In this live session hosted by the Director of Operations for Level Up Creators/Level Up Creator School, CEO Amanda Northcutt walks thought‑leaders, coaches, and consultants through the core components of a high‑ticket, recurring‑revenue sales process. The conversation opens with an update on the MRR Accelerator program—two cohorts in progress, individualized plans, and a focus on hitting MRR guarantees. Northcutt then outlines a systematic approach to anticipating and reframing sales objections, emphasizing that objections stem from perceived lack of value and are often rooted in timing/opportunity‑cost concerns. She stresses the importance of precise positioning, a narrowly defined ideal customer profile, and a “matchmaking” mindset that aligns a prospect’s painful, urgent problems with the promised outcomes of the methodology. The discussion moves to the strategic use of a story library—case studies, testimonials, and quantitative results—to provide social proof at the right moments in a sales call, helping prospects visualize themselves as successful clients. Northcutt advocates a human‑centered, conversational sales style: be present, treat the prospect as a peer, maintain an abundance mindset, and avoid hard‑selling or neediness. Finally, she shares a repeatable process for capturing success stories and testimonials through built‑in off‑boarding interviews, transcript‑based testimonial creation, and explicit permission protocols, turning each client win into a virtuous cycle of referrals, expansion revenue, and future sales. The session concludes with a teaser for the next livestream on persuasive client‑convincing techniques.
Chapters
Amanda of Level Up Creators and Level Up Creator School. I'm our Director of Operations, and Amanda Northcutt is our CEO. Today we're going to be talking about sales and how you can kind of handle your sales process. We also have an update for you about our MRR Accelerator program that we're excited to share with you. Um, thank you so much for spending a few minutes of your day with us. If you have not met us, there are 2 ways that we help thought leaders, consultants, coaches build rock-solid recurring revenue businesses. The first is Level Up Creators. This is our done-for-you white glove consulting firm, and this includes our MRR Accelerator program. The second is Level Up Creator School, and this is where we help a global group of thought leaders, consultants, and coaches build businesses with a done-with-you model. Our school includes access to our consulting team and our methodology in a way that used to be exclusively reserved our consulting clients. So hello and welcome. Okay. First off, can you give us an update on our MRR accelerator program?
Yeah, absolutely. So cohort 1 is cranking. We are building websites, we are building funnels, and we are working on sales. That's the big thing is we got 3 months left to go in this accelerator and it's time to hit those MRR guarantees. And so we are making introductions and doing webinars and guest podcasting. And one, at least one of our cohort members is spinning up a new podcast, which is really exciting. And so it is go time. Uh, so we have individualized plans and activities for, you know, each individual cohort member. And it's just, like I said, go time, all hands on deck. And I'm super excited about what's to come because this is when, like, the money starts to come in and that's really exciting. Uh, and then we also launched our second cohort yesterday. And so we're very excited to have Uh, new, new blood coming into the program and, uh, excited for what we're gonna be able to do with this new crew as well as we march toward the MRR guarantees with the first cohort.
Yeah. With our consulting clients in our MRR program, we talk a lot about anticipating sales objections. Can you walk us through your process when you're trying to figure out how to navigate that?
Yeah. So all objections come down to The person that you want to buy something from you does not believe that it is valuable enough for them to trade their time and/or money in order to get it. So if you get to an objection around time or money, you have missed something earlier on in the sales cycle. So we want to make sure that we understand what the most likely objections are going to be for our specific ideal customer profile, right? And sales becomes much easier once we have our positioning nailed. We know who we are and the value that we bring to the table. For a specific customer persona. Not everyone, because if you're talking to everyone, you're talking to nobody, but a very specific persona. So we know who you are, we know who they are, and you have methodology that bridges the gap between their painful, pervasive, urgent, expensive problems and these solutions or value outcomes and transformations that you've promised throughout your sales and marketing process. And then you can put a wrapper on that methodology in one-on-one consulting, one-on-one coaching, small group coaching programs, masterminds. Like there's all manner of ways to wrap up that methodology. And presented to a client for sale as a product I service. So once you have clarity on those things, you're just matchmaking in sales. And if you know what you've got and who it's for, and you know you've got your—I've been using the word receipts a lot—but your case studies, testimonials, and statistics, your social proof—if you have the receipts around the work that you've done, then again, you're just matchmaking. And you should be able to point back to the value outcomes and transformation that you provide, meaning the qualitative, quantitative, and psychological outcomes. That the work that you're going to do is going to provide for your clients.
