Strategies to Conquer the "SALESY" Mindset

Have I got a deal for you! If you buy now— But wait, there's so much more! Do these phrases send chills down your spine? Personally, I find that there is nothing harder than sales. But we all have to make a living. And many of us, no matter what position we are in, will always have to make sales. So, how do we overcome Our angst. And that's coming up next on Marc Haine Live. Welcome to this episode of Marc Haine Live. This is where small business owners and entrepreneurs pick up core skill sets to help them work on their business, not just in their business. I am your host, Service Expert and Master of Experiences Marc Haine. And I am just Tickle pink that you are here with me today. My guest today is Business Coach and Sales Expert Shawna Quigley. And today, we will be talking about some myths about selling and how to get over the angst of selling. Or as I like to call it, the fear of pushing myself onto others and getting them to buy what I am selling. I'd love for you to be part of this conversation. So please do go ahead and comment on this episode. And share it with somebody who could benefit. And also, feel free to subscribe to this channel. And while you're at it, I'd love it if you could leave a review for this episode. Let me know if we're on the right track and don't be afraid to push back. I will be the first to admit though that I am extremely like, I am really intimidated by the prospect of selling.

Really?

I don't know if it was the way I was brought up or if it's just my personality type. But the thought of sales really does scare me to death. I don't know what it is. And so, that brings us to our Question of the Day right now. So, what percentage of your business relies on you selling your products or service? And why don't you give yourself a rating from 1 to 10, where 10 is that sales is like breathing for you and 1 is that you would rather die or stand up and give a big speech to a crowd. You know, the speech of your life. You'd rather do that than sell. That would be a 1. How comfortable are you with sales? Go ahead and put it in the comment box. Just write, my business is X percent selling and I am a number and whatever that number is. As I mentioned, my guest today is Shawna Quigley. Shawna is a Business and Sales Coach and a phenomenal sales trainer. She is passionate about helping people achieve meaningful and measurable professional and personal results. And she is an award-winning sales leader and a true expert in her field. Welcome, Shawn. It's so great to have you on the show.

Thank you, Marc. It's such a pleasure and I loved your introduction. I have to admit, it sent a few chills up mine. It's like, if I have to answer that, it could be an embarrassing answer. It's true.

It's absolutely true. And so, just to play the card a little bit, if you stick around till the very end, we will release for you 5 ways to build trust. So, stay tuned. And wait, there's more. It's such a stereotype, isn't it? The whole thing.

Absolutely, absolutely. Well, you know what? There's movies out there of all these classic salespeople. And I have to admit, I watch them and I'm like, my skin's crawling and I feel disgusting. And I think, holy Crap, you know, the reality is so many people have this perception. And every one of us, even those of us who've had a lot of training, are like, I don't want to go out and sell. And I can say honestly, with, you know, intense fear because I'm supposed to be the sales expert, I too get really nervous about going out and selling, specifically selling myself. There you go.

Right?

You know, it's kind of like it's your baby and suddenly I'm putting myself out there. I spent 25 years selling tier 1 types of products. Campbell's Soup and Pfizer products. And I was very comfortable. It's like, I'm selling something that's really of value to people and I'm not selling myself. And now, like, okay, I'm selling myself.

And especially if you're an introvert as well on top of that, right? Compound that with being an introvert and it's like, oh my goodness! So, before we dig really deep into this topic today, could you just Let us know what you specifically do for your clients.

Absolutely. So, as you said in your introduction, I do business coaching and sales coaching. So, but specifically, I focus on small business. And the reason I do that is their passion, their excitement, their enthusiasm. They know they're experts in what they do. What they don't have is access to really good corporate tools, And a way and a framework to sell. So, I'll be talking to them and they'll say, well, you know, I'm really uncomfortable selling all these different things. And that's where I really start that conversation and help them. More importantly, helping them to understand that it's a process and that they can be really confident in any sort of selling situation just by knowing what that process is and not think about this used car sales persona that's out there. And be free to Be authentic and be Shawna or be Marc in those transactions. So yeah, and it's fun to watch because everybody comes and they go, I don't know what I'm doing and I'm really uncomfortable. And to the extreme of going, well, they embrace the car salesman mentality.

Yeah. Well, yeah, and I'm no different, right? I think if you were to ask me what is the one thing I hate doing more than anything else, it's shopping for houses and shopping for cars.

Yes.

