269: How to Sell and Market in 2024 - Part 2

Episode Transcript

Steve Haase  0:01  
Welcome to the Superabound podcast with master coaches, Erin Aquin and Steve Haase, where business owners like you learn tools that help you clarify vision, clear up static and overcome challenges. You are listening to episode number 269, how to sell and market in 2024. Part two, Welcome back. Hope you're having a lovely holiday season. If you are celebrating in December here with us, it is very frosty, and our tree is glowing with lights. And we're telling all the good old stories of you will and Christmas and celebrations all around the world. So it's a lot of fun over here at our house. Today's conversation, we're just going to dive right into the second part of the webinar that we gave a few weeks back on how to sell and market in 2024. This is so important because a lot of people are struggling with getting their word out. Algorithms are changing, it's harder to reach people and people you know, you see a lot of flailing out there. Right people are doing grasp be manipulative, kind of icky marketing, you know, to use the technical term for it. And what we want to do with this webinar, and the rest of this conversation here on the podcast, is to help you find your voice in a way that resonates with your people, and helps you get your business out into the world into their hearts and minds and really growing in a beautiful values and vision aligned way. That's right for you. So let's dive in. And we also mentioned the coach certification that we are offering here at Superabound. And it is a fantastic opportunity to develop the skills that we talked about in this podcast, the skills of helping clarify vision, overcoming challenges, and clearing static with yourself and also with your clients with people on your team. It is going to be awesome, we would love to have you in the certification if it speaks to you. And to learn more about it and hop on a free no obligation call with myself or Erin, you can head to besuperabound.com/certification. That's bes up erabound.com/certification. Let's dive in. So I want to know, we're just think about selling. When when things happen, it's because there's emotion involved. Emotion is the driver of our world. And I want to know what emotions you want to create for yourself. But more importantly for the people that are engaging with you, your prospective clients, your customers, what emotion Do you want them to have, as a result of being part of your sales process?

Erin Aquin  3:01  
This is really good to know for yourself. Some of the ones that we have heard, and some of the ones we definitely love, belief, excitement, commitment, trust, connection, relief, confidence. We can't necessarily force people to feel anything. But if you know what you want people to experience in your sales process, it's actually probably exactly what you want them to be experiencing throughout their relationship with you. And your product or your service. So if we start to think about that, in the marketing and the sales process, because we haven't we haven't really touched on this, but the sale happens. Not usually the moment before someone's about to hit the buy button. The sale happens somewhere in that early engagement period. The point in the relationship where actually you as the marketer or the salesperson have the least influence on the person coming in, you're actually leaving a lot up to their own interpretation, their own mind. This is why we want to be thoughtful about our marketing and make sure that you know if your product is all about gentle, space holding, loving, nurturing energy, like you sell cozy mattresses, and it's all about deep relaxation. You probably are not going to want to use marketing that's like in your face and harsh and pushing it it'll just not be aligned with the product that you actually sell.

Steve Haase  4:53  
So in that sales process. Oftentimes people have a moment where they pulled back. And they don't fully embody that vision or values for their brand as they're selling. And so I want you to consider, as we explore this, what are the moments in your sales process where you pull back, and this could look like, maybe not deeply exploring the needs or hesitations of your client, which would be the A, right, you're not confirming alignment, in the sales process. Maybe you're not sharing your credentials, your story or your track record, which is part of creating the safety, right, if somebody knows why you're an expert, or how many people you've helped, or what that's looked like, why they can trust you, then you're not creating that safety for them. Maybe you're not being clear about how they will succeed. And, and how you can get them from point A to point B, which is where you're kind of pulling back in the effective phase. Or maybe you're not helping them see how the benefits will be worth way more than the costs, which is the lucrative side of the process. So any of those could be areas to strengthen your sales process. But there's always always room for it to grow, and be stronger across those four dimensions.

Erin Aquin  6:22  
Another way to think about, like, you know, where do we pull back? Is it in the early phases of marketing? Is it where people just become aware of you, maybe it's maybe, you know, you've decided, okay, social media is my marketing place, and I'm not posting, holding back because they see so many other people I had someone told me this the other day, they said, I hesitate to sell, because I see so many other people selling so well. Even though all those other people that this client was talking about are not in her space, we don't actually know how they're selling. And what she has, is very unique. So she's holding back and pulling back in the awareness phase of her sales process. So awareness phase is like phase one, people have to know that you exist. And it's really important to offer and arrive at that safety, alignment. showing why being in your world is lucrative and maybe offering some ways in which people can test the effectiveness of your product or service without buying this is going to be where they know the least about you the least about your business and is where people are gonna, like dip a toe in and step out if they're not for you, or engage a little deeper if they are.

