How to Shift Your Money Mindset and Boost Your Sales with Amanda Abella

But the problem is you don't have your mind right. That's why we brought Amanda Abeya in today from Make Money Your Honey. Get that straight. To talk to us today about boosting sales. Amanda, so excited to have you on here today because there's so much mind chatter going on that is not serving our coaches, our consultants, our experts who are out there who need to boost their sales. Why is it so hard for us to get our mind right around particularly high-ticket sales, which I know you specialize in?

I mean, how much time? I don't know if we have all the time in the world to talk about it. We have 15 to 20 minutes. We have 15 to 20 minutes. Okay. Let me try and put all of society's problems into 15 to 20 minutes. So it's a good thing I have a background in radio and media and stuff, right? Yes. Okay. Talking points. Let's go. Um, so here's the biggest thing, right? Part of the issue why we struggle so much with the money mindset is because nobody was taught how to properly think about money or relate to money. So it's kind of a systemic problem. So, you know, I train my sales team all the time, or our clients, or even me, and the stuff that we picked up as children usually ends up playing out in our businesses and how we manage, handle, make money, all those kinds of things. So I'm thinking of one of my team members. You know, when she started learning sales, she really struggled because she'd grown up with the story that rich people were jerks and she didn't want to be a jerk. So obviously she didn't really want to make the money because if she made the money, it would mean she was a jerk. Now, of course, that's not true. She needed to have a paradigm shift around that. So we were at an event. She ended up sitting next to a guy making $10 million a month. Talk about a paradigm shift. And he ended up helping her solve a bunch of problems. And he was like— she was like, oh my gosh, so like rich people are not at all what I thought they were. And I'm like, boom, paradigm shift number one. That's a really common one, which is why I say it. But most people did not grow up in environments where there wasn't some sort of dysfunctional relationship to money. Agreed.

And I think of when I was growing up, I would often hear the term money doesn't grow on trees, you know. And so you grow up with that thinking and that mentality around money, and so then you act and behave in certain ways that are aligned to the fact that money doesn't grow on trees, or at least that you, you know, you heard that. So are there some other examples of things that people are taught or that we're indoctrinated into thinking as a child that affects us and our ability to sell when we are in the entrepreneurial space?

That money is limited. That's a huge one. No, it's not. I mean, if we wanted to, everybody on the planet would be a billionaire with the amount of money in circulation. It's just a matter of you learning how to get your piece of the pie. I think that's one. I think that even wanting, like a lot of people literally feel bad if they make money because for example, a really common one, especially in the West, money is the root of all evil. Which is not even what the Bible says, which is the most interesting part about it. It just somehow turned into that. So, uh, that's a really common one, um, in the West. Um, you know, if people want money, then there's some sort of power or manipulation going on there. People don't want to be bad people, and when they've been told their whole lives that money would make you a bad person then what else are they going to think, you know? Um, so that's, that's a common one. Other common ones are like, if you grew up in a household where like people didn't know how to manage money, then a lot of people grew up thinking that they're never going to be able to figure it out, uh, because a lot of times they're just repeating what they saw. Um, I think other ones are things like, um I shouldn't be pushy is a huge one that gets people in trouble in business. I shouldn't ask for what I want because if I ask for what I want, it's rude.

Is that— Amanda, do you think that is particularly a problem more so with women than men?

Yes, but men do struggle with it too. Yeah, it's just not as much because we're conditioned very differently.

I have a, a client actually who is a faith-based pastor, entrepreneur, coach, consultant. And we had this conversation recently where she was saying to me, you know, I don't think that I am able to ask for what I want because of my faith. Like, it's preventing me from thinking a certain way about money. Like, that if I'm faith-based, I ought not to go for the, the big payday. And so can we just talk briefly about that whole piece, like internal values, how we think about the world outside of us can impact how we go about our own sales process?

Yeah. Religion's actually a huge one that's done a number on people in terms of money. I'm not, I grew up religious. I'm not really, like my parents are still religious. I'm not religious. I don't really like vibe with it, but I've coached people from all kinds of different religious backgrounds, and that seems to be a really common denominator, particularly when it comes to guilt and shame around money. 100%. Or the idea of, you know, I mean, money is the root of all evil, they say, comes from the Bible, you know, for example. Or the idea that if you're a good person, then you're basically Um, it's kind of this idea of, um, I think it was called asceticism or something like that, where you would like give everything up, or you have to go be like a monk in the Himalayas and own nothing and have nothing, right? But when you think about how the world actually works, right? And like, we can get— can we get meta here? Can we get like woo-woo?

