3 Reasons People Suck at Sales and How to Fix It

Hello. Welcome to her Empire Builder Show. Today we are talking about a very important topic I am sharing with you the three reasons why people suck at sales and how to fix it, especially for female course creators. So what reason number one is you're selling like someone that you're not. Now, the problem with that is if you are, like, often I know that you've probably seen webinars, right, where people are talking about their program, they're teaching something, they're in their groove, they're in their flow, they're loving it. And then all of a sudden, there's like this messy segue, and then it feels really icky. When someone goes into their sales period, that is usually because people are feeling like they need to be someone else in order to sell. Whether that is because they're wanting to sound too polished or too persuasive or like, quote, unquote professional, it usually is adopting a Persona that is not your own. And so in doing that, you lose a bit of your authentic voice. You lose that feeling of, you know, talking how you were talking when you were comfortable. And so a lot of that is getting that level of comfortability there. And I find, you know, I. I'm Australian, obviously, by my accent. We have people listening to this podcast from all over the world, and I find vast differences between the way that Australians and New Zealanders and British people sell compared to Americans and Canadians. And so for us in Australia, the uk, New Zealand, we have tall poppy syndrome. So that is where, you know, we're taught to be really humble, not to brag. Whereas it seems a lot more in America and Canada that people are encouraged to brag. They're encouraged to not necessarily brag. That's the wrong choice of words. They're more encouraged to own what they've done, to not be ashamed of their ambition, to not be ashamed that they have gone above and beyond that they are doing something above average. Even saying, like, if I say now what I do is exceptional, I'm performing at an above average level, a part of me still goes, oh, like, that's like, you know, keep it level. And so it's a real thing. And when we go into sales, essentially what you have to be able to say to someone is, I have the solution to your problem. I can get you from point A to point B, and you have to be really confident and comfortable in that. But to be able to do that, you. You have to own your awesomeness. And a lot of people struggle with owning their awesomeness. And so if you're Trying too hard to keep things polite. I find that that can get in the way because that will take away from your powerful messaging, and so that way, your copy feels flat. This is something I'm not proud of, but I will say, in the early days, I used to drink gin to write sales copy. Because I would be writing copy, and this exact reason that I'm talking about, I would be feeling like I can't brag. I don't want to sound too full of myself. I don't want to sound too cocky. And so I would just be writing, like, you know, this is the thing I'm good at. Like, take it, don't take it. Like, I don't want to be too in your face. That kind of thing. And then I'd have a couple of drinks, and then I'd start writing for real. I'd be like, this is incredible. You need this in your life. What I have created for you is actually the greatest solution that you could get for this result that you're trying to go for. And the next day I would come back and I would read what I wrote and go, that was awesome. That was so good. And so I started only writing sales copy when I had a couple of drinks. And it's only been the last couple of years a little bit longer than that. Actually, in 2023 or 2022, did I do the year with no alcohol the whole time? My husband's sitting there filming right now, and he's just like, I don' attention to that. But when I did that, I think it was 2023. Was the whole year. Was it 2023? I don't know. I've lost all track of time with that. Maybe it was 2022. I'm trying to, like, think of a marker of doing that. And I did a whole year without drinking alcohol, and now I only have alcohol when I'm out at a nice restaurant. I'll have a nice cocktail. So I'm not using that as the crutch anymore. But I've had to pay attention to why was that helpful and how can I get into that state of mind without it? And a is just owning your awesome. So how you can fix it if you're falling into that trap with selling like someone you're not is talk like the human that you are. Write content in that best friend marketing tone. So bestie marketing was coined by Zoe Foster Blake. Zoe Foster Blake, I love. I think she's one of the smartest, most wonderful, witty, awesome humans that I have ever come across. Know her personally, unfortunately, but she started her company goto. She's also a brilliant writer. She writes both nonfiction books, fiction books, children's books, adult books, like all of it. And she coined this bestie marketing, in this way of talking to people in a sales situation and writing copy as if it was you and your best friend sitting across the table from one another. And this is something that I think is hugely helpful. It's a lot of the prompts that I'm putting into ChatGPT now is things like, okay, take this and let's change it to really casual, really colloquial, as if I'm talking to my best friend while we're sitting across the table having a coffee with each other. That way, what it'll do is it'll change your language and show you how you can communicate the powerful marketing messaging that you have without diminishing your credibility, without diminishing your light, and without diminishing the achievements that you've had in there as well. When you're also doing sales, make sure you're telling stories. So instead of just selling the thing, make sure you're looping it back into stories as much as you possibly can. Because story is what people will relate to. It's what people will connect with. It's also the thing that AI can't do for you. So while AI is really great at writing a lot of the skeleton of your copy, you then want to get that and then inject your own personal stories into there as well. One of the things that I've started doing is actually making a story bank. So anytime I think of a story that can Illustrator business point, I'm now going and putting that inside my custom GPT so that if I ask for copy injecting stories, it's got like that story bank to be able to pull from. So that's a little handy tip for you in there as well. You also want to practice. So if you're feeling really clunky and icky when you are selling, a lot of that just comes through practice. I know even the first few times that I started doing it, I got a lot of sales practice. When I used to sell franchises, selling franchises was brutal. I would get one out of every hundred calls would be people that would buy a franchise. And so I got very, very used to rejection. I got very good at selling without feeling bad about it because I knew my rate