And I don't know why. I think it's because you have expectations of what you want. And even as customers, we might have challenges on how do we verbalize what it is we want. And then, you have the sales rep coming in and it just feels so pushy sometimes. And so then, it's like, well, if I ever sell anything, I don't want to be that way. But then, you end up doing things like talking to people. You don't really open up on what you do. And then, there's no call to action. And I have to say, Myself, I migrated into the professional speaking realm in 2017. And the one aspect of the business that I still have a big challenge with is this idea of sales. I have no problem having conversation and offering to help people and so on. But when it comes to actually like, I have to prospect and I have to sell, it's like, it's a challenge. And I'm sure that entrepreneurs watching this or any business person watching this is is saying, I agree. Why is it so hard?

Well, first of all, there's a process, right? You need to have a plan. What does that look like? So, how am I going to be successful? Well, if you can change the conversation to being something about there's a goal towards this and there's an intention, then that helps. But if you don't have a plan first and foremost, then you can get really derailed very quickly. And go, okay, well, you know what? I need to do this paperwork and then I'll do some prospecting. And then, we'll do something else. And suddenly, a week goes by and we haven't done prospecting because we're uncomfortable with it.

Yeah.

But it's really important to have that plan. And one of the things is, you know, what is it that you're going to achieve in that year? And sort of chunk it down into some buckets so that you'll go, okay, well, if I want to achieve this goal, Well, then I need to see so many customers a week and I need to do so many prospecting calls. And so you got to build that into your plan and make it kind of fun. You know, that there should be a reward, not, uh, not just the reward of I got that sale, but woohoo, at the end of the week I did it. I was going to do 10 prospecting calls and I did 12. Woohoo. Right. And celebrate it, make it a game, you know, so that it inspires and encourages you. And, and that process also, Builds your confidence in that. Okay, I can do this. It's very, very important. And I would say too, there's a bit of a mindset part of that. So, there's that. Let's make it a game.

So, can you dig a little bit deeper into that? Because when I think, when I look at my calendar and I have prospecting on my calendar every day.

Yes.

And like you mentioned, if something comes up or something happens or somebody needs to meet me, I have absolutely no hesitation of booking time over my prospecting time just because it's just one of those things. It's like, ah, really? How do I turn it into a game that it can be something that I'm going to enjoy?

Okay. Well, if I can backtrack for a moment because I'd love to give you a little mathematical calculation. And probably everybody out there is going, are you kidding me? Why? Salespeople are not good at math. But I discovered this calculation probably 3 years ago. And I honestly practically use it in every single conversation because it's a really good productivity thing. And it's one of those things that will help, I hope, to strengthen that. Yes, I'm going to go out and do that. I'm going to choose this prospecting call over making that call to a potential customer. It's not to say that you're going to do Neither, but you're just going to prioritize the prospecting. So here's the calculation, and it's called return on time invested. And what that is, is it's a calculation that takes 1,880 hours, which is a rough estimate of the available time or hours that you have over a course of a year. So it's taking out 50 weeks, you know, that's 50 weeks, taking out some sick time in that. Whether the actual 1,880 is 100% accurate, what it does is it gives you a great baseline. So you say, okay, my goal or my target for the year is going to be, say, $1,880,000. So you divide that number by the $1,880. What that does is it gives you the value of your hour. And so if you're looking at that and you're going, okay, well, I'm going to do all this paperwork, okay, you know, is that contributing to that hourly value that you're going to make? So, hopefully that sort of starts that in terms of contextualizing of, you know what? Prospecting is really important and there's a value to that if I go out and I do this. So, I hope that that gives a little bit of motivation. And then, from the game perspective, the reality is nobody closes 100%. That's just not going to happen. Everyone's heard that know, like, and trust. Well, you probably need to be in front of somebody 5 to 7 times. Before they're going to remember and start to see that you're of value to them. So recognize that and think about this. Well, I'm, I'm, I'm on this journey. I have an intention of this call. And the intention shouldn't be, I'm going in and I'm going to talk to this complete stranger and walk away with a sale at the end. Right? So get clear about what that is. And part of that game sick is 50% of the people or more don't have a need for your service today. They may not have a need for your service ever, or 24 months or so out. So recognize that and recognize that just in general, closing rates are, for most industries, 1 out of every 5. Once— and that's, you know, on prospecting, it's, it's quite a bit, you know, probably 1 out of, out of 10 for sure. So when you think about that, uh, I saw this presentation before and I thought, yeah, I like this. And this, this instructor went up to the table and he was talking about this very con, and he wrote $100,000 on the top of this flip chart. And then he went 1 through 10 and he said $10,000, $10,000, $10,000. And I thought, where is he going with this? And he said, prospecting, 1 in 10. Okay, so you go, you make a call, and they say no. Woohoo! I just earned $10,000. And you cross it off. And it's like that gift to you that kind of keeps reminding you that you're on that journey and you're one step closer.

