You Need to Ask for the Sale

Happy Monday. I am here to talk about sales. We're going to talk about generating revenue. I've been having the best month of the entire 2022 year this month of August. And so we're going to talk about that today. I would love for you to say hi in the chat. As I was prepping my notes, prepping my notes for the live this morning, I always get here a little early. I sit down with my thoughts. Of for the Monday Momentum. But while I was doing that, I was listening to a Voxer conversation with my mastermind group. These ladies are about to come out to the beach and spend a weekend with me in a couple of weeks, and I'm really excited about it. But I'm listening to a conversation that they're having between each other about what's happening in their businesses right now. They are lifting each other up. They are sharing. They are giving advice. They're just being supportive. And I feel like that needs to be the tone of today's Monday Momentum. And I told you last week that I was in the weeds and I'm, I'm still kind of in the weeds. It's getting better. But I want to— I want you to understand something before we get started this morning. I want you to understand that being an entrepreneur is hard. It's hard. And If it was easy, you would see more people doing it. And some people are just not meant to be entrepreneurs. They don't have the constant drive, they don't have the self-motivation. But if you're an entrepreneur, and it's okay, it's totally okay if that's not you, and you may realize that after you get into your business, but if you are constantly thinking about your business, you're constantly thinking about what you can do next, about upleveling your customer experience, you are a true entrepreneur and you're gonna get in the weeds like I, I've been in the weeds for the month. You're gonna get down on what you're doing. You're gonna ask yourself why you're doing it probably more times than you would care to admit to. But that means you're an entrepreneur because that means that you care and you're gonna make it because it's the people that fight through the adverse, you know, times. It's the people that fight through the struggle. It's the people that fight through those times where sales are down or the subscriber numbers are down. Those are entrepreneurs. We fight through the things. We don't give up on the things. Okay. And so I want— this is your little Monday Momentum reminder that we're all fighting through something. Okay. It could be trying to build our audience, trying to fill out paperwork, trying to do tech, trying to just create sales so you can pay your rent. We're all fighting through something with our business. It is a constant. You will constantly be fighting through something. So I just want to give yourself a little break, a little rest in your mind that you're not— you're the only one. Like I'm the only one struggling with this. No, I'm the only one that is struggling with this. No, we are all struggling with something. It might be a little bit different for each of our businesses, but we all have challenges and it's how we react to them and it's how we come back from them that makes us stronger business owners. So I want you just— that's just a little mindset for today. As we get started, because I want to talk about— I want to talk about having sales. I had a rough July. I had a rough July in sales. And as I started August, I thought, oh gosh, please don't let me repeat July. I had a great June and I had a rough July. And I thought, oh gosh, please don't let me have another July in August. And I kept thinking about it and I started to look Here's what I want you to think about. I want you to analyze, I want you to analyze your data. I want you to look back and see what you did. I want you to pull up your sales for last month and see what you did. And if it was kind of flatline, like mine was kind of, eh, it was kind of eh, there was nothing, nothing spiking sales throughout the month. And I thought, okay, what did I do in July? What did I not do in July? And how do I make sure that August was different? And that's how I went into August and I made a plan. And here's the thing that I want to tell you today. When you have a plan, you execute. When you don't have a plan, you're not sure what to execute. So you spend time doing this, you spend time doing this, you spend time doing this, and really nothing comes out of it because you didn't have a plan you were executing. And so I went into August because I think I was in July without a plan. I was like, I don't want to buy new inventory because I'm sitting on a lot of inventory. I'm just going to try to sell what I have and call it a day, and then I'll buy new inventory later, right? That was my plan. That was a terrible plan. I had no plan to move the inventory. I thought I would just show up and do all the things that I always do, and sales would magically appear and I would go on my merry way. Well, that didn't happen, so I had to do things differently for August. And you know what the biggest thing that I did differently in August? I showed up and asked for the