71: Sell the thing you wanna sell.
Hey Mavericks, today I am sharing a piece of business advice that I recently gave to a friend of mine. This is my personal experience after spending lots of time and energy doing it the hard way.
The reason I am sharing my story is because the advice itself sounds simple...almost like a platitude. But I promise you it's not. My hope is that this will help you notice where you're doing this in your business, so you can move forward faster.
Key Takeaways:
No matter what you sell, your MINDSET IS HOW you will confidently back up your offer.
What makes something easier or harder to sell is your belief that it's the best option.
If you don't know what you want to sell, choose one anyway. It will move you forward versus keeping you stuck in "I don't know" land.
Ps, make sure you are subscribed to the show, and I’d love to hear what you think of this episode! Take a screenshot in your player and tag me @linsibrownson on Instagram.
Links
Sound editing is provided by Erik Hulslander at hearnoevilmedia.com
Schedule a coaching consultation at https://www.linsibrownson.com/get-started
Transcript
You are listening to Be Brilliant in Your Business, the podcast for small business owners to be focused, energized and in charge as you build the business you love.
Hey, Mavericks. How you guys doing? I have a little story I want to share with you. I'm getting personal again on the show; I think I've been doing that a lot lately.
So a coach friend of mine asked recently about business models for doing 1:1 coaching. She was asking what to charge, how long the package should be, if she should give her clients access to her between her sessions, what the payment options would be. All that kind of stuff around running a one-to-one coaching business.
And something inside me lights up like a firecracker when somebody asks me how I do the things I do in my business. I imagine this is kind of like what grandparents feel like when their grandkids ask them questions about who they were when they were younger. Like, they love recounting the stories of "what I did when I was your age."
Telling stories and sharing lessons is a very human experience, right? To be honest, though, for me, it almost feels a bit like a compulsion. This is something I've had to learn how to tame, because coaching is not advice giving.
I love giving advice. As my clients well know, and they like to joke with me, before I will split the tea and give my own opinion and coaching, we always work first to uncover what theirs first.
What they think they should do, what they believe about it, what they want to think about it. All of that matters far more than what my opinion is. But I will share my opinion once we get there.
I do have a lot of experience, especially when it comes to business, and my opinions have been earned through a lot of trial and error. And as you know, from listening to this podcast, a lot of unnecessary suffering. So, of course, if my experiences can serve as a signpost, or a bridge or any other shortcut through lessons that you don't really need to learn firsthand, hey, I am here for it.
I've just had to learn how to recognize when it's useful, or when it's one of those "you had to be there" stories where your poor listener's eyes glaze over - and in the back of their mind, they're thinking about all the things they could have asked that would have been a lot less painful than launching you into this total diatribe.
Speaking of diatribes...So anyway, my friend asked me this question, and I answered it in two ways.
I told her where I started with my business and where I am now. And I told her the biggest lesson that I needed to learn that made all the difference in the world to me.
This is the lesson: sell what you want to sell. Because I have the privilege of coaching business owners, I know that I'm not the only person who has spent copious amounts of time and energy, trying to figure out the best, the easiest, simplest, fastest, most fun, most profitable way of doing things.
We've all been there, right? We've tried to figure out the best way, and like I talked about a couple episodes ago, there is no "right way," until we decide that what we are doing is the right way.
Until you get 100% on board with what it is that you're selling, you're gonna waste a lot of energy questioning it. You'll waste a lot of time changing it, and leave a lot of money on the table when you try to half-heartedly sell things.
So my advice (here we go with the advice) is that you just decide to sell the thing that you really want to sell. And then you put all your effort into showing yourself exactly why it's the best choice. You got to be willing to work on your belief in what you want, in the middle of not believing that you can actually have it.
So when coaches say believe harder, it sometimes sounds too simple, or maybe even delusional. But it's actually just a call to double down on what you really want, instead of settling for less.
So here's an example. When I started coaching, this is what I told her, I was trying to decide between doing three month and six month packages. I wanted to do six months, because at that time, I had several existing clients who I had been working with in some capacity for years. And those relationships meant so much to me, I knew that I really wanted to have a coaching business where the relationship with my client was really strong. And that we had great rapport and I knew that my level of knowledge about their specific business and their life was really valuable to the work we were doing in coaching.
But I was so worried that I would never be able to sell someone who didn't already know me that way, on working with with me for six whole months. I told myself all kinds of stories about why six months just wouldn't work, and why I should probably do three. It sounded a lot sexier, it would be easier to sell, it would be a starting point. And then we could decide if we even liked each other, right?
So I had all these reasons for three months that sounded like a better option, and I decided to do three months. And then I started making the offer to people. And guess what happened? People had all the same concerns about three months that I was trying to avoid by not selling them on six months. Fascinating.
I chose what I thought was the path of least resistance versus the thing that I really wanted to do. And then I was met with the same resistance.
I didn't get myself off the hook at all. I still needed to do all the same work to be able to confidently back up my offer. And that is what you're going to have to do too, no matter what it is. You may as well pick the one that you want. And maybe you don't know for sure which one you want. Maybe you have a couple of options. It's not a big deal for you to try one and then decide later that it's not the one you want. This is not a problem at all. But do pick one.
I did three month packages with new clients for a year. And over the course of that year, I was just paying attention to where my clients were at the end of three months. And, then, that information helped me really back up my decision to switch to six months once I did it.
So my opinion is that the price, or the length of time, or the details of the scope...none of these factors make anything easier or harder to sell. What makes something easier or harder to sell is your belief that it's the best option for the person you're offering it to. Maybe you will sell multiple things. Or maybe you customize your package specific to every single client. None of that matters as much as your belief that you're making the best decision, and that you're excited about offering it and delivering it to them. Because, remember that, you are the one who is an expert in your service.
Whatever you believe is the best offer for your client, is the best offer for your client. And the only time this isn't true is when you disconnect from your desire to serve them because you're in your head worrying about all the little things that don't matter at all. So stop overthinking. And sell what you want to sell to the people who you really want to work with
That is my advice. I hope that it has been helpful. Have a great week you guys.
Hey, I know that running a small business can feel complicated. So let me help you uncomplicate it. I teach people how to harness their creative brainpower to take clear and focused action to accomplish their goals without burning out. I offer a free one hour consultation where we uncover what is really getting in your way right now.
And I'll show you step by step how to create an aligned business that you will love to build. In this conversation. I'm going to give you the foundation to work on confidently every single day, and it's going to be super simple. I want you to have the time and energy and freedom for everything that you want in life. And I want you to start having it right now. To find a time that works for you, visit linsibrownson.com