One step closer, yeah.

You've basically put some money in the bank. So, you know, those are some of the things that you can kind of play around with for sure. And I would say part of that motivation has just got to— it's that first call. You got to get over that first call in the morning or whenever you're gonna Jump in. No, I can continue on.

Yeah, it's so interesting because when you talk about this idea, first of all, you've talked about that rejection aspect, which I think is a big one. It's like, I'm gonna do all this and they're just gonna say no. The other thing that I tapped into with what you said was this thing about providing value. So, just to be clear, you're not talking about picking up the phone, calling John and say, hey John, yeah, we've never met. But boy, do I have a deal for you!

Yes.

No, not that at all. It is important just to back up for a second. It is important that you know what your products and services, or you as a company, really where you are uniquely positioned. How you differentiate in the market. That's important. You need to know that unique value proposition. And in a script and you're making some initial appointments, it's like, Yeah. You know, there will be a little bit of a script that says, you know, we are the only one who does this. Can we have a conversation? To your point, the value, it's about problem solving. And here's the big thing everybody needs to get. It's not about you. It's not about your products. It's not about your service. It's about them. 100% about them. What is their problem that they have and how through discovery and The discovery is more than one question. And I've seen this many times. People go out, what's your pain point? And then it's like, okay, yes. And then you get this whole tirade of assumptions of, well, you know, this is how we solve all these problems. But that isn't getting to the core of what they are. There's, you know, you should be coming in those particular situations with 10 really good questions. That build on one another and go deeper so that you understand what is really their problem. And within that, then summarize and prioritize back. It's like, okay, what I heard in that was this. Am I correct? Don't assume and let them really tell you what the situation is. And then, only then would you start to tell them about your products and services. So, Specifically in light of how you add value, how you're solving their problem. And that's the value that you're creating.

It really does sound like this is a skill. And when we talk about what makes selling so hard, would it be fair to say that one of the reasons why it is so hard is because there's a complete void as far as training for sales?

Yes. Now arguably, you could probably go on to Google and go sales training and have all kinds of people provide you with all kinds of different training. And there's thousands, hundreds of thousands of books probably out there. The challenge comes in that first of all, you don't know what you don't know. Then you read this content and there's all kinds of different levels of information, people's focus, their core competency, what their background is. And they'll say, well, this is how you go and sell. And so, somebody will read that and they'll go, okay. They're not telling you exactly what to say. They're giving you some parameters and they go, okay, I think I got this. And they go out. Unfortunately, what they don't have is a feedback loop. Something that kind of comes back and goes, okay, I've listened to that. And gee, Marc, I like this but you kind of had my skin crawling a little bit. You were You were getting really salesy on that and you weren't listening. So, there's that feedback loop of somebody observing you and giving you feedback and helping you to guide. And the second part of that is really getting focused around making sure you're delivering the value to them. So, how does that look like and have a system? So, people are kind of like, well, a system is you plug something in and do it. But There is a process. You know, you're going to start off with some general information. You're going to dig down in those discovery questions before you're going to try and sell to them. And when you have somebody who sort of observes that in some fashion, they can give you really good feedback about that. You know, the good and the bad. Wow, Marc, this was amazing. I really liked how you connected with that person. You know, and you mentioned earlier in our conversation about A lot of people forget to ask for the sale. I have this great conversation and then they kind of drop it because it feels really uncomfortable to say, well, so where do we go from here? You know, or okay, this is my program, sign here. I mean, there's different ways, but it is important that you have some conclusion to that conversation of, all right. And I get so many opportunities to observe people and I love that. Because what that does is people, you know, and, and myself included, the idea of role-playing in front of somebody is, is about as scary as probably going on stage, you know, at that, say, the, the, you know, at the Flames Stadium or something like that in front of all kinds of people. And, um, you know, your worst nightmare of showing up there without clothes or something. So I get it. I understand it's very uncomfortable, but I can tell you it is one of the most powerful things that people can go through. And they walk away with, okay, these are some things that I can really work on, and it builds their confidence. And so when they have that next conversation, they're sort of following through that. And confidence is really important in that conversation. If you don't know what you're going to do or how to move about, you're really uncomfortable. And so, this is sort of that gift of, okay, I know what to do. And I know sort of that natural conclusion.

So, there's like many. There seems to be many spokes to this wheel when it comes down to selling. You just nailed something about this idea of confidence. So, I'd like to dig a little bit deeper into the idea of bringing confidence to the transaction. And we'll do that right after this.

