The Key to Selling in your content is this...

T. Yo, yo, yo, yo Words I can taste yo, yo, yo, I can taste yo, yo, yo, yo Words I can taste yo, yo, yo, I can taste yo, yo, yo, yo I can taste. Hello, and welcome to my live. It has been a little while since I've gone live on my own. Good. Uh, good afternoon. I just woke up from a nap. Full transparency. Um, just so you know. Well, first and foremost, a little housekeeping. Hi, I'm Katie McManus. I'm a business strategist and money mindset coach for ADHD business owners. Um, and I help my clients do everything that, you know, is required in the beginning of their business, all the way to figuring out how to scale to seven figures. I'm doing a challenge with my dear friend and client, Lauren Lefkowitz, where we are going live 30 days in a row. We started yesterday, so this is day two, day two of our challenge. There are consequences if we fail, if we don't go live every single day. The consequence for Lauren is I get to choose the face that she gets to make in a very unflattering picture, and she has to post it. My consequence is way worse. Way worse. Lauren, come on. Lauren has. Lauren gets to pick a song that I will then have to sing and record myself singing and then share it. So you best believe I'm going live every single day. I'm not doing that. That is terrible. You guys also don't want me doing that. It's not good. Anyway. That's not what we're talking about today. Today I want to talk about the key to selling through your content, and really, the key to selling to anyone. The key to selling your services, the key to making money with whatever it is that you are providing. Either you're providing services or goods, what have you. You know, when I start working with clients, it's usually the number one thing that they really, really struggle with. They have this absolute abhorrence and fear of. Of selling and seeming salesy. And. With good reason. Okay, with good reason. We have all had a really smarmy, like, gross experience with a salesperson. All right? I was in sales for a really, really long time, and unfortunately for. For. For that career, it is just. There's just a lot of sleazy salespeople out there who ruin it for everyone. The style of. And just. Just to, you know, explain, like, how I do this with my clients, the style of sales that I do is called holistic selling. It's very consultative. It's not pushy, it's not manipulative. And that's usually one of the things that my clients are the most afraid of. Like, they don't want to push people into making a decision that they don't want. They don't want to manipulate anyone into thinking that they need their thing. And the reason we have these fears, the reason we get really tripped up when it comes to selling our stuff, is because we've been pushed into stuff that we didn't want. We've been manipulated into spending money on something that in the moment, maybe seemed fine, but, like, afterwards you really regret it, and you oftentimes really resent the salesperson for pushing you to do it. So I just want to normalize that. If you're. If you're starting a business, if you're in early stages and you feel super gross about selling your stuff, know that you're not alone, okay? Other people aren't naturally good at this. I promise you. There are people who are, oh, my God, I just threw my pen. There are people who are absolutely, you know, gregarious and friendly and make conversation with people really easily, okay? And they do often have an easier time selling. That doesn't mean that they're naturally better at it, though. I know some really serious introverts who are some of the best salespeople I've ever met in my life. So it's something that you can absolutely learn to be good at. It's something that you can absolutely learn to enjoy over time. If you do this one thing, if you flip your mindset around, I'm trying to get something out of this person. Two, I'm trying to help this person. Okay? When you refocus your sales calls and any content that you're creating to sell people, when you refocus it on, I'm here to help you move forward in whatever capacity you need to move forward, the whole thing changes. Okay? So let's talk about your content, okay. Because that's what this. This live is mainly about. So when you're creating video content, when you're creating written content, it can feel like. Like there's so much pressure for you to be convincing that they need to buy your thing. It can also feel like you have to just speed through the sales bit. One of the things that I see with a lot of my clients when they first start creating content to get clients, is they do they wimp out of their CTAs, their calls to action, which is like, oh, I'd love to talk to you if you're interested, you know, rather than if you have X, Y and Z problems that I've listed above. And you really want a solution. You're ready to get started right now. Then book a call with me or click the, click the button and go and buy right now. Our calls to action, like we have to say them with conviction, okay? Because the person who's reading this, the reason they've continued this far is because they need your help, is because they have been following you for so long up until this