Steve Haase  7:44  
I mean, what's interesting is that the sale acronym is always relevant even when you're not on a sales call. Like it's relevant in the awareness phase, where you are kind of building up your sales funnel or sales pipeline, whatever, you know, strange mechanical metaphor you'd like to use for your for your sales process, I like to think about the sales garden. pretty tempting your sales garden, that new phrase to go more and more organic, less mechanical. But I'm not sure how exactly it works with the self guide, I guess it would be you know, tending to the soil, making sure that the soil is free from rocks free from weeds and has a good nitrogen balance. How much about gardening. But but those places where you're creating awareness might be social media, it might be in how you are asking for referrals, right, that awareness can be generated from your existing clients, which is why you should never discount the people that are currently in your world. Because those are the ones who are going to have the biggest impact in getting new people into your world when you serve them at the highest level. And

Erin Aquin  8:55  
your referrals are always going to be your best clients, your clients who send you referrals, best clients, your referral clients are always going to be like, your favorites, best customers.

Steve Haase  9:08  
Other Other areas that you can kind of prepare that soil and nurturing your garden would be if you write a book or if you have a podcast, we have a community lots of ways to create that that message but any across any of those. Making sure that you're creating safety so that people know you are there for them you are consistent you are who you say you are, that you are generating that alignment, you're listening to what people need and and creating things that respond to that. You are demonstrating that it's lucrative and and maybe giving examples of of companies or other folks who have used your product or service and gotten the results that that your current market is looking for. And the effectiveness maybe giving an insight behind the scenes, but again, not making it about you but Actually about how somebody can get to where they want to go. So even giving them an experience of the effectiveness, if you can do that at at a distance, right through through information through your, that tending of the garden, that free content at the awareness phase.

Erin Aquin  10:19  
And if it resonates with people, then hopefully they step into the next phase of engagement. This is when they join your email list or your community, they start listening to your podcast, they start commenting on your posts, they come and hear you speak at an event online or in person. This is the phase where I'd say, you know, I don't know if it's the true math, but I'm gonna guess that about 70% of where the sale happens is in this stage. This is where you make or break your sales. This is also why I think all the spammy stuff is so bad. Because if you if someone I mean, just think about this, if someone slides into your DMS asking you a bunch of really strange forward questions, how I mean, most of us, unless, unless they just magically hit us on the right day, with the exact thing we need, and they maybe did their research, and they are doing this really well. Most of the time, I just block those people. I do not engage, I run away, I've never, I've never heard of them, they don't exist to me, you the engagement phase is so important to really take care of the people in your world. Because what do we like engagement is where you decide if you're getting married.

Steve Haase  11:44  
And that's why it's important to ask yourself, how you're feeling about it. Because if you've got an email list, if you've got people who are following you on whatever platform or let's say you're on stage at an event, right? If you are the recipient of people's most valuable resource, which is their attention

Erin Aquin  12:05  
and their time, right?

Steve Haase  12:08  
Where are you coming from? What's your motivation? Are you trying to get them? Are you trying to get the sale? Or are you trying to actually create a relationship and create value and, and let them know how working with you actually is a lucrative thing, how it is affected by creating that sale in that moment, rather than just trying to get something for yourself?

Erin Aquin  12:31  
Think about even how that sounds, you know, we're kind of we're giggling a little bit because like, does anybody want to be got, no one wants to be got, I don't want someone to get me that sounds like they're chasing me and scary. You want to be invited in and so to your clients, they want to be invited to something that feels like it's really for them. And if even if they love you, and they find out that what you do is not for them, there's a really graceful way in which someone can still appreciate you, and possibly talk about you and possibly share you with a friend who that invitation might be right for because you didn't spam them and push them away or alienate them. So really thinking about the engagement is it's the romantic part of the relationship where you're letting them get to know you, and you're making an invitation before you enter the next phase.