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I am speaking with business coach and sales expert Shawna Quigley. Shawna, just before we jumped into that little quick break, we were talking about this idea of confidence. And so, there's, you know, when you said that word, I got just a flood of different images because it's confidence in what you have, competence, confidence in your capability. Confidence in the product, confidence that you know that that product will— how does somebody wrap their head around this idea when you use the word confidence?

Well, it is. It's really multifaceted. And that's one of the things that's really important is first and foremost, have confidence in your systems. And we talked about having that system of feedback and a process. And you get comfortable in that. Think of a professional, any person in professional sports. They train, they train, they train to the point it comes automatic. And likewise, the same sort of thing. You train and train to understand and be the best that you can be in your process but also in your company. So, do you know about the competition? Do you know how your products release out? So, you become an expert, a subject matter expert. And I would encourage you not just on your products or services or company. But the industry about you know the general competition. Now everybody has access to all kinds of different resources, and it's a mistake to walk into someone and think that they haven't at least researched some of the things. And if they've actually gone to your website and have identified call me, these are the people who are you know right now they've identified a need. They've probably determined. you know, a short window of products or services that you and some other people have talked about. So, you need to make sure that you're an expert on all of it because there's nothing that loses credibility quicker than showing up and your customer informing you about your products, your services, and the industry. So, it's really important that you have that confidence in your knowledge and skill set.

Yeah.

And then, There's pride, right? When you have that kind of confidence, there's also pride in what you're doing.

Yes.

So, all of these things are great.

Yeah. So, as you're going through that, I flashed back to about 20 years ago when I had to buy a point-of-sale system. And we had a gentleman come in and he was talking about everything his system can do and so on. And I decided to pick up the phone and call their techs And just say, I'm thinking about installing a thing and the sales rep says it can do this, this, and this. And the techs were like, yeah, it can. But yeah, yeah. And I said, oh, thank goodness I made the call. And so, I was lucky enough to come across another gentleman who I was able to do business with, who was a little bit more transparent by the limitations of his product. And so, this idea of honesty comes into the fray as well. So, Confidence versus honesty, I think, comes in. And I think in itself, I think you need to have some sort of a value structure there as well.

Yeah, it's certainly, it's really important to come across authentically and honestly with integrity. And it's okay. I don't think everybody expects that there is a miracle cure solution out there that's going to solve 100% of the things for less than their budgeted cost. right? There's always going to be some concessions or some gives and takes.

Sure.

But the person who wins is that one who's in there and invested in a long-term partnership with those people. Not sort of that confrontational, I'm here, you're here, and we're in competition. But when we're collectively coming together and it becomes a co-creation of that solution. And in that, you create additional referrals and recommendations. And hopefully, loyal customers because the next time that they need something, they're going to, you know, who are they going to come to first? Someone that, you know, it's really about that whole integrity and really providing that value to them.

Yes. And as you're saying all this, I'm just hinting onto this idea like this is really no different than creating relationships with other people. I mean, you would never ever go to your next-door neighbor and try to sell something without ever introducing yourself or whatever, right? Somebody did an analogy of the way some people handle sales. It's like if you went on a date and you saw the person that you just fell madly in love with and you made eye contact. And right then, you said, I need you to marry me. Right? It just wouldn't happen. And so, This idea of creating conversations then, we've seen through social media. If you go online all the time, they talk about this idea of constantly providing this value and constantly providing these things to support the growth of relationships. Are there tools or techniques that you think people need to get a handle on in order to do this effectively?

For sure. I think that it comes down to some best practices first of all and having a structure.

Yeah.

And a plan. Remember, we talked about a plan before. Part of that is you have to have a nurture cycle. How do I create relationships? And if it's the first time I'm talking to somebody through to the last one, what does that look like, right? But then, there's also other kinds of tools in terms of one of the things that I do is I discovered it's called social styles about 3 years ago. And it was actually in a sales training course that I was participating in. And I watched this and I thought, Yeah. And I was like, whoa, I'm a professionally trained coach and this blew my mind. I thought, why didn't I know about this 25 years ago when I started my career? And it is something that I use a lot. And right now, they've just launched— so Social Styles is actually an assessment tool but also training. And what it does is it talks about really starting to understand the other person. And you can tell that by some of the things that they say and they do. And then targeting your communication in a way that's really meaningful to them. So, not only are you going to talk value to them but you're going to talk to them in a way that's really meaningful. So, if they're someone who is highly technical, right? Then, there's certain tools that you can nurture that whole relationship with by understanding what's really relevant and important to them. And so, those are a number of different types of things. But it is That whole value cycle is understand who they are. How can I nurture that relationship in an honest way that is providing some sort of value and assistance to them?