point, hoping that you'll help them. And this could be that moment where you actually get to help them. You know your content. It doesn't necessarily have to be. It doesn't necessarily have to be that if someone buys, you're the only one who benefits, right? You know, for instance, let's say you're a personal stylist and you are selling personal stylist services and your whole thing is about like helping people find their authentic selves as they go through this process and also reduce waste. Okay? Now the person that you're speaking to, your ideal client who has never commented on your stuff, never liked your stuff, never DM'd you, you have no idea that they're, they're lurking. You, you kind of calling them out and like telling them, hey, listen, it's totally fine if you want to just stay wearing all black, which used to be me. If you want to stay wearing all black and you know, feeling kind of like, like ho hum about your wardrobe and constantly comparing yourself against people who see seem to have like serious style, if you're okay with that, then you know what? Continue. If, if that is your priority, if something else is your priority, then like you do not need to buy my program. But if you're tired of feeling like you're not good enough when you're in certain rooms and if you're tired of having nothing to wear and if you look in the mirror or are sitting somewhere, you just feel like so uncomfortable in your clothes because they're just not meant for you anymore, then you need to break. You need to join my program now. Now that is a sales post for a made up business, right? But I want to call attention to the fact that you're calling it out. The fact that you're pointing to someone saying you're wearing all black. You're doing this. You're doing this. This is how you're feeling. The person who's reading this, who is your ideal client, you've just told them they're not alone. Because if you're writing this post so specifically to them, then there must be other people out there, because you're not just writing specifically to them. You don't. I mean, they are very much aware that you don't know that they exist. They're lurking. Hello. Where can I buy stylist services from you? You do not want to buy stylist services from me, but thank you, Heather. So you've just told them that they're not alone. You've normalized the whole. The whole, like, bucket of stuff that they're struggling with. All right. How often do we feel. Do we just feel so much shame about the stuff that we think we're fucking up with that we don't tell anyone that we just assume it's just us and we're all alone and our problems are so unique, and there's no one else who feels like we do. You've just told them they're not alone. This is a really common problem because you have a whole job where you're helping people get out of that and into something else, literally. Because you're a stylist. Right. You're also pointing to. You know, just because you're in this rut right now doesn't mean this is where you have to live for the rest of your life. You know, you can go from this to something better. I help my clients with that all the time. And if they can do it, you can do it. You're giving them hope. You're. You're pointing to them and you're saying, you know, all this stuff may be true, but just because it's true right now, doesn't tell anyone where you're going to go later. Okay. Oftentimes when we're stuck in a problem, we just assume this is our reality. This is what life looks like right now. That happened. I remember so vividly when I sprained my ankle. I think it was, like, 2017. I sprained my ankle. It was a high ankle sprain. I sprained my ankle falling down the last three steps of my apartment building while doing laundry. It was a very, very impressive injury. Okay. You should be incredibly impressed with me. Super badass. Like, I. I really nailed those last few steps. Anyway. Where was I going? Oh, yeah. So anyway. But I had this high ankle sprain, and it took, like, three months to heal, so I was on crutches. I had one of those, like, scooter knee things that had a little basket on the front. I tripped over something once and, like, the whole thing and me went over. That was an amazing moment. Really proud of that. And it was, of course, in front of some coworkers, because why not? But there was a point in me having that sprained ankle where I was like, this is it. This is just my life, right? Because we get so sucked into the problem of what our life is that we're just like, oh, God, like, I'm always going to have this limitation. The same thing happened when I had a concussion that turned into a mild traumatic brain injury. The same thing happened when I had Covid this past last December and was just super tired for the next, like, three or four months. I'm just coming out of it now. We have, like. We don't have great memories as humans. We really don't. There's a reason why women, after having one baby, they have another one because they forget how painful the first one was. All right? We tend to, like, whatever our reality is in the moment, we tend to think, okay, well, this is kind of going to be my reality forever, right? If you're creating content, however, and you're