Yeah. And you have said that a timing objection is really about opportunity cost. Can you walk us through, like, when you're live on a sales call, like, how do you reframe that, like, live?
Yeah, that's a great question. So just to make sure we're all on the same page, opportunity cost means if you do one thing, you can't do something else. Like, it is in the place of something else, simply put. So from a timing perspective, we want to make sure that not only do we have, do we know our positioning and know exactly who our persona is, but there's another layer to the customer persona. And that is the sort of stage that they are in. They must be feeling painful, pervasive, urgent, expensive pain in order to be willing to part with their hard-earned money and time in exchange for a solution. And so if you are serving up a vitamin instead of, you know, IV drip Oxy or something like that, like the stuff you go to the ER for if you're in unbearable pain, they are unlikely to buy. So you have to be right for them. They have to be right for you. You have to have the methodology to prove that you know what you're doing. You have to have the social proof that again shows more receipts and other people have been through your process before. And I mean, it has to be hurting. I talk about the knife is in, somebody is turning it, the person is bleeding out. So forgive me if that was like too graphic of imagery, but you have to understand that people don't buy things Like expensive upmarket coaching and consulting services, unless they are really, really, really, really hurting. So if it's not a priority, you're going to get the timing objection. So if it's, I mean, that's ultimately what it comes down to. And then you go back to value. It's not worth me trading my time and my money for what you say you're going to offer me.
Yeah. For coaches and consultants maybe struggling to close Those high ticket offers, how do they incorporate success stories or social proof into their pitching method?
Yeah. We like a story library. And so if you have case studies and testimonials and statistics around work that you have already done, and if you're new to what you're doing, what have you done in the past that would translate To what you're doing now, like what what have you done in the past that demonstrates that you have the same you know sort of abilities and aptitudes and like core skills that will deliver on your new offering. So even bringing something in from your your previous role or roles or something that you've done that's tangentially related is completely appropriate. So having a story bank. Is really, really important. And so anytime a client tells you a story about how they were successful with, or based on the work that you did together, or an outcome that they received, or like, I feel I'm so much more respected at work. Not only did I make this great decision to bring you in, but everybody looks up to me now because I made the right call. And then also these three you know KPIs are moving in the right direction. And if you can skillfully memorize. Those stories and then weave them in at the right time with the right prospect in the right way, you're going to help that prospect see themselves in the shoes of that successful customer. Like, oh, that person is like me, and therefore this feels more achievable. You're sort of like lowering the barrier to entry, perceived barrier to entry of working with you by demonstrating that someone like you had success when we did this. And if you have a methodology, You're going to be able to provide consistently excellent results, and that's a huge part of what your marketing should be around too. Not just you and your your personal brand and showing up online authentically, but marrying that and demonstrating your expertise and having specific frameworks within your methodology is also really really really helpful in in showing that you've you've got it together. You know what you're doing.
Yeah, most people struggle to figure. out when they should share that, their success stories within the sales process. What are your go-to methods for this?