Fantastic, Shauna. This is really great information. I'm sure people listening to this going, oh geez, I gotta get Shauna in to talk to my team. How can people get in touch with you if they want to reach out?

Well, you can easily go to my website which is quigleycoaching.com. And you can also email me at shauna@quigleycoaching.com. W-N-A at quickleadcoaching.com. I'm on LinkedIn and I'm on Facebook. So, there's a number of ways that you can get a hold of me. Nice!

So, you mentioned these social styles. How does that reflect as far as what people are doing online? Like how they're marketing themselves, how they're showing up online, how they're engaging and enrolling people online?

It's a huge part of it. So, there's— if I am a person and I'm trying to market myself, Right. There's opportunities taking this knowledge and start— there's 4 different social styles. So, embedded in my communication, different types of things that will appeal to each of them. If I am actually someone who is, you know, if you were going to be my customer, then there would be things that I would do to investigate, to try and assess what type of social style are you. And by sort of having that assessment, then I will gear my communication somewhat uniquely to you, to the way that you, you find the information. And I'm very excited to— just last week, Social Styles is by Tricon Group, and I'm an authorized seller of their programs. And they just launched, it's called Virtual Selling with Social Styles. And, uh, I'm really excited because it is the world that we live in now. And this program is phenomenal because it really breaks it down. This is okay, you know, if you're having a prospecting call, if you are in a certain stage of this, the selling cycle, you know, if you're looking to just try and understand ways to market, what are some of the different types of tools? So Social Styles is, is a great tool to, um, to really help and facilitate that in a world where Everything's virtual. So, it's that question of, well, what do we do and how do we do it? Here's another little nugget or knowledge piece that can support that.

Nice, nice. Sorry, went too far. It all sounds, you know, this whole idea now we've talked about mindset. We've talked about the need to train one another in the aspect of sales and have a system in place to to be able to help that. We talked about the fact that this is about having conversations and relationships. So, it's really hinting to me that this is all about at the end of the day, it's all about and I think you said it at the very beginning, this idea of know, like, and trust you. And yes, I know that you have a 5-step framework for building trust. I'd like to get into that right after this.

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So we've been talking a lot about this idea of shaking our mindset and our skill set for training. Shawna, when we talk about this idea of training, we're talking this idea about building relationships with people, being open. You use the word transparency at one point, authenticity at one point. And to me, this just smacks of this idea that in order to do this effectively, people have got to trust what you're doing. And I know that you have this 5-step framework. Could you just kind of review that for us?

Absolutely. So, first of all, sales, I think we've kind of indicated this throughout that it's a skill and it's a process. And so, once we get really comfortable and confident in that process, it becomes a very natural conversation. And the 5-step process that you're talking about is my trust framework. And that is actually, essentially, it's, it's like this process that you go through when you're talking with clients. And when you follow each of those steps, it has that natural conclusion. And the, the benefit of you're not kind of getting off the call and going, oh gee, you know, I should have, should have asked that kind of couple questions. So it all comes down, you know, there's process, but there's also a plan, right? So don't just enter a conversation And go, okay, well, I'm going to say the same thing as I do with everyone. We talked in the last segment about social style. So, who is it you're talking about? And that's the first part of the trust framework. So, trust is T-R-U-S-T. And that first T is thoroughly prepare. What is it that I need to know? What is it I know about them? What are the likely things that they are looking for solutions for? How can I uniquely provide that? And what kind of questions will I ask them based on the information I found? You know, what's their style? What kind of business are they in? And make sure that I'm thoroughly preparing, that I know who I'm talking to, that I know what their business is. There's nothing worse than, especially as I, I mentioned earlier in the, in the conversation, you know, to pick up the phone and somebody said, well, you know, what do you do? Well, it should be an automatic that if you're picking up your phone or you're meeting me somewhere, unless it's just this instant meeting, I should know something about you. I should certainly know what your company does and potentially have some reasons why I might need your services. Thoroughly prepare. And with that also, how have you helped similar types of clients? Have that in your back pocket. The second one is respect their time. So have an agenda, have an intention, let them know what's gonna be happening and how long you're gonna be. There's nothing worse than somebody saying, I just need 10 minutes of your time, and at the 10-minute mark, they're a long ways from being finished. All right? Then the U is understand their situation. So that's that question. Come armed with 10 really great questions. Not— please don't say, what's your pain point? You've done the investigation. You know something about them. So, dig a little bit deeper. Show that subject matter expert that you understand and have those conversations. Then, as we talked about, summarize the S in TRUST. Summarize and prioritize. Okay, these are the things that I heard. Was that correct? Don't make the assumption, okay, these are your problems and here's your solution. Verify that that is what that you know that you have heard them correctly. And in that they might go, well, you know what? Actually, it's a little bit more of this. And so you can go a little bit deeper in that those conversations. And then sometimes often. The budget is not going to allow them for 100% of the fix. So prioritize. What are the most important issues that we need to address? And then you co-create a solution. And I hope you heard that word, co-create, right? You're getting them involved in that so that it's a solution and a value that's specific for their needs. Not, okay, I'm taking out my binder on page 875. Here is the exact solution that you need. Right? It's about building that trust and building that value for them. And then, the last is, oh my goodness, let's ask for that sale. Take them to the next step and recognize that the asking for the sale is not always— some sales are very long parts. So, it might be, okay, can I talk to the user of this so that we can get a little more clarity about how this is going to look? Maybe, would you like to do a tour of my facility? So, there is a natural next step. It's not always sign here, right? And it might even be to go to a proposal or an RFP, right? But you have to ask for that next step and then move to that. So, that's my trust framework for managing that. And it's funny. The people I work with, they laugh. They go, oh yeah, I didn't thoroughly plan. And so, that's where I went. Or, I forgot to ask this. And what it does is it also makes it very efficient from your time because you've got this list of questions I need. So, if you go back to a company, your company, and maybe there's some IT support or someone else that you need to bring into that. And they go, well, did you ask this question? Or what was their needs? Or what was their time frame? Which is oddly a question people seem to forget. You know, it's like, okay, well, now you need to go back. So, there's efficiency too as well as that professionalism that comes through in that. So, that's in a nutshell trust.