Totally, let's go!

Okay, so let's— woo! Okay, I mean, if you look at nature, which was made by God, infinite intelligence, divine— I mean, it goes by so many different names, Right? Nature's a show-off and it's constantly abundant so long as it's not being messed with by humans. The universe is constantly expanding, constantly. We know this. Science backs this up. Why would we think we're any different as humans if we're a part of this universe and we're a part of this consciousness and we're a part of nature? It just doesn't make any sense.

You're right. And yet, we are and should be thinking of ourselves in an expansive way, in thinking about growth and abundance. And yet, so many people make themselves small when it comes to sales, especially when it comes to high-ticket sales. And the importance of that in business is huge. If you want to have cash flow, if you want to reinvest in yourself, if you want to be able to have the lifestyle that you aspire to have, you're going to need to in my opinion, and maybe yours too, Amanda, is you have to have something high ticket to sell. You know, absolutely, you have to have that. But yet around high ticket sales, people get really weird about asking for what they want and then standing in there and being confident with what it is that they're offering at that particular price point. And so how can we shift our mindset around? Yes, the value is here. I'm absolutely going to stand in confidence around this particular price.

Yeah, my answer might surprise you, especially after the last year that I just had, because I would have said something. I mean, it's still true, right? Like, for most people, when that's happening, there is some sort of a worthiness thing going on, or I'm not worthy of receiving this. So a lot of people think, oh, if I'm going to be charging that much money, then I need to bend over backwards, work 24/7. They need to reach— I need to throw everything at it in order to be able to charge that much money, because they've equated the money with themselves, right? So like, or the other way that this shows up is their client results. They take it very personally, right? But you and I have been in business long enough where we both know we can't take that personally. Like, there's so many variables at play and people will turn on you on a dime, right? They love you for 6 months and then they hate you. I mean, it just is what it is. So I think part of what goes on is that Um, people equate their worth, right? Like my inherent worth as a human being and whether or not I can ask for these things, to how much money they're making, how successful their businesses are, and whether or not other people like them. And what we have to do is we have to divorce ourselves from all of that and realize that our inherent worth has absolutely nothing to do with any of that. And then money starts getting easier.

That is a big one to unpack because that connection to the worthiness is so key and important. And like you said, not getting, not getting romantic about it, not getting so caught up in, oh, I have to put in more, I've got to do more, I've got to bend over backwards in order— you have to divorce yourself from that outcome. You have a program that you offer that gets people from a transformation of this to this, and you price it based on the value of the result that they get from doing the process. But you can't be responsible for them not doing the part that they're invested to do to get that result.

Exactly. Right. Yeah.

I wonder, I know that in the work that you do, I mean, you're a business coach, you're an award-winning creator, you're a speaker. I mean, you do so many different things in this space today. What do you think is the biggest problem that entrepreneurs, coaches, consultants are having when it comes to boosting their sales? Is it just mindset or is there something else going on?

Mindset is a part of it, which causes a lot of the issues, right? But I think another part of it is people don't know how to relate to other people. They don't know how to have relationships with other people. You know, like, you, um, you know, for example, like, you join a networking group and then you get pissed that nobody has sent you any leads. Okay, but did you actually go out and like meet people and maintain the relationship? 9 times out of 10, the answer is no. Or, you know, when it comes to sales, right, sales is people skills. It's relating to other people. You know, it's, um, you know, you've, you've been in TV and media. I'm sure you had to interview a lot of people in Exactly right. So interviewing and sales is very similar in the sense that if you want to get very good at sales, you have to get very good at asking questions and being curious. And also, and I'm sure you probably also experienced this as an interviewer, your ego need not be there. And what happens for most people is their egos get in the way because they're making it transactional. They're thinking about themselves. They're like, oh my God, I have to get this sale. Oh my God, I have to do this. Oh my God, I have to close this person. Oh my God, they have to like me. Am I saying the right thing? Am I doing the right thing? Am I? And then there's just like on and on and on and on, and then you end up not relating to them. And it's the relation that people really struggle with. People really struggle in relating to other humans and then maintaining those relationships and that there was relationships being reciprocal.