Yeah, I think it's just be a human and have a conversation. That's the most important thing. When we're sitting here on a walk with a friend or chatting over coffee, we're not thinking about like, oh my God, what could I say next? And we're present, we're listening, we're engaged. And so just show up and be a human. If you made it this far in your career, I mean, our clients are 40 to 60 5 years old, you have spoken with many, many, many humans before. And so if you remember that you're just talking to another person who has similar issues and problems and like they've got to do laundry and they've got to cook dinner too and like run errands and like pick up the dog poop in the backyard, like just level the playing field in your mind of who the, who the other human is that you're speaking with and just show up with a posture of I am here to help. If you show up and you're there to help and you, you have practiced and you've got these stories kind of in the back of your mind, you understand what objections you're likely to get and having a story to match with an objection and also to preempt objections is really helpful. But you can use a story when someone raises a specific objection. I don't want to say that like, uh, it's, it's very, very difficult to preempt all objections. You can skillfully kind of navigate, navigate that over time, but that's not a super easy skill to master. So just Know who you are. Know who you are best positioned to help. Know how you help them. Have the stories and the social proof to back it up. Have your methodology ready to explain to back it up and go into the call knowing like, I'm just looking for a match. I'm just looking for a match. We're matchmaking. Business is done well when solutions are matched to specific problems. And if it's not a match, it's cool. It really takes the pressure off of the call. And also desperation is the antithesis of effective selling. So. No matter how badly you need that sale, you have to embody this like abundance mindset and know that like you are not going to do some hard sell to someone who doesn't need what you have. Maybe is not the right ICP match because your reputation is your currency. And it's really imperative that you remember that. Like we're all on LinkedIn, YouTube, X, and word will get out. Uh, if you are not true to your word and like your repu— Like even if you're on a call with someone and they're not the right fit, and in the back of your mind you're thinking, oh damn it, I really needed to make this sale. Like I've got to pay the rent. Da da da. If you treat them right and you're there to help and you're honest with them and you shoot them straight and say, hey, I can see that we may hit some bumps in the road because I'm seeing this, this, and this. Just be open and honest about it. One, they may give you more information that shows them that they are more of your ICP than you thought. And two. They will respect the hell out of you for being open and honest and conducting yourself with integrity. And then they know what you do. And then at the end of that call, it would be okay since you were upfront and honest with them. You've made a human connection. You showed up, you're not there to sell. You're there to matchmake. Um, you might even have the opportunity to ask, hey, now that you know what I do, is there anyone else in your network you think might be a better fit? And see if you can snowball that. But at least like you're leaving them with a good taste in their mouth. Not like this was some icky hard sell, but that's a really important mindset thing is not, um, like we're, we're all repulsed by, uh, the neediness, the clinginess. Like that is just like our brains, our lizard brains tell us how to react to that. And it's not a good situation. So don't do that.
Be a good human. Care about other people.
Yes. Yes. Thank you.
Strategy you can have.
That's, you know what? That's absolutely true. That's completely on point.
Yeah. Okay. So as you are running your business, it can be so hard to capture success stories and client testimonials. What is your tried and true method to collect all of these Yeah.
So this is part of your customer experience with everything, everything on your product ladder. So that's like your, your mix of income streams. There's, there should be well-thought-out processes supported by standard operating procedures and technology and automation, uh, in order for you to, again, deliver consistent, excellent results for your clients. And just to be real clear, when I say productized service, I don't mean that like you're just Copy and pasting every single thing for each client. Like the MRR accelerator is a productized service, and we follow the MRR method, which is our proprietary methodology. But it is every business that we build is as unique as the business owner we're building for. So I think that's a really important point. I want to make sure that like I'm using the right language and not telling you to just make the same thing for everybody. And I also forgot your question.
Your method for for collecting success. No, right? That's right.
Okay. So that needs to be baked into the customer experience. You know when. Someone has a win is a great opportunity to ask for something. And at the end of an engagement during offboarding, like I recommend doing an offboarding interview with each of your clients. And again, Level Up Creators, we're positioned at high touch, high ticket, low volume. And so you should have space for doing kind of an exit interview, which should also be an opportunity for expansion revenue, selling them the next most logical thing to solve the next big problem that they're feeling and also to get referrals. So you should be building a A virtuous cycle of referrals, expansion revenue, and your business should be built on referrals, right? This is that makes sales a lot easier too, like a warm introduction. If that's how you get connected with someone, that's great. So ask, and on that exit interview, you can take the transcript and use their words to create a you know cleaned up grammatically correct testimonial, and then send it to them and say, "Hey, I hope you don't mind. I took a second to." Use the transcript, and I didn't want to ask you for a testimonial. I hate asking people for that. I know it's hard to write, but I wrote one for you. Do I have your permission to use this? Make sure you get their permission. Do not put somebody's words and face up on your website without explicit, ideally written permission. That is really, really, really uncool. You want to talk about like leaving with a bad taste in your mouth. So ultimately, it comes down to you have to have a system for getting this. You have to you have to ask a lot of questions, and you have to be accountable to your work. Which everyone should be anyway. And so pay attention, stay close to your customer and ask for what you need.
Yeah. Well, thank you guys so much for joining our livestream. Be sure to follow us for more tips and insights on how to build a successful recurring revenue business. Next week, we're going to be talking about the number one way to help your client convince themselves of why they need your product or service. So be sure to join us then. We will see you next time.
