so much fulfillment in it that you don't even want to stop working because you're so happy doing the work. Happy. Not like everything's so easy and fun and easy in your work. Because creativity is not fun and easy all the time. Usually it's not. At least when I'm staring on a blank screen and writing my book or writing my blog or creating this Facebook Live or whatever, I could keep playing video games. I didn't have to do this Facebook Live. It took work to stop my video game and say no. I have a commitment to my own growth and to the growth of my audience members. So it Takes an initial hardship, an initial hardship of change which we humans don't like. Change, right? Initial stopping of the trance, of whatever's fun and easy in the moment. Stop the trance, the hardship of stopping the trance, breathing, mindfulness, and say, what is purposeful next? Right? And then once we get into the purposeful activity, like I am now, now I'm enjoying myself right now. I'm really having fun with you. But it's this. And that's the sort of the rhythm of growth. It's the sort of willingness to change and then finding the joy in the change. Whether you're talking the micro activity of day to day, moment to moment, or the macro activity of, oh, this product's not working. I need to change the hardship of giving up a product or a service or program that didn't work with your audience and changing to something else that might work for your audience and finding the joy and the creativity and the generation of a new idea and the curiosity and the adventure of, oh, I wonder how this might serve my audience better. Right? So that is what finding personal growth and finding fulfillment and finding service and adventure in authentic business is about. Okay, so anyway, I hope that these little sidebars are interesting. Anyway, so let me go back to the chapter here. Instead of seeking a genuine connection, he was just trying to make a sale. I would have given him the benefit of the doubt if he was a newbie marketer who is simply parroting his own sales coach. But this is not a newbie. This guy himself actually has another program that teaches sales. He has a couple of programs. One that teaches helps someone be a better coach, and one that helps someone be a better salesperson. So I was expecting him to be more savvy at this. Truly savvy salespeople never make you feel like you're being sold. Let me say that again. Truly savvy salespeople never make you feel like you are being sold. I hope you become a savvy salesperson, but not due to techniques or scripts. My recommendation is to get rid of the sales mindset and instead connect from the heart with an authentic mindset of connection and service and not be concerned with whether they buy in this conversation or ever. Let me go on the sidebar now off the chapter and say that is not easy, right? To not want. I'm in a conversation with you. You're a prospective client. Oh God, I hope you buy because I have income needs this month and you better buy so that I can pay the rent. That conversation is already anxious, defensive, grasping, and Just not pleasant. Not pleasant for you and not pleasant certainly for the prospective client who's probably get a sense that you are desperate and you're trying to get me to buy. And it just. If you're desperate, why do you have to try so hard? The product, the service must not be that good. Right? Is what the buyer is thinking. So this is why I've talked about this in another video recently about how it's fun and easy to build an authentic business because it's so important that we on a daily basis and even a moment to moment, hourly by hourly basis. You know, I read a book years and years ago that had a profound impact on me called Practicing the Presence of God. Practicing the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence. He was a. He was a monk and this guy, you know, people with people around him thought he was crazy because he was constantly praising God and in deep joy and prayer, praying to God and all this stuff. And yeah, I mean, in modern terms walking around, we would probably consider him crazy, but he had a secret, you know, he was in bliss almost all the time or in communion with his God. Now, I don't know what you believe. Consider it source, call it higher self. Practicing the presence of God such that we have this profound sense of security at all times or when we recognize that we are not in that profound security. We do our energy practice to get back there to profound security so that I don't need you to do anything for me to feel secure and to feel happy. That is authentic business, right? Traditional businesses. I got to do something to convert you, to convert the sale, to get you to do stuff in authentic business. I am serving from the heart. I'm exploring my authentic expression and I am trying to fulfill my calling through this exact activity, whatever the activity is. So back to the chapter and let me read that again. My recommendation is to get rid of the sales mindset and instead connect from the heart with an authentic mindset of caring and service and not be concerned with whether they buy in that conversation or ever now off script, just a little bit ironically, with that kind of genuine caring and that genuine sense of security. People find you very attractive, you know, and they tend to want to buy more than if you were desperate. Right? But you can't use it as a technique. You can't use security as a sense of security, as a technique to get the sale. You have to do it just because it's the truth and it's how you want to live because you find a deep sense of joy in it and the Side benefit is it happens to find people find you very attractive when you are secure, when you're a secure person. So back to the chapter. In fact, don't keep looking for a bridge in the conversation to finally be able to talk about what you want to sell. Right? And off script. This is what a lot of people do. They're like, they pretend to care about you in a conversation, but they're really just looking for a bridge to finally be able to talk about what they want to talk about. Be able to talk about. Oh yeah. So as I was saying, this product, the service is so great, etc. Okay, back to the chapter. The framework that I'm about to share with you will tend to work well, especially for building loyal long term relationships with clients and referral sources. The problem is if you turn my framework into a technique or a script, it starts to feel fake. So the key is to look past the technique into the heart of the ideas and practice embodying those values. Focus. So here's the framework. Focus. 