How Not to Sell

Good evening, everyone. I'm Katie McManus, business strategist and leadership coach. Can I just share with you? This is my birthday week. Saturday the 29th is my 33rd birthday. Yes. I am proud of every single year I've been alive and everything I've accomplished in every year. I don't shirk away from my age or anything, so I hope you'll be around to celebrate with me. I'm trying to think of something fun and creative to do later in the week. That's Birthday Tool, because I want you guys to be a part of it. You're in my world. So thank you in advance for being around. Anyway, I wanted to talk about something that's super current for me and. Hi, whoever's watching. Just a little side note, if you've tuned in before, I'm on streamyard. Streamyard is wonderful in that it allows for me to go to the Facebooks, LinkedIn, YouTube at the same time, but sometimes it doesn't show me all the comments. So if you comment, I do like this to be interactive, and I don't call you out or I don't respond to what you say. It's not you. It's just that streamyard is being a little persnickety and not showing me all the comments. But anyway, so I'm in the process right now. I know I've been sharing a little bit with you all of the different things that I'm doing to grow my business and scale up to that next level. And so part of what I'm doing is I'm interviewing different vendors offering different services that know how to do shit that I don't know how to do. And this is something that I encourage all of my clients to do when they get to a certain point in their business is, you know, they shouldn't. Like, when you start a business, yes. You have to wear a ton of hats. You have to do as much on your own as possible and for super cheap. Okay. And, you know, that's kind of fun. But it's also fun when you get to a point where you're like, oh, my God, I no longer have to do this anymore. I can afford to pay someone to take this off my plate. And of course, there are different things that you just may not know how to do. Like, it's one of the reasons that my clients work with me is they don't know how to start a business or they don't know how to scale their business to make more money. And so I help them with that. So there's no shame in asking for help. And this is the point that I'm at in my business. I'm starting to seek around for the different people that I can ask for help. And today I was on one of these calls with a service provider who could potentially offer me some support. And it really hit home for me the importance of all of my sales training, especially the consultative style of selling that I learned really early on from Equinox. I know sometimes I'm not their biggest fan when I share about, you know, the work life balance stuff. But I will say this for them, they were excellent, excellent at training salespeople. So if you are hiring on sales teams, can I just tell you if you need a salesperson who is consultative, they know how to listen, knows how to do really amazing custom follow up. You need to go and poach someone who worked in Equinox. Okay? So shout out to all my Equinox membership advisors and that's what they're called. So when you go to poach one of these people from another company, you look up Equinox membership advisor. Okay, that's what they were doing there anyway. Just a little plug for my peeps back there. But I wanted to talk about a few things. And this is the thing about being a former salesperson who's now a coach who trains other people how to run sales calls. I'm very particular about how sales calls go for me, but it's also kind of fun because I get to have that fly on the wall in my mind, like, oh, interesting, they're doing that trick or interesting, they're really listening to me here or interesting, they're trying to really sell me hard on this, you know, And I also get to be the fly on my way on the wall, noticing my reaction to it. So I just want to share with you some things that happen in sales calls. And if you're selling something that's non tangible, specifically meaning you are selling a service or a service or a service, you know, something that people can't hold or touch or like see the immediate results of. You really want to lean into a consultative sales style. Okay? And so that's what I'm going to be talking about here. There are absolute types of sales where you have to talk about all the features and you have to do kind of a detail dump. But I'm going to be getting to that. I don't recommend it in selling your own services though. So one of the things that I always tell my clients and anyone who's starting to Sell their service or selling anything in general is stop selling and start listening. I found myself on the phone today with someone who's super nice. Super nice. I think this might have just been their first sales job, but they were trying really hard to convince me that their service was the one. They spent a lot less time asking me questions about what mattered to me, asking me about my goals, like really getting down deep in everything with me. Oh, hi, Maria. Welcome. Good evening. And so here's what happens. Here's what happens when you're trying so hard to convince someone or explain why your service is so amazing and you're not actually listening to them. For one, they feel like you're not listening to them because you're not, which isn't a great feeling as someone who's thinking about buying a service. Because if you're buying a service, you want to know that this person who's providing the service is going to listen to you, right? I mean, I can't see