sale. I'm gonna say it again. I showed up and asked for the sale. I serve, serve, serve constantly. Here's this, I'm serving this, I'm showing you this, I'm giving you tips here. But what I forget to do sometimes, because I don't like to be salesy, is I forget to ask for the sale. And so, and so I didn't. And so I thought, okay, I'm gonna ask for some sales in August. I serve these people year-round. I'm gonna, I'm gonna show up and I'm gonna ask for the sale. And so here's what, here's what— let me pull my notes up here. Here's what we're doing. Let me say hi to everybody. We're going to get into this conversation because I think it's needed and everybody can rinse and repeat what I did with my business. It may look a little different. I'm going to really walk you through what I did and what I'm going to continue to do for the rest of this month to make sure that I land on top for the year here. Good morning, everybody. Hi, Andrea. Hi, Antoinette. Good morning, Jessica. It's good to see you here. Hi, Jennifer. Good morning, Laura Lee. Hi, Joan. Hi, Bobby. Good morning, everybody. We got to get back on track because there's, there's a lot of stuff that we're all dealing with. And Antoinette, I guarantee that you're not the only one here dealing with, you know, a loved one that may be dealing with something. My mother-in-law has been in the hospital. She had a very intensive brain surgery last weekend, and that's heavy. That's heavy on my mind. It's heavy on my family. There's my My husband's been gone, so now I'm single parenting while he's gone. And so there's a lot of things that happen in people's lives that we don't ever really talk about, but it puts more on us, right? So all the things that he would help me with, now I have to take those on. And plus I'm worried about him, I'm worried about her, I'm worried about the family. And so all of those things take a toll on us because we're trying to do so many different things as well as take care of our loved ones or help our loved ones through something. Or maybe we're all dealing with something on the back end. So I want you to know you're not alone in that either. But good morning to everybody that's here. All right. The first thing I want you to do, write this down. You got to start asking for the sale. Let's stop being timid about what we do. People follow us. Because we sell stuff to them. We're e-commerce businesses. We sell stuff, y'all. Do y'all know we sell stuff? So we have to ask for the sale, and we can't be shy about it. We have to ask for the sale. We don't have to be salesy all the time. That's not me. That's probably not a lot of you. We don't have to show up and sell every single day and ask for the sale all the time, but we need to ask for the sale. So if we've not been asking for the sale, we have to start. Okay. Number 2, what am I selling and how does it benefit them? So number 2 is we've got to share the benefits. Okay. So you can say, oh, Sarah, I just, I just sell cute t-shirts. Same. I just sell cute t-shirts. How does this benefit my customer? They don't have to figure out what they're going to wear every day. I'm going to show you how to layer it so you don't have to wonder that you look good. I'm going to help you with your confidence because you're going to put something on that fits you. It's not hugging all the places you don't want it to hug. You're going to walk more confident. You may not have to do laundry every 3 or 4 days because you got more stuff in your closet to wear. You don't have to go shopping because I'm going to send it right to your door. What are the benefits? Sell the benefits, okay? What are the benefits of what you sell? We have to show up and talk about the benefits. We have to sell the benefits, okay? Number 3, you've got to have some special promotions. So when sales are down, we've got to create some promotions. We've got to figure out a way to make things new, fresh, and exciting. So I'm going to walk you through some of this, but we've got to create some special promotions. And that could be once a month, that could be once a quarter, that could be once a week, depending on how much stuff you have and how much product that you, you sell. We have to create some special promotions. We've got to give people a reason to buy, okay? Scarcity, exclusivity, urgency. We have to give them a reason. Have some special promotions. I'm going to walk you through some special promotions I did on some old stuff I've had laying around for over a year in my warehouse. Okay, we can sell anything, we just have to make it fun, fresh, and new. Okay, and number 4, we have to have a marketing plan. We got to have a marketing plan, a marketing plan that communicates what we're doing. Emails, videos, text posts, we have to have a marketing campaign. It's great to have a special promotion. But if we don't have a marketing campaign, nobody sees it. It's Great to tell them all the benefits of getting my t-shirt club, but if I don't have a marketing campaign around it, nobody knows. So we can do all the work to set up this special promotion on the back end, but if we don't have a marketing