80% of your conversation time on connecting with where they're at and caring genuinely about what they're going through. 80% of the conversation, they are already experiencing fear, uncertainty and doubt in their life. You don't need to rub it in. You don't need to rub it in. If you genuinely connect with them and make them feel safe, they will naturally start to talk about the issues that you can help them with. And then being in a heart set of service, you will naturally try to help with a bit of advice. Perhaps you might start with mirroring back what you heard in your words to see if you understood them. Then you might go into some diagnosis, right? Diagnosis. To help them understand some of the root of their symptoms, problems or challenges from your expertise. These are not so much sales techniques, these connections, safety, mirroring, diagnosis advice, as they are techniques of being a good friend. And let me just go off script a little bit and say you may have seen me write about this or speak about this. Marketing is typically seen as being hunting or war or religion. Okay. Like hunting, meaning we're baiting our audience into opting in and then we're trying to, you know, make the kill. Right? Make the kill, get them to do something. War is like, you know, we're battling against our competitors to try to, you know, grab mindset and market share, all that. It's very vital. Marketing is, has traditionally been very violent, like psychologically. Right. And I'm trying to change that. I'm trying to help me and I'm Sure. Many others are trying to bring a gentleness and a caring to marketing instead of, instead of war and violence and conversion, religion, you know, it's very male, it's marketing to very male dominated. Right. You know, up until now. Okay, so I say instead of war and hunting and religion, I think marketing is really best seen as friendship. That's kind of how I like to think about marketing, is friendship. I'm just making new friends, you know. So. Okay, back to the chapter. In other words, in these sales conversations, focus 80% of the time on simply being a helpful person. For the final 20% of the time, which is, you know, about five minutes before the end of a 30 minute conversation, start to complete the meeting with this simple question. Looks like our time is about up. Do you happen to have any questions about how I work with clients or about my program or about the product, whatever it is you're, you know, talking them about? And then pause. If they are interested, they will ask you questions, then simply answer their questions. Once again, being in a mindset of caring and service, not trying to convert the sale. This is an off script. This is how I do all my prospective client conversations. You know, if you were inquiring about my service and if you were the right, you know, we email just a little bit just to make sure it might be the right fit. And then we schedule the conversation. And then literally 25 of the 30 minutes, I'm just trying to help you out, just trying to understand what you're going through and trying to make sure I understand and diagnose it a little bit and try to help you out, to give you some advice. And then, oh, five minutes to the end, I'll say, hey, looks like we're almost at the end of our half hour. Went fast, didn't it? Do you have any questions about how I work with clients? So that's how I end the conversation. And then if they say most of my client conversations, people are followed me for a while, they've read my content, they're like really eager to work with me. So they're like, yeah, when can I start? And you know, how much you charge and all that stuff. Like, okay, yeah, so we're able to start in October or whatever and this is how much I charge per session. I just answer their questions, that's it. But if you don't have a lot of content out there, people are inquiring with you, they're like, not sure. They say, well, I don't really have any questions at this time, but thanks for the conversation. Just be open, just be caring, say, great, I really hope this was a helpful conversation for you. And if you have any questions, let me know via email. Be that kind of person and you will find yourself being referred. People refer people to like that was such a pleasant conversation with so and so, you know, you know, back to the chapter. Let me finish up here. Here's an important caveat. I am assuming that this is an exploratory conversation they requested because they are already interested in your services. If you are instead in a conversation where the person is unaware of your services or you're not sure they're interested, then focus 100% of the time on being a friend. So for example, if you were in a networking meeting or if you are at a party, right, and you're having a conversation with who you just met at the party, that's not a sales conversation. That's not. That's. You don't try to sell that person. You just focus 100% of the time on being a friend and asking, you know, of course you might ask questions in a way that you, about your expertise, you know, you know, whatever. You help people, you help people with health. Ask them, hey, so you know, they're going to ask you, I'm sure, what do you do for a living, you know, etc. And then you can kind of go into that a little bit. But either say so this 80, 20 rule, this 80% being a friend, 20% asking if they have any questions about how you work with people. That's only if they inquired about your services back to the chapter. Only when it's them pursuing you. Do I recommend taking the final 20% of the conversation to focus on your business by asking the question above in your own style. Hey, do you have any questions about how to work with clients? So let's back up a little bit here. How do you get others to pursue your service services and request an exploratory conversation? My favorite way is through authentic content marketing. This is why I talk so much about it. Become a legend or at least trusted by your audience through your content and you'll have plenty of ideal clients pursuing you. This requires you to clarify your message, develop your voice and grow your ability to engage online. And what's the best way of doing that? Get started, get consistent and get feedback. You will definitely get clearer and better over time. Let me complete the story that began this chapter. Excuse me. As we neared the end of the awkward conversation where he spent so much of the time talking about the superiority of his method. And how great his eight week group program was and how it's only $3,000. I know people say I should