anyone, but hands up if that's important. I'm just going to raise all my hands and have my puppy raise her paws. So you really need to show, hey, listen, we're a listening company here, especially if it's a bigger company that provides a service. And I'm going to, I'm going to show you that by listening in this moment, stop selling. So if so, the person will feel not listened to for one, and for two, whatever you say, they stop paying attention to. Like, they just start tuning out or they start getting overwhelmed because you're throwing a lot of information at them. Or, you know, they get frustrated because they're not getting the answers that they want. Or this is another thing that can happen. The person who is on the phone or in the meeting with that person who's selling will start wondering if the person who's selling it doesn't actually know the service that they're selling. Because here's what happens. People get nervous, right? We all know that person who's delivering a report and talking about that, oh, I got a thumbs up. Thank you, whoever that was. So we always know that person who is delivering a report and they're just kind of babbling on and on and on. And you know, it's because they didn't prepare well, like, they don't know all the details of this, that and the other thing. So they're just throwing any piece of information out there and it comes across as you don't know what you're selling, which isn't a good look. And this can happen so easily. If you feel like you just have to convince everyone. So here's the mindset shift I want you to take is stop trying to convince people that they need your product, okay? Listen to them. Listen to them and answer their questions and frame up why your product is the best for that. Simple, simple. And you don't have to. You don't have to, like, speak, you know, for hours on end. That way you get the other person talking. It's less work for you. It's way easier. The other thing that I kind of touched upon is when people get nervous, they talk really fast. So the other thing that I think it's important for you to know if you're selling anything is you need to sound confident. And I know I rail on people who are like, oh, just be confident. Go to the confidence store and be confident. I'm not saying, like, you have to be confident. You know, you're totally justified in being insecure if that's what you want to be or if you just haven't figured out the confidence bit. But sounding confident, especially over the phone, is easier than you think, okay? So it is easier to sound confident when you are sitting upright and your diaphragm isn't compressed because you're not, like, you know, hunched over. So. And you can breathe deep. And when you breathe deep, it is easier to speak slower because you're not short of breath. Okay? When we get nervous, when we're insecure and we're worried that we're not coming across great, our natural instinct or our natural thought thing that we do is we talk really fast and then we speed through everything. And the impact that has when you talk really fast, like, that is the person you're on the phone with, it is the equivalent of really, really small fine print on a contract, okay? The instinct for that person when they see really small fine print on a contract or you're talking too fast is, oh, I'm missing something. And there's something that's being pulled over my head. Like, there's something here that I'm missing and I'm being tricked in some way. You know, it is just. It's just how we react as humans, okay? We want you to slow down and go over the main points, and then we can ask the questions for the nitty gritty stuff that matter to us. And I'll be getting into that in a second. Again, if you're talking too fast and you're. I mean, if you're talking that much on a sales call, you shouldn't be, you should be listening far more. And I'm going to be all these things that I'm talking about intertwined, so I'm going to be bouncing around. So remember sounding confident. The other thing that allows for you to sound confident is smiling while you talk. So I want you to listen to my voice as I smile. And now I want you to listen to my voice as I frown. Okay? There's an absolute difference. If you smile while you talk, you sound a lot more confident. You also sound a lot more friendly. And people like being in business with people who are friendly and nice to work with. Okay? So smile while you talk. The other thing is that if you have a nervous tic and I have them, I play with my hair all the time, if you haven't noticed that. Now I'm going to get self conscious about it for the rest of this live, because I've mentioned it to you. I also play with pens. Those are my nervous tics. But your nervous tic may be saying the same phrase over and over or laughing as you talk. You know, like, ah, that was a really bad laugh. At least it wasn't the spongebob laugh. That's an awful one. And hi, Juana, nice to see you. I'm so glad this is helpful for you. So anyway, whatever those are, just practice not doing it, okay? Practice. And I don't care. And maybe you have to take on a different Persona. Maybe you become like Harriet, the confident salesperson. And you have a jacket that Harriet wears. It's kind of like your cape, and it gives you superpowers and, you know, and just get into that vibe of Harriet doesn't have this nervous tic. Harriet, you know, speaks with confidence and she's on fire. Whatever it is, you want to make sure that you're taking care of it. And oftentimes people aren't aware of their own nervous tics. So here's some homework, if you