Would some people turn around and say, I don't want to script my calls because I don't want to sound like I'm just doing a telemarketing thing? Have you heard that? Is that a condition? And then, how can people overcome that?

Yeah, I hear that all the time. It's like, I don't want to do a script. I don't want to come across inauthentic. And so, I would say there's a place for scripts. And that would be things like your initial conversations that you're going to have. So, you're doing a prospecting call, just trying to get some initial appointments. And I think that you need to have that 30 or 60-second, let's call it a pitch, but not salesy and much like your introduction, right? It needs to be something that's comfortable that triggers to people that there is some value in talking to me. That's what that is. When I'm talking about that customer meeting and going through the trust, it's not scripted. What it is, is it's A, it's an agenda. And B, there are certain questions that you need to go through to make sure that you're really guiding them and identifying if you can provide value for them. Because really, sales is about solution finding, right? Providing them a solution to which they need. And how can you do that if you don't know what their problem is? And so often, a lot of times, they really don't know what the problem is. It's like, well, this broke down. Well, you might actually, by drilling down on some of the questions, it was maybe there's something in the back of the system that's causing this problem. There's, you know, some antiquated machinery. It's not that widget specifically. And if you just focus on that immediate need, you're not really creating that real solution for them.

Amazing! And again, as you're doing this, I haven't been on the receiving end of sales calls and so on. The number of times that somebody has come in and assumed the problem without digging deeper into it is— and again, this is where the conversation comes in. And having this idea of actually having a list or having a script of things that you have to talk about and you have to cover is really important. I guess one of the challenges with this idea of prospecting sales is getting the conversation started.

Mm-hmm.

You have an agenda when you want to meet somebody. I know personally, I've put out emails to people and I say, I'd love to do a 10-minute discovery call about your upcoming association conference. I'd love to pick your brain on what you're looking for, and so on. And it goes out into the ether, never to be responded to ever again. And so, I look at that and I go, well, part of my thinking is, well, they know that I'm looking to sell my services. And so, why would they want to make— unless they have a true need, like unless they went onto my website They checked my website. They came back. They go, yeah, I think this guy has something that we need. And then, they'll pick up the phone and say, yeah, I'd like to do this quick little discovery call because I want to see if you'll fit our needs. But most people I think would look at that email and say, I don't want to be sold to. I'm not going to give you 10 minutes of my time to sell me. Comments about that?

Well, I get those emails every day myself, whether it's actually in my inbox or LinkedIn. Facebook. There is a, you know, there is a gambit of people trying to sell. And as, as someone who's sitting there, it's like, and there's days that I just want to go, there's times that I actually want to email them back and go, maybe we should have the conversation about what I can do for you versus what you're doing. But that being said, there's a number of different things, right? And it comes down to setting that expectation, right? And And if you really get focused around, I want to try and provide value to you. And there's some initial things about, well, I understand that you're in this type of business and that this might be of value to you. So rather, you know, in some cases, yes, you might phone them and say, I'd like, you know, 10 minutes of your time, you know, providing some value offers, doing things like posting really good content. I know that you're doing this. I think this might be of interest, or here's a link to some pieces of information so that it's more of a non-pressure, but I'm really trying to provide some value to you. And that there's no risk involved in that. And that nurture sequence is often some little bits of things that they can get exposed to you without having to really make a commitment. Here's a little video I can watch, or can I connect with you on LinkedIn? And different types of things so that people start to— building that trust and that expectation that you have something that is of offer to me and that you are more of a subject matter expert than just someone who's, I'm just gonna do all these leads. I'm gonna generate 2,000 leads for you in one day type of thing. Those types of things. So, I hope that that helps in clarifying that a little bit.