of success. And so every time I would get a no, I would think, okay, we're just one closer to a yes. And so Then when it came to selling it online, it was so much easier than selling franchises that I didn't struggle all that much with it. But doing it in an online setting, what I had to do was practice. I had to practice how long it needed to go, how to communicate it and scaffold it in a way that didn't overwhelm people. And so when you start doing that, if you're not getting conversions off webinars, for example, or off discovery calls, a lot of that is looking at how you're selling. What is that? Messaging? Are you focusing on the person? Are you telling the stories? Effective selling doesn't mean, like, shoving it down someone's throat. What it often is is asking a lot of those questions and ascertaining is this actually the right thing for that person. And if it is the right thing for that person, then don't do a disservice by not selling them. You want to be able to sell them to solve that problem that they have. You're actually doing them a favor by making it easy to buy if they're the right person. And so often you're asking a few of those questions, especially if you're in, like, a discovery call. Sit. You can do that. And if you're not the right person, if you're like, you know what? This isn't right for you, Just don't sell to them. Just say, hey, I actually don't think this is the right time, but I've got this other solution for you, and maybe you've got a different course, or maybe there's someone else in your industry that you can recommend them to. Number two, the main reason why people suck at sales is you are afraid to be asking for the sale. I have seen people present webinars where they do beautiful teaching, then they go into their pitch where they describe their product, and then they say something like, you can look it up later, okay, bye, or some sort of roundabout way, because there's a lot of, like, visibility and vulnerability fears around that, especially for women, I find that does run quite deep. And no one likes the feeling of rejection, especially when it's a personal brand. It can feel a lot more personal because you're asking for people to invest in you, basically. And so with that, you know, a lot of people fear coming off pushy. I even have people say to me, you know, in launches. So inside her empire builder, we give everybody the emails for launch. We give the exact launches and the chat GPT prompt so people can change it to their own language for Their own niche for their own business, brand, voice, all of that. And then I'll look at people's launches. And, you know, I just had one of our clients launch. She did a great launch. She still made 72,000, which was awesome. But when I looked at her debrief, I was like, where were the rest of your emails? She missed half of the launch emails. And she was like, I just didn't want to be too pushy. I didn't want to come across as pushy, as desperate. Like, she used all these words. And I was like, but it's effective. It's making it easy for people to sell. And now she doesn't launch again for another three or four months. And so I'm like, you missed that opportunity to be able to optimize all of the other effort that you were putting in by not asking for that sale. So you don't want to soften the message. You want to ask for that sale in there. The other thing that I see that people do a mistake with is they focus on delivery, like, relentlessly and adding too much value and then shy away from the call to action. So what I mean by that is, say we use a webinar as an example. Again, people will teach, teach, teach throughout the whole webinar and completely, completely overwhelm people with so much information. And then either say, the call to action, like how to join your program really quickly, or just kind of gloss over it a little bit. Do it so softly, softly, and not make it easy for people to buy. And what often happens in that scenario is the people that have attended that webinar, they'll go, actually, I don't need the program. You've given me so much value today that I'm going to take that and I'm going to use that for the next few months, and then I might catch you on the next launch. That's what I see happen so much, because we want to prove our worth by teaching so much and showing how smart we are and showing how much we can help people. And while I do think that if someone registers for a webinar and they're going to give you an hour of your time, of their time, that you do need to give value, but there's a balance there. So there's a balance with going, how much value can you give in that webinar? So that you are giving people actionable steps and you're educating, but at the same time, you are doing it in a way that leaves people wanting more, that leaves people wanting to Take that next step and joining your paid program. Then when it comes time to present your paid program that you're not backwards in coming forwards, you're very obviously presenting your offer in the way that makes it easy for people to know the transformation promise. That is presenting your offer value stack so people can see everything that's involved. That is giving people payment plan options, up upfront options, that is describing that value in such an irresistible way that the offer, they just need to have it right now because you have scaffolded it so well throughout the whole thing. So the way you can really undo that is free frame sales as service. So you're definitely not begging, you are not making anyone buy your program. What you're doing is offering the transformation and you're offering it really clearly. So you're saying this is what I've got and this is what I can do for you. If you are at point A, I have the mechanism to get you across that bridge of success to point B. And then if people want it, great. If they don't, they don't. Totally, totally fine. They have the option. Same with the emails. Like I said to, I won't say her name. I said to the client of mine, if people think you're sending too many emails, there's a button at the bottom that says unsubscribe, you know, but people are subscribing because they want to hear from you. They're coming to your webinar because they're interested in what you're doing. You don't want to then unsell them. You want to be able to sell them so that you can give them that transformation going there. The other thing that you can do is detach a little from the outcome. Now this can be really difficult, especially if you're in the stage where you actually need the sale. So one of the most cruel things that I have found to work in business is when you need it like, I mean, need it like you have funds running low in your bank, you're under a lot of pressure, you need the sale, you've got desperate energy because, hello, we're in a desperate situation. It is much harder to sell than when you're coming from a place of calm abundance. Everything's going well, that's when everything starts flowing because you're