sense you might be doing this, is to go around and ask the people you work with. Ask your friends and family if, when you're having a difficult conversation, if you have a nervous tick in how you speak, they will know. It might be hard to hear, though. So I apologize in advance for that awkwardness. Have a box of tissues and maybe a journal and a pen next to you and call your bestie afterwards. Anyway, so sound confident. You want to slow down, nix those nervous tics, and back to listening. Listening is so key. Next, I mentioned information dump or detail dump. So here's the thing. You think that your service or your product is so special and you like all the features that it has, and you think this thing's really important for the person to know, and that thing's really important for the person to know. None of what you think matters. Sorry to break it to you, this call is not about you. This call is about the person who's considering hiring you or buying your product, okay? So you need to get clear on what are the deciding factors for that person. How do they make decisions? What information is relevant to them in making this decision, I'm going to use cars, just because it's a great metaphor here or a great example. So I were to go in and buy a car. For those of you who sell cars, who potentially want to sell me a car, pay attention. So if I come in to buy a car, I can tell you the things that I care about is how easy is it to park? So it's a small car. How big is the trunk? Can I fit lots of outfits and random junk in there so that I can live like a trash person? Because that's how I treat my cars. Does it get good fuel economy? Because I care about the planet? I'm not like, I try to, you know, recycle and do all the things. I'm probably not the best, but I want to have a car that I can at least feel like isn't killing the planet. Right? And then also, like, does it have a working radio? That's it. Those are the four things that I really care about. And actually, the working radio is just kind of negotiable. I don't really care. I can. I can put my phone on speaker and just play music that way I am not picky about a sound system. If I were to go in to buy a car and someone was trying to sell me on horsepower or on how big the tires are or how, like, what upholstery is on the seats, they would completely lose me because those things don't matter to me, okay? So when you're on a sales call, I need for you and the rest of the world who are potentially going to be on a call with you, we need for you to sort what information you put in front of someone, okay? If they don't care about X, Y and Z feature, don't talk about X, Y and Z feature, okay? If they ask about it later, great. Or if you think it could answer another question that they do have about something else, like if that feature feeds into it, wonderful. But don't overload people with information, okay? They get overwhelmed they tune out. Oftentimes they will misremember what you said because they're kind of half listening. This happened to me today. So this is the second call with someone, and the first call had gone very much like this, where there was just a lot of detail dumping going on. And I honestly, like, I can't pay attention that well when someone's just talking for forever. I can't. It's just, I'm a human. I have add, and I was walking outside when it was happening and there were birds and, you know, the flowers were blooming. Like, there was just a lot going on in my head. And this is where your buyers are when you're talking to them sometimes outside or they're at their desk or they're looking at their email. If you're throwing too many details at them, they're going to misremember it. And then when you get back on the call with them, they're going to think, well, what about that thing you told me about? And they're going to completely misquote you. It's very frustrating, and I'm sorry that I was that customer today to this person. But this is a result of detail thumping. So if you don't know, like, if you have a really hard time determining what kind of information is important for a buyer, a really helpful assessment to take is the disc assessment. D, I, S, C. Okay, I actually, I just inquired after that call, I inquired about becoming a disc facilitator because it is such an amazing test or personality test, whatever. It trains you on what your personality type is and how you need to alter how you present information to the other things. Three, you know, personality types. Some people make information strictly on data. Other people make decisions strictly on, does this feel good? Am I excited? Other people make decisions on, do I feel connected to you? If you jump over that, you're probably not going to get the sale. Because you're giving people information that they don't need in order to make their decision. You're not giving them the information that they do need. Okay, so sort what is relevant to your person. Don't detail them. And then, of course, like I just said this, you need to ID what kind of buyer you have. When I sold gym memberships at Equinox, you know, there are people who come in, they'd want to know about, like, what kind of people were there? Would they be able to make friends? What dating apps would work great for them to pick up a boyfriend while they were working out all those things. They were super Fun. There were other people who came in. Not to hate on them, I mean, they're lovely people too, but they wanted to know how many treadmills we had and how fast those treadmills got up to and how many 35 pound plates we had and