It does because I think we in Innately understand that this is kind of the problem when it comes down to the prospecting is that you have to go out there and you have to be of service to other people. And again, that ties really well into your 5-step framework. If you're going to prospect, you're not just going into a call list. You're doing research. You're going to thoroughly prepare. And I think this is what happens is people aren't thoroughly preparing. They're not looking in and saying, okay, this guy connected with me on LinkedIn. And then, they just send a blanket out thing, hey, thank you so much for connecting. It's so great to hang out with like-minded people who...

Right.

And they go into this whole big thing. And it smacks of inauthenticity. It smacks of not really caring about who I am and what I stand for. And so, it shuts us down automatically. And I think that's the digital equivalent to being in a car sales lot and Harry the Honest Salesman comes out and pulling up his pants saying, hi folks, it's so nice to have you here.

Yes, absolutely, absolutely. You know, there's— well, I would say probably on average at least 4 times in the week, probably more, I get these cringy comments. And it's just like, here we go again. And it's, it is, it's totally about researching.

Yeah.

And within that researching, look at your connections. Who in your connections might be able to facilitate an introduction? Because that's considered a warm call. And warm calls are far more effective in getting in the door than cold calling. It used to be it took about 3 calls to get in on a cold call. It's now well into the 9 plus and the effectiveness is dramatically also goes down as well. So if you can look at it and really identify who your key customers are in the real target market, create a list and do some research and oh, look at this. My ideal customer is ABC Company and I've done work for XYZ Company and they know one another. I wonder if XYZ might provide an introduction, right?

Not to be afraid to ask for it.

Exactly, exactly.

I had a thought, a question as you were talking about that. I've completely lost it. But I'm looking at anybody who's watching or listening to this podcast could be listening to this saying, it's all fine. I mean, we've covered so many different topics in such a short time. How do they get started? Like, if somebody understands that they have this huge big weakness, what's their first step to move forward?

Well, I would think it's a little old school. And that is sit down and get prepared. Plan. Do you know really about the value you create, right? So, do a SWOT analysis. Do a competitive analysis. Understand what's really uniquely valuable about you. Get— become an expert on your industry, right? So that you really know and understand, I provide this kind of value and I'm really unique in this. That will build up your confidence and it will help you to get really clear about how you communicate to someone. Whether it's, I've gone on an online networking group or I'm you know, sourcing people out on LinkedIn or Facebook, you need to be able to say something to them that is compelling and meaningful. And that's not— everybody says that, right? I'm going to improve your productivity. Okay. You know, I've gotten 20 emails today about how you're going to improve my productivity, right? So, you want it to be authentic and come through and how you are unique. Because if everybody's talking the same language, then you're just this sort of space in a cloud, right?

So, it's interesting that you say that because I had a guest on. He's a marketing specialist and he was talking about the research that needs to be done. And one of the suggestions he made is go on to your competitor's website and see how they're talking about their service. And he says, I bet top dollar That's exactly how you're talking about your service, right? It's all about me, me, me. This is what we do. This is what we do. And so, if you want to differentiate first and foremost, you have to talk differently about it.

Yes. And I love that you bring that up because the other thing about that is it's not about me, me, me, me. It's what solutions do you provide. It's all about the customer. And if you get in that mindset, from the get-go. And it's talking about, this isn't what I do, or this is what my product is. This is my target customer, and these are how we help. And really sort of setting that preface. And then we talked a little bit, you know, throughout about that mindset. And if you can create a mindset that says, I'm going out, not I'm going out to sell, but I'm going out to help You know, help people, that I'm really— that comes through. You know, that's that integrity piece and trust piece, and people are going to feel that and respond more readily to that. And it's a whole lot more comfortable thinking, oh, you know, I'm following this particular script and I, you know, I need to wear my plaid jacket to be, you know, like the typical, you know, car salesman. of years ago, right?