calling out that reality and you're saying, hey, listen, if you're done with this, you get to make a choice. You get to do something different. You get to invest in yourself, either with me or someone else. You're giving your audience hope. You're giving them just a little, like, glimpse at what could be possible for them, okay? So whether they sign up with you or not, you have already helped them, okay? You've already made them feel like they're not a freak with their problems. Because if you're doing it for them, you're doing it for a lot of other people. And you have basically shown them that there's a way out of this. Now, of course, like, you may not be the right person for them to work with, and that's totally fine. Maybe. Maybe they knew someone who looked like you once and that person bullied them in school, okay? You're just not the right person for them. But you've helped pivot their whole belief system about themselves in that moment so that now they might be out there looking for someone who can help them with this particular problem. And if they are your ideal client, if they read this and, like, oh, like, oh, my God, I've been in this rep for so long. She's right. She's right. And I don't want to be the person in photos that, like, just kind of, like, blends the back. I don't want to be forgettable. I don't want people to think that, like, I'm just coming from a funeral. I don't want this. And I don't want that. And I want to finally feel good and comfortable in the clothes that I have. And I don't want to do like the fast fashion and do this and do that. I really want to establish my style. If they sign up with you, guess what's going to happen? You're going to help them. You're. I mean, unless you're a scammer, you're literally going to help them, okay? Unless you have no idea what the fuck you're doing. Unless you are like doing this completely out of integrity, unless you are faking everything, you selling is one of the most helpful things you can do for the world. Okay, let me see. Well, now I have a glimmer of hope that I can buy a service from you that you don't even sell. Heather, do we have to start like one of those infomercial channels? Now here's this broom. It sweeps for you. You don't even have to get up. If someone had could. Well, actually that's, that's a Robo the robot vacuum. Never mind, they already make that. I obviously don't clean. I like, I'm not a cleaner. I mean, yeah, I probably should a little more often than, than it happens, you know, with. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway, side note, side quest. But genuinely like, you're helping this person, okay? With whatever it is that you're selling. If you can actually provide it, you're helping them. If you, if you sell potato peelers, guess what? They will have an easier time peeling potatoes because you just went out there and said, you know what? I have this incredible potato peeler and if you want it, here it is, you can have it. That helps people. Have you ever gone to someone's house for Thanksgiving and peeled potatoes with them when they have a shitty peeler? It's not only super slow, it's not only really frustrating, it's dangerous. You can cut the hell out of your fingers. Okay? A good potato peeler can change lives. Maybe not, but that's kind of an exaggeration. But I want you to think about it. From the small things, from the little itty bitty things that like, can help your, your customers from day to day, to the big, huge, life changing things. You selling helps them. Okay? And I know it's hard when like you need the money. When you're selling something, you're like, oh my God, well, I need the money and I really need this client and I really hope they sign up me. But like, because you have this need and it feels like it's Selfish. It feels like you're asking them for money because you're the only one that's going to benefit. It's not true, okay? Your clients wouldn't, wouldn't pay you money just for the sake of paying you money, okay? I don't care how manipulative you are, if someone doesn't want to give you money, they're not going to give you their money, all right? The fact that they want to give you their money in exchange for your services or goods means that they are so hungry for the help that you provide that they're willing to do it. They need this. They want this. And you. The fact that you benefit is not a bad thing, I think, especially in the Western world, okay, where a lot of us were brought up in like the Judeo Christian paradigm of like monks and nuns and, you know, religious people who have to give up all of their belongings to be able to do good work in the world. We have this mentality that to be able to do good work, to be able to help people, we have to also be poor, which is totally wrong. You know, if we think about, you know, if I were to say, you know what? I give it all up, I'm going to go and become a nun in a monastery and I'm going to give up all my worldly goods and I'm going to pledge my life to God, which this is. This is obviously romantic or fantasy land, not romantasy. Different. Different genre. Anyway, if I were to do that, guess what would happen? I would be going onto the umbrella of a multi