how many 45 pound plates we had. And mind you, these were generally not the people that you'd see lifting 45 pound plates. But anyway, they wanted to know, they wanted to know all the details and the data and the numbers. Completely different types of buyers. If I had taken all the details and given it to the relationship based person, I wouldn't have gotten that sale. And the same the other way around. So you have to know what kind of buyer you're working with anyway. And last but not least, I have to tell you this, please, for the love of God, if you, you take nothing away from this live tonight, please take this one thing away, okay? Do not use fake scarcity, okay? Fake scarcity. Just. It makes me want to bomb. It's not a good look. And I get it. You know, if you only. So my best friend works for this company called Better Place Forests, okay. And they are memorial company. It's not the afterlife business. It is the end of life business. I always mess that up. But anyway, so they have all these forests all over the US and you can contact them and buy a tree to have your memorial and your ashes laid to rest. Now the forest, I mean, you can't like the trees are there. The forest that they own, the trees are there, they are grown. It's not like they're going to be able to plant one tomorrow and have it be ready for your death in five years. Like it's just, it's going to be a sapling. It's not going to be ready. So you know, there are a finite amount of maples or spruces or oaks. So if there's only one oak on the main path, then yes, if you are considering that it is perfectly reasonable for the salesperson to call you up and say, hey, listen, this is the last oak I know is really important to you. Do you want it? In that instance, you're being of service to the person making sure that they have an option to get that last thing that's on the shelf. Right? Okay. So that's where the scarcity thing comes from. It isn't an effective sales tactic. But where it gets gross and where it gets energetically dirty is when people use it in scenarios where there's no actual scarcity. Okay. And you can tell you can absolutely tell if someone's telling you. And this is different if you're buying things because generally, generally, like, you know, if there's nothing left of that thing, you know, you should probably buy it. But with services like the whole, my calendar's filling up or, you know, I'm booked up until this time, whatever, and it's fake. It just comes across as smarmy and it actually makes you look desperate for the sale. Okay, so instead of getting this, this potential buyer to be that much more like frothing at the mouth to work with you. Did you just hear that? She just yawned. Oh, my God, I'm in love with my puppy. Anyway, instead of, like, getting them more excited about working with you, what it's does is it makes them lean back and it makes them think, oh, God, like, they're really desperate for the sale. They will say anything to get my money. I'm losing trust in this person. I don't know if I want to work with this person. I don't know if I want to work with this company. And literally, they will back up further and further and further if you start playing with that scarcity and it's unfounded. And let me tell you, Luna, don't go in there. There's a closet. She's trying to get in there. Anyway, let me tell you, if you're trying to pull the scarcity card and there's no actual scarcity, it comes across. And let me tell you, people, if you have done your money work, if you have healed your money relationship and you are clean with money, the scarcity tactics that a lot of salespeople use will not work with you. They just will not work with you. Okay? So another incentive to do your money work. But anyway, those are my tips for sales. I hope this is useful. You know, my mission in life is to make sure that everyone who wants to deserves to do work that they love and make a solid, healthy, robust income from it. Okay? And what that means is that everyone should know how to sell their services. This is one of the reasons I sell. I train on holistic selling, which is my version of consultative selling of services, because it is a much different sale from selling technology or houses or cars. When you're selling a service that you as an individual provide anyway, it is key. And you can't run a business without selling your services. You just won't be in business. I'm just going to show you the puppy because she's getting so big and she's just woken up from her nap and she's being a little. Oh, good. A little mischievous, but she's getting so big. Are you Luna? Yes. Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you. Oh, my gosh. So Luna has grown. Oh, my gosh. Hi. Hi. She's. Oh, geez. She has grown ten and a half pounds in just under three weeks. Yes. She was 15 pounds when she came to me, and now she's 25 and a half. She's gonna be a beast, aren't you? Aren't you? Yes. And hopefully she doesn't eat all of my hair. Anyway, she's giving me the signal that she has to go outside, so I'm gonna sign off with that. Isn't she so cute? Anyway, I'm gonna sign off with that. I hope this live was useful to you, and if you have any questions, please DM me or come to the being brave call that I host every Friday at 11am Eastern. I love talking about this topic is so rich and so helpful to so many. So thank you for joining me, Maria and Juana and everyone else. I don't know if you showed up and commented and I didn't see it. Oh, my gosh. All right, we gotta go. Have a great night, everyone. I will see you later, Luna. Oh, my God.