plan for it, it's going to fall flat. So quit spinning your wheels on creating the special promotions or the benefits or asking for the sale if we're not backing it up with our marketing plan. And it doesn't have to be complicated. It can be very simple, but we have to do it. We have to do it. Okay. So I want you to think about your ideal customer. You've taken the Six in Sixty workshop. You know what I'm talking about. If you haven't taken the Six in Sixty workshop and you're watching right now, I want you to write that down on your notes to go do. And it's, it's on the website. Six, like the number six in 6nin60workshop.com. Go take it, it's free, an hour of your time. Go block out an hour and I want you to really nail down your ideal customer and curate boxes for that person if you're brand new. But if you know your ideal customer, what are they thinking and feeling and doing right now in the month of August? What are they doing? For me, they're transitioning. It's really hard. We got to transition from summer to fall, and most of that happens in August and September. That means a wardrobe transition. We've got a back-to-school transition for mothers and their kids. If you're a sports mom, you got all kinds of stuff going on. Trust me, this is why I'm in the weeds. My kids play too many sports. I'm on the road 24/7. Okay, so think about what your ideal customer is thinking and feeling and doing. Okay. And then here's what I did. Let's talk through what I did, keeping those 4 things that I talked to you already about in mind. Ask for the sale, sell the benefit, set up special promotions, and have a marketing plan. And I'll tell you how I did that for the month of August. The first thing I did was I purchased some new product that paired with old product. Okay? I got product out the wazoo. I got so much product in my warehouse right now. This is why I've been stressed out. This is why I didn't really show up and sell in July, because I had stuff that they've already seen. I didn't have anything new. I wasn't excited about it, so I didn't share. And I didn't ask for this sale. I showed up, I did my weekly live, but I was like, yeah, here's some stuff, but it's stuff I've had for a while. So if you want to buy it, buy it. You know, I didn't ask for the sale. So the only way for me to get excited about the product that was still sitting on my shelf was I needed to add something new to it. And so I got t-shirts. I got t-shirts out the wazoo, right? What do you have out the wazoo right now that you're sitting on? Put it in the chat. I want to know what are you sitting on a whole bunch of stuff of? In your business. So I said, okay, the only way I'm going to sell this is if I can show them how to wear it as we transition from summer to fall. Bought a whole new line of kimonos, and I bought them specifically to go with all these t-shirts that were laying all over my shelves. Okay, so think about what's laying on your shelves and how you can get people to see it as fresh, new, and fun. Bought kimonos, sold tons of kimonos with old t-shirts. If they had the t-shirt because they're a subscriber, now I got an extra sale because now they, they have something they can wear with it. If they weren't a subscriber, now they've got a whole outfit. They're buying the kimono and the t-shirt. So now I'm selling both items and I'm generating sales. Okay, so I want you to think about— write this down— I want you to think about what you're sitting on and what you can add to sell it. Okay, let me— I'm just going to come to the chat right here and, um, we're going to talk about it. Fabric. Rhonda, you're sitting on fabric. What do they need? What can you do to sell that fabric? Now, I don't know what kind of fabric shop it could be quilting, it could be clothing, I'm not sure. But what can they— what can you put in your shop that's new, fresh, and fun that would use this fabric? A new pattern, a new template, new— I don't know what the things are that would match it. Something to put a collection together where things would match, and you could— maybe they've never been paired together. Show them how this fabric can work together. Give them a project to use this fabric on. Okay, I feel like this is your perfect collab. Get with Diane, she's got quilting patterns, Rhonda has fabric. Let's do a collab and you guys can sell each other stuff. That would be a great option. Okay, what are you sitting on? Let's see. Christy. Christy has a ton of screen print transfers. Let's show them how they can use it. Do you only sell the transfers? Do you sell maybe the shirts that they can put them on? Maybe these are wholesalers that buy from you. But if you're selling to B2C, like business to customer, like if I'm gonna buy one transfer for you and put it on my own shirt, maybe I need the shirt too. You show me this shirt, I need the blank shirt, because now in order for me to buy the transfer, then I have to go shop for a shirt to put it on. What if you did bundles? What if you did some shirt bundles? Okay. There's so many good things here. Okay, room sprays. Is it summer scents? Is it fall scents? Is it