Okay. So digging into that a little bit more, the service mindset, I, whenever I go into a sales call, I always try to, well, first of all, I do say a little prayer and I ask God to sort of speak through me and be of service to this person. Like, I say a little prayer and I just say, you know, please, you know, let me be of service to this person and give the best that I can to this person in this moment so that we can see, is this person a fit for what it is that I do? But I am not going into the sales call with a mindset of I have to convince and persuade this person to do something. Yeah, I'm going into it with is thinking, is this— I want to determine, is this person someone who I can actually help? And if they are, I'll make them an offer. This isn't always the case. Sometimes you get on calls and you find out that you're not a fit for that person. I know what I do in that situation. I'll share what I do in a moment. I'd love to know what you do in that moment when you get on a call. First of all, what is your process? Do you go into it with a specific mindset around service like I do, or maybe do something different? And then secondly, what if they're not a fit? Then what?

Yeah, I love hearing people's pre-sales call rituals because everybody's got something. I used to do like self-hypnosis, like now I do meditation. I know people who do like jumping. Everybody's got a thing, right? To like, some people have a playlist, everybody's got their own thing. So I love hearing that. Um, you know, it's similar for me. I'm just like, let me help this person. And here's the thing that other people don't realize, right? This goes back to that abundance mindset. If you honestly, this is what I find so crazy about the online space is that so many people teach how to make money in abundance, but then they don't practice what I'm about to say. Which is if you really believe that the universe is abundant and that you are abundant, you don't need to close everybody. Not everybody's going to be a good fit. You're not supposed to be helping everybody. That being said, you know, I had a call yesterday where like it really was not a good fit, right? There's something that she needed to figure out beforehand. Do you know what I did? I sent her to one of our referral partners who could fix her immediate problem.

Oh, I love hearing that, Amanda, because that's exactly what I do too. And it validates that I'm on the right track because this is your specialty. And I think I'm pretty good at sales. I mean, I have done pretty well, you know, through the mentorship and coaching and things that I've learned about sales on my own. But knowing that that comes from you really validates that I'm on the right track. That is what I do. I mean, I get on a call and if it's a fit, great, I will make that offer. If it's not a fit, I will say so. I'll just say, you know what, you're not a fit for the thing I do, but it's been great getting to know you. But I do want to refer you to somebody who I think is more appropriate to the thing you actually need right now. And so, there's this piece around, and again, this does tie into mindset, which is sometimes people go into sales calls with an air of desperation.

I'm so glad this is going here. I have a lot to say.

Desperation. And so, you know, as the coach, you're like, I really need to pay. I need this cash flow. I need to get this sale. And this energy, whether you even realize it or not, is coming through you like you just ate um, garlic, and it's coming and pouring through your pores, and everyone can sense it. Yeah. And so how can we get rid of this? Even though, you know, your bank account is telling you you are desperate, but how do you go into a sales call and put on an air that you're not?

