Is your aversion to selling equal to or greater than your aversion of being sold to? For most heart-centered, creative, coaches and service providers, the concept of selling is a huge obstacle between you and your ideal clients. Wouldn’t you much prefer that they just magically appear and give us money?
It’s not like you’re working in a department store or specialty boutique selling shoes or the latest dark chocolate/sea salt coffee concoction. You’re selling your talents, brilliance, gifts and yes, your creativity. You’ve invested the proverbial blood sweat and tears into creating your product or service!
Here’s a 3-step process I share with my clients.
Step 1: Have a heartfelt conversation with yourself to uncover or discover the resistance you’re experiencing around selling.
Here are some possibilities:
- Lack of clarity about the pain or challenge your ideal clients are experiencing?
- Lack of confidence that your product or service can deliver the results your clients need and want?
- Uncertainty as the value or worth of the solution you’re offering?
- Inability or resistance to asking for money?
Write down every thought that comes to you as you – give judgement the day off so you don’t filter, dismiss or disregard what could be important discoveries.
Step 2: If it’s lack of ability or skill, take action to acquire what you need. What’s much more likely is that by shifting your mindset, your natural ability will emerge. Here’s the thing – if you’re in a romantic relationship, you engage in selling conversations. If you have children, you have masterful selling conversations. So, it’s clearly not that you lack the ability!
Make the subtle shift from “hoping they buy” to “knowing you have the solution that will help them” and you’ll have a conversation that comes from you heart, not your head or your checking account. Canned scripts don’t work because you’re not talking from your heart – you’re reading a script….and your prospects know it!
To help you shift into the helping mindset, visualize yourself walking around the desk and sitting next to your client – you’re on their side with the common goal of solving a problem, providing a solution.
The energy of being on the same side with a potential client is powerful. Rather than “convincing them to buy”, talk about how you’ll work together to help them. Using this approach, they’ll see you as being on their team, understanding their problem and willing to help them step into the solution.
Step 3: Talk less, listen more! The features, process, systems and platform your product or service has may not be as important to your prospect as they are to you. They want results, solutions, remedies and they want it fast, so that’s what you want to talk about. You want to be an active listener who encourages them talk about how much easier, better and happier they’ll be with the problem solved. Ask questions, be curious, and listen with all of your senses!
You’ve made the decision to build a business around your passion, so when you speak in a powerful, engaging and compelling manner, your prospects will want to work with you and buy your programs.
One of the most valuable lessons I learned is that not everyone I talk to is an ideal client for me. When you walk into a shoe store, do you ask the sales associate to bring you a pair of shoes in your size and pay for the shoes? Of course not. You have an idea of what style, type and color you need. Not all shoes fit the same, feel terrific and give you the sensation that you absolutely positively must buy them!
Help you client prospect discover what s/he needs. Ask questions, share your experiences with other clients you’ve helped in similar situations and that will help your client discover the wisdom in making the decision that’s best for them.
Using these three steps will not only help you overcome your resistance to selling, it will allow your prospect to go through a process of self-discovery, so they can make an informed decision that your product or service is the right solution for them.
Comments? I’d love to hear from you –