everyday scents? What can you bundle with that to sell those? What can you pair with a room spray that would sell the room spray? I want you to start thinking about that, okay? Start thinking about what can you pair with some of the old products. So I moved lots of t-shirts and I sold tons of new kimonos. That was the first one, pairing new product with product that you're sitting on your shelf. Now some of you have a lot of product, and maybe this goes back to Christie's screen print transfers. My second thing that I did this month, my special promotion I did mystery boxes, and here's what I did differently that I haven't done before with a mystery box. A mystery box before, I would just say mystery box worth, you know, double what I priced it at. I didn't tell you what was in it. Okay, so mystery box, I did end of summer mystery box sale. And I told them what they were going to get, but it's still a mystery. Okay. So I said, you're going to get 3 shirts and 3 tops, tanks, tees, kimonos, pool coverups, something that was a top. You're going to get 3 of those. You get 3 accessories, earrings, bracelets, maybe a necklace, and you're going to get 1 mystery item. So instantly for $79, they know they're going to get 3, 3 shirts, 3 accessories and 1 mystery gift from me. And it was stuff that's been sitting on my shelves from past boxes, from last year's summer tank tops that I had. They're still sitting there. And because I told them what was in it without showing them what was in it, they saw the value and we sold a ton of end of summer mystery boxes. We had a bunch of white boxes laying around for Mother's Day that we had put a sticker on. We already had the boxes, we already had the product. All we have to do is put it together, throw it in a box, ship it out. They have value because they get items. And I said, hey, these could be from past boxes, so subscribers, if you're getting this, you might get a duplicate. I let them know. So going back to the screen print transfers, let's do a mystery screen print bundle. 10 transfers, 5 summer, 5 fall. That's another way you could pair new and old together. Okay, give them a little something that you're trying to get rid of, put something new in there. You could do some mystery bundles of screen transfers. You could do some mystery bundles of fabric. We could do some mystery room sprays. See where I'm going with this? Think about what you can get rid of, but tell them what they're going to get because then they'll see the value. 3 shirts, 3 accessories, 1 mystery gift picked out by me. Okay, huge. That was a huge, huge promotion. I'm going to tell you how I marketed it as well. Then I did— okay, that was going well, right? I was like, that was going well. I have these fall shirts. If you were here last week, I told you that, um, I panic bought in 2021. Raise your hand if you panic bought. I had gone through 2020 and being able to, um, get product was extremely stressful. So I was ordering early, early, early, early for my subscriptions, including my t-shirt subscription, and I never quite knew what that number was going to be because it's an open model. So I was kind of over ordering, hoping I would hit those numbers, you know what I mean? And so, um, I had a lot— I panic bought. I just, I panic bought. It happened. But now I need to liquidate. Okay, so it's been a year since I had my August and my September t-shirt in their t-shirt club. I'm sitting on 185 of my September t-shirts still sitting there. I'm sitting on 154 of my August t-shirts still sitting there, and I have 120 extra pairs of earrings that went with both of them. Now I got a fall bundle, and so I put together a fall T-shirt bundle, 2 shirts, 1 accessory, $39. These shirts would sell in my shop for $32 apiece. The earrings would be $18 apiece. Instantly you can see the value. Okay, the subscription is $20 a month, so they're getting a value. It's past. And here's the thing, I'm not trying to get my existing subscribers to buy this. They already have this. I want to find new customers. With this, okay? Someone new to me doesn't have this bundle. These are my designs, I created them, so they're unique and different. If you're not a subscriber or you've not been following me for the last year, you don't have these shirts. So the goal was to take these bundles and run some ads to cold audiences. I still have a profit on the bundle because my, my margin is is great. So I'm going to use the profit and keep feeding that back into the ads. Okay, so I don't want to make any money on these things. It's called an SLO, self-liquidating offer. The profit I make from the sale goes back into the ad spend so I can go find more customers. Okay, so we're targeting mostly cold, but we are targeting some of the warm audience. And what I found is that 65% of the people buying this bundle, it is their very first purchase with me. Let me say that again. 