Oh, I'm so glad I finally get to talk about this. Okay, so previous to 2022, right, I was a— well, my first business, I was in the finance space. So I'd always been pretty good with money. Now here's what happened going into 2022, and this will tie it all together. End of 2021, I have a 6-figure month, right? There's a lot of stuff going on behind the scenes with my family. My dad was ill for 8 months. That was taking up a lot of time. My business was blowing up. There weren't enough support systems in place. And unbeknownst to me, that 6-figure month triggered a trauma response from when my family fled communism. So what happened was I was going around feeling unsafe, like I had a target on my back. My panic attacks started coming up, and I started making some real bad decisions, right? To the tune of like $40,000 worth of bad decisions. Okay. Until I started finally figuring out— got help to figure out like, what the hell is wrong with me? I don't understand why I feel this way. This is the thing I've been working toward. For so long and I feel like crap. I don't get it. So I— and then I'm like self-sabotaging left and right, which was unusual behavior for me. And, um, you know, and normally I was the type of person that if I felt uncomfortable, I would just like bulldoze through it. But I couldn't bulldoze through it. There was nothing I could do. And, um, the bulldozing wasn't working. The coping mechanisms weren't working. So I ended up having— in addition to that, I ended up taking about 6 months from my business to just get myself together again after I found out, oh girl, you basically went into— I was talking to the person who got me through this a couple weeks ago. She goes, you were pretty much in a state of PTSD. Like, I didn't tell you that then, right? She couldn't tell me that then, right? But a year later she goes, you were in PTSD. Like, you, you just, you couldn't function basically is what was going on. So I took the time to take care of me. What does that mean? That means the business suffered in terms of sales because I was number one closer. Then I took time, right, to go to my team and be like, I need other people to start stepping up and I need better systems. What happened? I took a financial hit for that. So going into 2022, right, Amanda's got a lot of business debt. Amanda's got bills to pay. Amanda's revenue isn't what it used to be, right? And all Amanda's shit— pardon my French— around money has been coming up for a year while she's making these transitions because I'm like, I'm not hustling for the rest of my life. I really want to build something. And what I had to learn how to do in those moments was no matter how hard it got. And let me tell you, when the book comes out, when it happens, like, you all know how bad it was getting behind the scenes financially, but it was getting bad. I went from like being good with money to being like negative tens of thousands of dollars. And what kept coming up for me was like, this is your moment. Like, if you don't rewire your brain around money and yourself now, it's never going to happen. So that's what I did, right? It didn't matter how bad it got. It didn't matter, you know, how bad the situation was. I was like, I'm not letting this take me out, right? We actually had a client that we did a lot of work for them and they did a chargeback for $15,000. Hmm. After we had done the work. Wow. While we were going through all of it, just because they decided they didn't want to do it anymore. Yeah, you know, so that stuff happens, right? That stuff happens. And that's what I'm saying, that I had to learn, number one, how to not like rely my worth on those types of things and what other people do. Because previous to this, right, I would have been like, oh my God, I'm a horrible person, what did I do wrong? You didn't do anything wrong, Amanda. Humans just be humaning. That's what's going on here. It's just a part of the, the game, especially when it starts getting bigger. The other thing that I realized is that my worth had nothing to do with what my credit card said or the bank account or any of that. So it's like, for the first time, like, the situation got worse than it had ever been, and that's when the inner resources started coming out. And that's what people don't realize. I was coaching a client the other day who's in a similar situation, and he's like, they're in a process of making a pivot. And I'm like, do you want to know what the great thing about being broke is, you have nothing to lose. Make the pivot.

That's great, I love that.

Make the pivot. You have nothing to lose. You're already living your worst-case scenario. What's the worst that could happen?

So Amanda, in that situation, as you again pulling yourself out of that PTSD, were you getting on sales calls And how were you able to park your sense of like, I really need this right now? How were you able to park that aside? And what— in a mindset shift that you just kind of convinced yourself or pumped yourself up and parked it, how did you get over that sense of desperation in moments where you really needed it?

It's not easy. I'm not here to tell anybody that it is easy. This is stuff that's hardwired in us since we're very young. What I will say, right, is I did lean on spiritual understanding. Like, wait a minute, why would God want me to be broke? Let's start there. No, that doesn't make any sense because you have things to do and those things cost money. That's right, it is what it is. Number 2, realizing that money— this is gonna get woo, but like, money doesn't necessarily come from other people, it comes from Source through other people.

Mm.

So learning to lean into that source also works through me. Yes. So learning to lean into that, and that's where like, wait a minute, I am worthy regardless of what's going on right now. And like, I'm already wealthy in here. That's where it starts.

Oh, this is so good because I believe that wholeheartedly. The whatever's going on for you externally, the seasons of your business, because there are seasons in your business. There are seasons where everything, you, you have a $100,000 month. There are seasons where, and I'll tell you from my own experience, there was a point I had $100 in my account. $100. And this was before I got smart and understood how things worked. So I was running my entire business out of my personal account. Yeah, bad times, Amanda, bad times. Yeah, $100. I got pretty resourceful very quickly. Yeah, well, that's the other But you have cycles, you have these ups and you have these downs, and those are just seasons you're going to go through in business and in life. Yeah, disconnect yourself from that. And it doesn't mean that you're not good at what you do, that you're not worthy of abundance, that you're not worthy of, of having good things happen to you so that you can do good things in the world. It's just that you're going through that particular season.