You know, and I'm having a sneaking suspicion that millennials and younger generations are looking at this going, they keep talking about a car salesman. As people get into— I think if you're watching this and you don't know what we're talking about with car salesmen, watch any movie from the '80s. That had anything to do with a car salesman or buying a car. Anyway, as people get into this and as they're listening to this, some people might get all gung-ho now. And it's like, okay, I'll get my process in place. I'll get my prospect list in place. I'll make sure I set time aside to do my research and so on. Are there any cautionaries as people jump into this as they uncover their skill sets and their mindset? Yes.

So I would say the first and foremost, and I would say there's a few, but first and foremost, don't try and do everything at once.

Hmm.

Right? You know, it's like, okay, set out what your lists are, prioritize what you think is the most important, and go from there. Because 2 things are going to happen. You'll be a master of none because you're, you know, you're going to do, you know, a partial job on one thing. So identify what's the most important, do that well. Move on to the next. Because what you'll also find is so often, they flow into one another. So, one feeds the other. The second part of that is have some patience because Rome wasn't built in a day and neither will your processes and change. The other thing I would say is have some sort of process to try out one thing at a time and get a sense of, well, did this work? Did that not work? Oh, that didn't particularly work. And I think it didn't work because of this. So now, I'm going to modify this a little bit. So, you keep fine-tuning it until you have a process that really works. Then, move on to that next step. So, those would be in a nutshell, I think how I would approach it. And again, have some fun with it. And try really hard not to get discouraged. Celebrate that win. A win is, I experimented with this and it sucked. But, you know, now I have some idea of why. So now I can fine-tune it. So, you know, sort of make that a bit of a game and make sure that you're celebrating. And it may sound a little odd, but, you know, that's a win. You're one step closer to being that much better. Much like that scenario of the 10,000, you know, several nodes.

Inventing the light bulb.

Yes, yes.

Attempt number 452. Yay, it failed! But I learned something along the way.

Yes, exactly, exactly.

This has been so amazing, Shawna. Do you have any last thoughts about what we're talking about? Is there anything that we haven't talked about that you think is important for the audience to know?

I would say that when it comes to mindset, It's not, you know, think about this as you're actually going out and you're solving problems. And that you're really creating value. And the concept of confrontational, you know, it's not us against them. And so often, we think about that, particularly when we talk about negotiation. It's like, as soon as we come to a price, it's an all-out fight and war against one another. But it's not. Think of it as 2 people coming together or 2 organizations coming together collectively for a better good, a better support. And just as if you can really reframe it to more of a problem-solving conversation that I'm providing value and that they have a need and together, we're going to work together. That makes such a difference if you think about how you show up to meet that customer. That resonates off you. And it also helps to tame them, that angst that they're feeling about, oh yeah, Marc's coming in and he's really high pressure. And so I've got to make sure that I'm shoring up everything against him. It's like all of a sudden it's like, whoa, that's really refreshing. You know what? Oh, we're going to have a conversation and I can let myself down. The quality of that relationship that gets created, whether it turns into a sale that day or down the road, it probably turns into some referrals and some testimonials down the road as well.

Nice! Shawna, this has been amazing. Thank you so much. Could you just remind everybody one more time how they can get a hold of you?

Absolutely. So, quigleycoaching.com. Q-U-I-G-L-E-Y coaching, C-O-A-C-H-I-N-G. Or sorry, .com. And direct email is shawna@quigleycoaching.com. And please feel free to join me on social media. Link with me.

And you have— so, I put in the show notes. I put a link onto some sort of an assessment or a worksheet.

Absolutely. So, I have a 5-minute online assessment. It's called Where's Your Business Now? And that is completely free. You can go to my website, click on it. It will automatically email you the results. And it's my gift to you. If you would like to have a further conversation about some of the things that you learn in that, feel free to book a 30-minute complimentary session with me. And if you go to my website, you can in the contact session ask for a sales assessment. And there's a number of questions you can go through that will help you to identify specifically where in the sales cycle You might need some support.

Amazing! Thank you again, Shawna. This has been amazing. Thank you so much for being here.

Thank you, Marc. It was such a pleasure. I really enjoyed it.

Why don't you let me know if this was of value to you? As always, my offer stands. If you would like 30 minutes of my time to help you brainstorm your business with you and your team, why don't you go ahead and book yourself on my online calendar? The link is down below. It's the one that's marked meetme.so/MarcHaine. And that's Marc with a C. As always, I am at your service. And if you haven't done so yet, why don't you go ahead and click the subscribe button and subscribe to this feed. Go ahead and I would love it if you would tap out a review on what you thought of today's episode. And by doing so, it'll give you first— I'll be able to give you first dibs whenever I bring you Some fresh content that will help you work on your business, not just in your business. My name is Marc Haine. I hope you stay safe, stay healthy, and dare to be the exception.