65% of the people buying this bundle, it is their very first purchase from me ever. That's a big deal because those are potential subscribers for me to target and retarget. So they're buying the fall bundle, They're making one purchase from me. They're going to get their shirts. They're going to love them. And I'm going to ask them to join my t-shirt club. So I want you to think about what you have that you can do a small bundle and you can start getting in front of new people, especially right now before we go into the fourth quarter. All right. And these shirts represent all my shirts. They're fun, inspirational, they're cute, they're hand-drawn. So now I'm getting in front of new people and people are making their first purchase from me. And we know people are more likely to subscribe from us when they have a good experience from us. So we're getting those t-shirts out, put a little note in there, and hopefully I'll be able to convert them to subscribers in the future. So that's the third thing that I've done this month. I've not sold as many of those as I have the mystery boxes, but hey, every person that's buying them— 65% of all the people buying them are brand new, and I'm excited about that. That's new people in my world that I get to serve and sell to. Okay, someone asked about how many days did I sell my mystery boxes. Um, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. I created urgency. They had to get in, they had 72 hours, and, um, create the urgency, and then we shut it off. Okay, the other thing I did, I created a whole new collection, brand new. I created it literally overnight, threw some mockups together, and started selling them, hundreds of them. Things were stale. I was posting the same thing. I was posting the same products. I needed, I needed something new, fresh, and fun for them to buy because I know I don't have a huge following. I have really loyal customers, and my most loyal customers are my subscribers. So everything I was selling, they already had. I needed to give them something else. I needed to give them more. Fall bundle's still out there. We have that running on an ad. Don't worry, Tita, you can go get a fall bundle. I'll make sure somebody— team, get, get Tita the, the link for the fall bundle. Um, they were— things were getting stale, and that's why July sales were tapering, because I didn't have anything new to show them. I didn't have anything new to bring them. And if they were loyal and they, they already bought all the things I was showing them, so I needed to bring a new collection to them. So I created our Game Day collection, and I created it overnight, and it's really different than I've ever done before. Normally I'll order all the stuff in, we'll print all the stuff and we'll ship it out. But I didn't have time to do that, okay? I didn't have time to print everything before I sold it, so I just created the designs, created the mock-ups. And what we're doing today is we are getting all their custom designs printed. We're ordering the shirts today that they need to go on, so it'll be custom. And this is another thing that I had lost sight of I hadn't been doing as many customs because it takes so much time. But I have the monogram box. That's why people follow me, because they can get things that they can't get anywhere else. They can get custom stuff. They can— that's what they love about my business. And I'd been taking that away from them because of time. And so I just had to get my team involved and said, okay, we're going to do this. and I'm going to make really easy designs that you guys can change based on people's teams and schools and colors, because I can't do it all, right? And so they're working on those, but it generated a whole bunch of new revenue already, and it's only been going for 3 days. So we're going to run that for the end of the month. I'm creating urgency because I'm not going to have game day stuff all the time. I don't have time for that. I'm gonna have it for 2 weeks and then it's gone. So I'm creating that urgency and scarcity, but I'm also bringing back what they love about my business, the ability to customize stuff. So I want you to think about what is something brand new that your ideal customer needs right now and how can you bring that to life for them. And you know what, My Facebook posts over the weekend have gotten more reach than I've had in months because it's new, fresh, and fun. I've been stale. My reach has gone down. My reach has quadrupled because they're excited about it. They're sharing it. They're commenting. They're liking. They're engaging with my posts. My posts have been stale. Because I've been showing them product that they already have. Okay. And then there's one more thing I did this month. It has to do with my subscription box. I got over 100 brand new subscribers this month, not from ads, from a brand collaboration. And I want you to think about this. So I do a brand collab with Kate Spade once a year. And I know that it's, it's different, but I want you to think about what you can do to make your subscription box different, especially if you've had a box for over a year or so. How do you make it new, fresh, and fun? Just like everything else I've been explaining to you that we did, I made it new, fresh, and fun. So my brand collab with Kate Spade was this month, and I wanted to use that