Yeah, and it's also what is the stuff going on in this season teaching you and what are you resisting? Right, because part of the issue was that I was resisting to the changes that I needed to make in my business, partially because of the trauma response that was coming up. So I had a mentor, she goes, girl, with what you do and your brain, you need to start going into more established businesses. Like, you're playing small. And I've had several people tell me that, like, since then. And I was like, oh my God, but I have this thing going on over here. And it's true, like, I've put myself in environments where I think way bigger than what I was actually doing. But I wasn't moving in that direction because, um, you know, one of the trauma response things was that I would feel guilty for leaving people behind. Well, that's because my family literally left people behind to save themselves and then played out a survivor's guilt cycle there my whole life. And then that's what I was doing. So that was number one, right? And then the second thing was like, I just didn't feel worthy of it. Like, I was just like, but what could I possibly have to offer? Like, what, what could I do to go into more established businesses? And then it's actually how I found the group that you and I met in. And, um, you know, I had a mentor who'd been telling me to do that for 3 months. I didn't do it until I was forced to do it because I was negative like $10,000 in the business account because of this client that just decided that they didn't want to meet their end of the agreement. You mentioned— So it's kind of like, what are you resisting?

And what are you resisting?

Yeah. People resist and then we get shoved in the direction we're supposed to go in.

You mentioned something really key, and then I'm gonna give you an opportunity to share how people can connect with you. This idea of like how you think about yourself, you have to behave and act like the person that you want to be, that you deserve to be, that you want to be. And act as if you're that person now. You have to have the mindset to say, I'm just going— I might not physically have manifested that thing yet in my life here because this is a season that I'm going through. I'm on the pro— I'm in the process, I'm on the journey to becoming that person, but I'm going to act and I'm going to behave to myself and to others as if I'm already there.

Yeah, and I'll add two things to that, which is number one, face your dark shit around money and yourself and your own value and your relationships to other people. Face it, because most people want to avoid it. And that's what happened to me. I was using money and avoiding all the issues I had in relationships. So guess what the universe did? Okay, Amanda, you have a whole identity wrapped around this. Boom, gone. Now you have to deal with it. You're not distracted anymore.

It's brilliant.

I could see that, you know, in retrospect.

Well, yeah, in the moment though, in the moment, those moments are low. In the moment, it's dire. In the moment, it challenges you to your core to be able to find the fortitude, the resilience, the persistence, the resources, and to be able to pull yourself out of that. That's why I think I'm such a big proponent of mentorship and coaching and support and masterminds like we're part of. That's where you need to have support around you.

Which I did whatever was necessary to get that level of support. Slap it on a credit card, get the retirement account, sell the stocks. I did not care because I knew that I needed that level of support. And here's the interesting thing: it's really hard in the beginning, and it's really hard when you're going through it, but you hold the line, right? You have to hold the line. Most people don't. And what's happening is your identity around money is totally shattering in that moment. So it's hard, it's very difficult. You're starting to disassociate from everything you've been playing up until that moment. And but you want to know what started to happen? Was I did start to manifest things. I would go into a meditation and I'd be like, oh my God, I have this massive problem right now. I'm like negative $10 grand in the bank account. Universe, what do I do? 20 minutes, text this person. I text the person, that person has the exact step that I need to get to the next thing. The next thing then led me to the group that you and I are in. I've made a lot of money off of that group and counting, right? And I've met amazing people and great relationships and clients that treat us super great., from that group and all like personal relationships too. It wasn't just that. So you start to realize like, oh my God, I am creating this. Oh my God, I am the conscious creator of what's going on here. But everything had to get shattered first, and I had to hold the line while it was being shattered. And for a lot of people, it comes through money. That lesson comes through money because we're attaching too much of our identity and our survival to it. So it's kind of like, okay, well, are you going to be living this way forever?

We could be here for a while because it's so deep. It's so deep.

Deep.

It's really, really deep. You have a way that people can, uh, get a free guide. I'd love for you to walk us through what this very valuable resource is.