not attach desperately to the outcome. And it's really why I say it's cruel is because it's really hard when you need to be attached to the outcome to detach from it. But it is one of the most Essential things. And so the way I get around that is going, being prepared and practiced is the recipe for success there. So I will put all of my effort into, like if I'm running a launch, for example, and I need a certain result, I will put every effort that I can into preparing for that, into making it as exceptional as I possibly can. And then once that launch is actually going, I do detach from the outcome, because I go, I've done everything I can up until this point. From this point on, I will do my absolute, very best. And then what will be will be. I'm not going to punish myself for it. I'm not going to be too hung up on the results because I know that I left nothing on the field, I know that I did everything that I possibly can. And when you operate in that way, you're then able to enjoy it a little bit more and know that you did do everything that you could. Number three is that you are selling features, not feelings. So what that means is people will buy because they want to be able to get that transformation. So when you are looking at, say, my course idea to launch, for example, yes, it has eight modules, yes, it has Canva templates, ChatGPT prompts, it has all of the different things that people need to get started, but that's actually not what gets people to buy. What gets people to buy it more than the actual features of it is the result. So what people want to do is go from nothing. They want to go from nothing but a seed of an idea in their mind that they don't know, can I do this or can I not do this? And they want to be able to follow step by step, in detail. And then in eight weeks, there it is, your course is ready, your website is built, it's out in the world, and your first sale has come in. See the difference with those two things? It's the same thing, but one is just talking about features and one is talking about the feeling of completion. And so, so often I see people hung up on there's this many lessons and this many things like the mechanics of it, of which are important and people do want value and do want the mechanics, but that's only to support the transformation, that is to support the feeling that people are going to get. And so when you're doing that, when you're doing your sales pitch, really stay focused on what is the result people are buying. Yes, you want to get them there with your mechanics, but the thing that you need to be focused on is the result. Why People are actually doing that. So people don't buy the course. They're not buying the course, they're buying the transformation. They're buying your method to get them that result. So how to fix that is to always start with the end in mind. So, so always think what will your client's life look like once they are done? And making sure that that's on your sales page, making sure that that's in your sales emails, making sure that when you are pitching that that is the picture that you are painting is you are here now. But in this short amount of time, if you implement everything that we've got step by step, this is where you will then be. If you can articulate that picture, that's what people will start going, all right, I think I can do this then. The only reason people don't buy is if they don't believe that that transformation is possible for them. So then it comes down to addressing those objections and being able to go, all right, if you don't believe that this is possible for you, there's various reasons for that. Either you haven't articulated your credibility and authority enough so they don't believe that you're the guide that can get them there. But most often it's to do with they don't think they're enough to be able to do it. So for example, say I'm talking about idea to launch. People will be like, well, I don't speak clearly on camera so I know I won't be able to do it. Or I'm too scared of getting on video so I know I won't be able to do it. Or I have a full time job and I look after my kids full time, so I don't have time to be able to do it. So these are all objections. That is what people believe that will make the transformation promise not fulfillable for them. Fulfillable, Is that a word? Not be able to be fulfilled for them. And so what you need to focus on is first paint the picture of that transformation and then addressing those objections so that you can make it and scaffold it as easy as possible for people to be able to achieve that result. You also want to use the customer's language. So sometimes I'll see people. It happens a lot with corporates, right? If people have had a background in corporate, they use a lot of analogies, they use a lot of corporate speak a lot of fancy schmancy words because they're used to needing to sound smart. So when it comes to selling the more simple and basic and clear you are, the better you will do. So you want to be able to articulate your messaging in a way that anyone can understand. Confusion is what will turn people off straight away. Everyone has decision fatigue as it is. Everyone's life is busy, overwhelming. Everyone's exhausted by all of the decisions that they have to make in life. That if you can make it really clear and really simple, then people can understand straight away. Is this for me or is this not for me? So have a read. What I like to do is, when you've got your sales page, if you give that to someone that doesn't know what you do, give it to someone and ask them, read that and then tell me what I do, and then see if they can articulate it for you. And if they can't, it's your job to then go in and revise your sales page to not so much dumb it down, but to spell it out so that more simply people can understand what you're doing and understand that transformation. And you're able to articulate that really, really simply and easily so that no one. You know, I've known tons of people that. I'm like, they sound lovely, and I love the look of what they're doing, but I don't actually know what they do because they haven't articulated that transformation really simply in there. So what I would encourage you to do is go through each of those three things and then put your confidence into action. To me, effective sales is just confidence in action. And confidence doesn't mean being brash. It doesn't mean having to be over the top. You can have a very calm confidence. It isn't sleazy. I know a lot of people think sales is sleazy. To me, sales is service and sales is leadership. It's simply knowing what it is that you have, the value that you are providing, believing in that with the offer that you have, and then being able to present it. And then people can take it or leave it. There's no pressure there at all. You can start practicing, then start tweaking, and then own it. That is my biggest advice for you. I will catch you on the other side of sales. Go happy selling it.