as a marketing tool to get more subscribers. And, um, so we increased the number of boxes, which had me freaked out because July sales were sucky. I was like, gosh, I don't know if I'm gonna sell all these Kate Spade boxes. So I created a custom box for this brand collab. It was a box that looked different. I've had 63 different subscription boxes go out, 63 months of subscription boxes. I needed to shake it up with a fun box. And yes, it cost me a little bit more because it was one box, but it looked different. And so when I'm posting about it in my feed, it felt different and it got people's attention. It wasn't the same thing. It was, it was fun. It was new, it was fresh. It was my Kate Spade collaboration. Like, if that doesn't get people to sign up, I don't know what's going to get people to sign up. So can you do some kind of special box? Can you do a brand collab? And maybe that's having a brand in your industry. Maybe that's buying something that's branded or just saying, hey, this is our Christmas-themed box. So if you're going to send out a Christmas-themed box in November, why don't we change our logo to red and green? Why don't we change the custom packing tape to red and green? Why don't we change the box to red? And now it feels different. It feels exciting and fresh. And this is going to be our Christmas box that they're going to get. It's good. It's the same subscription box. It has a different shell, and that creates excitement and buzz. So when we talk about those are lots of promotions, I asked for the sale every week this month. Every week, and sometimes multiple times a week. I showed up live 2 to 3 times a week almost every week this month. I haven't done that. I just been steady with my one live a week, same time, same place. Sarah's here selling you old stuff. It wasn't producing sales. Shake it up. Went live Monday night, went live Tuesday, went live Thursday night from my closet, went live Friday morning. And every time I sold stuff because I was shaking up what I'd been doing, okay? I showed them the benefits of what I was selling to them. Get this kimono because you feel put together. You can wear your shirt through the fall season. This might be a shirt you got a couple months ago, and now it's going to live in your closet for another 5 months by adding a cute kimono. Sell the benefits, okay? And then I had a marketing plan. If you're inside Launch Your Box, you know what that is— your weekly email campaign. I sent out 2 of those a week for different campaigns. On Tuesday, I was selling mystery boxes. On Thursday, I was selling something. Friday, I was selling game day. It doesn't matter. I had 2 different email campaigns going out in the week instead of 1. I sent texts multiple times. One week, a little too much, I think. I sent 5 texts one week. I didn't lose anybody. I didn't lose anybody on my text list, but I was a little nervous because I sent 5 texts because I was going live all the time. Hey, I'm live. Hey, buy this. Hey, here's, here's our mystery box. Grab our new— grab our new kimonos. Check out our new game day collection. I was a little text happy, but I don't think anybody left, so that's good. But I asked for those sales. I showed up live and I asked for the sale. Okay, so create a marketing plan along with your special promotions. Don't do all the work to create the special promotion and not have a marketing plan on the back end of it. Okay, so we can do this. Your mindset just needs to shift, and sometimes that's taking a day off so you can get clear in your head. Sometimes that's just saying, okay, I gotta quit being passive about selling and just go ask for the sale. And that's what I had to do. And it's reaped huge rewards. And now I just thought of something else this week. I'm like, hey, can we throw this together? I'll go live this afternoon. And they're like, yes. And then the employees are excited again because they have stuff to do. They have work, they have new things. They're not doing the same old stuff. Okay, so the lives were mostly pop-ins, but that's why I was sending a text. Hey, I'm going live. I've got a special promotion I put together for you today. So that's the answer to that question. But I want you to just think about your week, think about what you need to sell. We've got 2 more weeks left of this month, and that's fabulous because you've got time to generate some sales. We just have to create a plan and execute it. We don't have a plan, we're not executing anything. So let's go sell some stuff. Let's get some stuff out off of our shelves. Let's go into fourth quarter with new energy. I mean, we're still in third quarter, but I'm always thinking about where we're going. Um, and let's not be afraid. We're entrepreneurs. We got this. All right, well, you have a great week and go sell some stuff, and I'll talk to you later this week inside LauncherBox. We're doing box openings and it's on Wednesday. Instead of Thursday because my son has a football game on Thursday. So I'll see you Wednesday inside Launch Your Box for some really great box openings later this week. All right, I'll see you guys soon.