Yeah. So this is how to 3x your, uh, organic inbound leads via referral partners. So one of the things that I ended up doing while I was in this state was like, well, how do I meet as many people as possible? How do I just get back to what you know how to do, Amanda? You know how to meet people. And what happened was when I was in that process, I realized a lot of people didn't know how to maintain relationships, and I realized a lot of people didn't know how to talk about their businesses, and I realized that a lot of people were not organized in those business relationships that could continue sending them business. So what I did is I put everything into a guide. So it's an 8-step guide on how to find referral partners the easy way. It's also on how to maintain the relationships, how to work with referral partners, exactly what to say on the calls, exactly how to follow up with people. We actually had the woman who built Deepak Chopra's sales team get her hands on this, um, because she's a friend of mine, and she goes, this would solve everybody's lead flow problems if they actually executed on this.

So what we're going to do is we will take— there's a special link, and we are going to put that special link under this video for those who are watching on the video platforms or on social media. And then we'll also link that up on the description of the episode for the audio listeners as well. So Amanda, this has been fantastic. I want to ask you one last question. What is something— it could be a tip, a tool, a tactic or technique— that's really helping you to market yourself, to market, make money your honey? What is something that's truly working for you exceptionally well right now?

Well, the other great thing about rock bottom moments is that the creativity that starts coming from the other side of it, man, that hits different in your marketing because it's exactly what you said. It's the resilience that came out of it. It's the lessons that came out of it. It's the experience. And when you go through that, you give less Fs.

You really do.

I love it. You just give less Fs, right? And when you give less Fs, it's interesting how your marketing starts to hit. So one of the things you and I were talking about when we met was I noticed the similarities between sales and dating. It's one of those things that in my rock bottom moments, I realized there was a connection because I'm like, oh, wait a minute, my money's a mess, but so are all my relationships, right? Because they're a package deal. They come together. And clients are relationships at the end of the day. So what happened was I started realizing like, oh, okay, I'm acting like a basic bitch right now because I'm not playing big and I'm not doing what I'm supposed to be doing. And I see all these other people out here acting like basic bitches. I don't want them as clients anymore. I want the guys who actually know what they're doing. So I started creating these archetypes from basic bitch all the way to Empress, right? And what that looks like in each stage of business and what that looks like in terms of behavior. And guys that started watching this on my live streams and they started reaching out to me and they're like, hey, the things that you're saying women do in business that keep them stuck, we're seeing it while we're dating them. Interesting. I know, right? And I was like, tell me more. So then we started finding the connections and I'm like, oh my God, sales and dating is the exact same thing, pretty much. Right? And it's not just like making the money or making the sale. It's also like relating to another human and the curiosity and the energy and how you feel about it and how you're presenting things and how you feel about yourself among lots of other things. So what we've been doing is equating, number one, giving less Fs and just like one-liners and zingers of like, look, here's the truth, because I really don't care anymore because I've been through too much. And that's attracted really high-quality people who've also been through too much and are tired of what I call basic bitchosity.

And right, and it's so true. I mean, there are so many parallels between sales and dating.

And yep. And then The sales and dating, right, has really been taking off because it's making people feel less scared of sales. And all sales is, is relationship building.

100%. This is fantastic. I have a feeling, Amanda, I have a feeling that we'll have to have another conversation.

We'll have to do— Well, you're coming on my podcast, so I don't know. I know, I'm excited.

I cannot wait. Thank you so much, Amanda, for being here and sharing all of these insights. I think it's truly valuable. And just a reminder to our audience who are watching the video, if you're watching on YouTube, please subscribe to the channel and then you'll be notified when we do more Cash In On Camera episodes. If you're watching the video, you can take your camera and, uh, take a picture of the QR code that's on your screen, which will take you to my signature card. And from there, which I keep up to date with all the resources and trainings you might want to learn about YouTube MasterClass or but Scalable Business Accelerator, which is my program to help, uh, 6-figure entrepreneurs, 5 and 6-figure entrepreneurs, to grow and scale their businesses. We specialize in podcasts, YouTube, digital leverage, digital products, and speaking. And you can connect with me there. So if you're listening to the podcast though, you might want to find a way to connect with me on social media, send me a message. Would love to connect with you and send you the resources that you need to grow. Thank you so much for being here and listening to today's episode, and I can't wait to see you on the next one. Bye for now.