billion dollar industry, okay? When people give up all of their worldly belongings to go and like pledge to something, it's because there's money there, okay? It's not like nuns and monks don't have food unless they're fasting. It's not like they don't have shelter. It's not like they don't have all of their necessities taken care of because that's what they signed up for, okay? You're running a business. There's not that. That umbrella over you. You are the one that has to pay. You. You're the one that has to pay for food and for your shelter and for health insurance and for the electricity and the WI fi and all the things and for the housekeeper. Very important. If you're like me, you have to be able to pay for your housekeeper. That's not selfish. It's not selfish to want to make money while doing good work. This is honestly why I got so into doing Money mindset work. Because what I found with my clients, especially if they came from a background like teaching or nursing or pretty much any industry where people tend to have, like, a badge of honor, an invisible badge of honor around working a ton of hours but, like, you know, not getting paid for it. What I saw was they kept creating that paradigm in their businesses. Unless they really started looking at the foundation of what they were taught about money, their beliefs about money. You know, once you start shifting that and you understand a. That money is not necessarily evil, that you can ask for money and not be a bad person, that you can have a lot of money and still be a good person, it completely shifts for you. And then, of course, you have to have confidence in what you're selling. Okay? That's something that I can't quite help all my clients with. I wish I could. I wish I could. But, you know, you have to be really confident in what you do. You have to be really confident that you can actually help this person in front of you. You know, if you're just starting out, if you have, you know, little baby offer and you've been, like, just kind of, like, putting it out there, like, holding your breath, and then nothing happens, I want you to know it's normal. That's normal. Everyone does that in the beginning. I did that in the beginning. I come from sales and marketing, and I did that. Okay, you can absolutely learn how to sell. You can absolutely do it. I do it with my clients every single day. There are tons of sales coaches out there. You have to figure out who feels like a good fit for you, who will be the best support for you, and you have to have faith that this business is going to take off. I've said it before, and I will say it again. If you don't believe that you can run a marathon, there's no fucking way you're actually running a marathon, because you're not going to train for it. You're not going to do the things that are required to be able to run the marathon. It's the same in your business, okay? If you don't believe that this business is going to be successful, you're not going to take the right steps to make sure it is successful. All right? If you're starting a business and you're not investing in learning how to sell, learning how to market yourself, it's just like that person who's sitting on the couch eating potato chips, saying, you know what? I'm gonna run a marathon this year, and then not taking action. That's exactly the same thing because you are not actually setting yourself up for success. Okay? So know that you can learn this. Know that you can create content that attracts your ideal clients to book on your calendar. You do not need to chase them. Know that when you ask for for money for your good work that you deserve to be paid for it. Know that you charging for it is actually one of the most helpful things that you can do for your clients because you're offering them the help, and then you're also creating an energetically even exchange for them to receive it. Okay? There's. We all have that friend who, like, is super helpful, right? They show up to help everyone move. They come over when babies are born, they clean the whole house. They do this, they do that. But whenever they need help, they refuse to ask for it. And so after a while, you stop telling them about situations where you may need help because it starts feeling energetically uneven. Okay? They're not letting you have an exchange with them. There's no reciprocity. Okay? You have to provide, like, a venue for reciprocity with your clients so they can make the best use of your work. All right? So stop being a weenie and go and do it already. Deal. All right, so let me just see. I'm going. Hello. I forgot to check Instagram. Hi. Hi. Moshe and Tamzu and. And Josh Quack. Hello. Yeah, I think. Let me see. It's so funny. So they've updated a couple things and it's like, oh, my God, stuff has moved a little bit. And maybe not. Maybe my. My memory is just bad anyway, with that, go and sell some shit. Go and sign some clients. Go and sell some potato peelers, people. You got this, right? And I will be back with you live tomorrow, so I do not have to sing in front of you. All right? I hope you have an amazing rest of your weekend. I'm Katie McManus. I'm business strategist and money mindset coach. I will see you soon.