charge more. Literally what he said literally. He said this to me in the conversation. It's an eight week group coaching program. Not even one to one. It's eight week group program. He said, yeah, it's $3,000. I know people say I should charge more. And finally I said I had to get going. He ended the conversation by saying, oh, there's just one more thing you had mentioned earlier that you charge much less than most of your peers and that you're fine with it. I think there's something here to explore. We can have another conversation where we dig into this important issue. He said this in a tone suggesting that there was something wrong with what I was doing. So again, sidebar he's trying to sow more uncertainty within within me so that I can look at look to him as a as a coach and as a person who can complete my incompleteness. Right? So back to the chapter. But it's not an issue for me. I didn't ask for his help. There he was implementing the technique of he was implementing the technique of always leaving the client hanging a bit in doubt or fear so that they would look forward to having that open loop resolved in the next conversation. This experienced coach could have gotten a new friend in me, a new advocate, and maybe even a new client instead. Well, I'm grateful he inspired this chapter. I hope that by reading this chapter you will become a bit more savvy and notice these sly sales technique so that you can exit those conversations quickly and be sure not to emulate them in your own work as well. The bottom line, make your sales conversations about connecting and caring rather than scripts and techniques. And if you feel like trying to follow my 8020 formula, if you feel like following my 8020 formula above feels like a technique, then just ignore this and simply remember one thing. Be a friend. So that was the end of the chapter from my upcoming book Authentic how to Gain New Clients through Connection, Caring and Service. I hope you found it enjoyable. And if you are interested in helping to support the launch of the book, I do have a Facebook event on my page where if you click on going, make sure you click going on the event and that will help to spread the word about the event to your friends and support the launch of the book. So thank you so much. The book is that was one chapter out of 30 chapters in the book by the way. So there's a lot in the book that I think you'll resonate with if this one resonated with you. So I just want to thank those of you who were able to join me. Live Captain and Danielle, Alejandra, Gudrun, Kelsey, Daphne, thank you so much for being live here with me and just want to read out a couple of comments and questions here. Let's see here. Yeah, Gujaran says, my business is my life. It's nice to hear how you do it in a way that versus what other, what everyone else says. Alejandra says, it's so true. There is no need for the pushiness, you know, and the thing, the reason why we get pushiness when people are marketing to us and how people teach us to be pushy in our marketing is that it actually does work to convert sales in the short term from some people because some people are okay being pushed and, and sort of, you know, strong armed into buying your product or service. It does work. Of course. People see the money coming in so they think, oh, pushiness works, pushiness works. But what they don't realize is that it's not working for their own conscience. They know something is not quite right because they feel it's pushy. So if it's not working for your conscience, it's not sustainable for you in the long term. You're going to burn out and you're going to quit. And it's also not sustainable for your audience because they will feel like, ooh, I bought the thing, but it didn't feel right the way they were doing it sets up the relationship with the client in a, in a doubtful way going forward, you know, and it's not going to anyway. So lots of problems long term, but it seems to work short term. Right. So Daphne says, which book are you reading from? Yeah, I'm reading the book called Authentic how to Gain New Clients Through Connection Carrying a Service. This is the book that I'm about to launch on September 18, 2018. So you can look for that. So Alejandra says, being a friend rather than selling, I love that approach. It's quite different. As you mentioned, it's versus regular marketing, which is more male dominating style. What you propose is more of the female energy style, which by the way is the energy that is of the, of this Aquarian age. We're transitioning from the old male energy into harmonizing both rather than just using one or the other. Thanks for sharing this. Yes, I agree with you. My, my methods tend to be gentler. Some might perceive it as more female and I think The. The male side of me would say that, you know, the male side of me is where I follow a discipline. Right. I follow the showing up. Yeah, that's very male. Right. The. The. You know, both sides have weaknesses and strengths. Right. The strength of the male is discipline, following, you know, following a plan, showing up. The female side is connection, caring, gentleness, Not. Not forgetting the whole. Right. So. So Captain emphasized the line. Get started, get consistent, get feedback. You'll definitely get better. Yes. Thank you, Kelsey. Yes. And Kelsey says usually they feel badly about decisions that they made when they were pushed into it. Yeah, a lot of people do. That's why the refund rates of the traditional marketers are so high. Thankfully, my refund rates are less than 1%, but, yeah, traditional marketers, they get refund rates of 10, 20, even 50%. Yes, I've heard one of the earlier marketers I used to learn from had up to 50% sales refund rate, and he said. He said, that's okay. I just get lots of people to buy. And, yeah, half the people refund. But, hey, I still made millions of dollars. You know, that's what. That was his way of doing it. Now, that guy actually has become a lot softer over the years, has become more authentic. But, yeah, that's what tends to happen, is we realize, oh, my God, that's not how I want to live. That's how I want to create the patterns in the world. Okay. Anyway, this video has gone long enough. Thanks for hanging out, and I hope this was beneficial for you. May this really give you a sense of what is possible in your marketing and selling, that you can be of heart and let go of the attachment to the outcome, and you'll find that people find you attractive, that people will eventually come back to you, they will refer people to you, etc. So, blessings. Have a wonderful rest of your day.