Steve Haase  13:34  
Right? So ask yourself how you're creating the sale in those conversations. Are you more focused on getting money getting customers? Or are you more focused on creating relationships that will become customers? It's it sounds subtle, but it's all the difference in the world in terms of how are you treating people that have given you their most precious resource?

Erin Aquin  13:58  
Yeah, and I want to just say, you know, this, if you sell a product, maybe it doesn't matter so much to you. But if you are in a service based business, the way you take on engagement, the engagement phase, will determine whether you are happy as a business owner or not. I tell you, this is where your best clients opt in a little more deeply. I have a very happy business owner because I truly, truly, truly adore all of my clients. I think all of them have exactly what it takes to succeed. We just did a call with our certification group right before this. And we got off and we were like, This is amazing. I can't believe this is our life. We love these people. I want that for every business owner. I really truly think that if we engage well, maybe it'll take a little longer than spamming 1000 people, but you will have higher quality customers who actually want to be there. They're not looking to you to solve their life's problems.

Steve Haase  15:02  
You build a business that you love. Building. So the next phase is at the buying point, when someone is actually going to say yes and give you their money. And the fact is, when you're having those conversations, they're already 70% of the way there. And your your need to do all the convincing is, that moment has passed, right? There's no need to do the convincing. So you can actually just have more fun, more curiosity, more openness we have, we have the acronym we always come back to as CEO, right? Being curious and powered and open, which I think relates to the selling moment as well. Where you can actually be on the side of your prospect be on the side of the person who bought the bike or you are interested in buying from you and say, what is it that you want, feel empowered to help them solve their problems, and be open to maybe not being the right person, but but definitely on their side, which is how you create that sense of safety, that alignment, being on their side to find what's most lucrative for them and making sure that it's going to be effective for them. Right, so you're still offering the sale, in that moment of the buying.

Erin Aquin  16:24  
The fun thing is, if you do this well keep even people who don't buy from you will still love you, and love your business and be really big fans, even if it's not for them right now. That's a really fun thing. Because sometimes those people send referrals who are a match for the invitation you have for them. So treat people well. Take care of them. The final phase is delivery. So this is what happens after they buy from you. So many people think that once the sale is made, the SAL Lee is made, that their job is done. No, no, what happens after they buy is everything because the reputation of your business happens in this place. Unfortunately, there are plenty of people who are very good at psychologically selling people tactical, strategic, kind of manipulative, selling. And, unfortunately, I mean, that's unfortunate. Ideally, we don't ever have to do that. The bigger problem with the other side is that they can't back it up with what they promised marketing and sales that promise the moon and don't deliver it is a problem for your business. Because we are more connected now than ever. And if enough people are unhappy, it's fine to have people that did you know your business might not be for everybody, your product or service might not be for everybody, that's totally normal. And if you're big enough, you're gonna have people we're not always in love with everything you do. But if 90% of your customers are unhappy with what you do, that is a problem for your business. So ongoingly thinking about how you're creating safety, alignment, making sure that what you do is lucrative and effective for customers. Beyond the sale, it's so important. One thing I think about a lot is trying to make every interaction I have with a client worth the full price of their engagement with me, it sounds maybe a little bit pressure fueled, I do it more playfully than then trying to put a lot of pressure on myself. But I do think, you know, just because someone paid me six months ago does not mean that their final session in a package is not worth every other moment that they've used every other every penny that they've spent, I'm going to take that seriously. Even if we have fun. Even if we're exploring things. Even if we just have like, we can have a great time in the work we do. But in the back of my mind, I am there to deliver something.

Steve Haase  19:07  
And the question that can really drive that is how are you making it easy or attractive for someone to repurchase with you or to refer someone that they know? And if if your answer to that is, I don't know, I just hope that they do, then you're in trouble. But if if your answer to that is what Eric just shared, which is I make every single interaction as valuable as the entire purchase, like worth the entire purchase price every single time we're in touch

Erin Aquin  19:35  
or an earnest attempt to if I can't, if I can't do showing up at your best, then

Steve Haase  19:42  
then you have a strong answer to that question. Because what happens after they buy is where your business grows, right? It doesn't grow just by creating the awareness because awareness by itself means you're gonna get a bunch of people who come through buy from you and then go away it. And that is, that's not a sustainable business for anybody it's delivering value over time to the people who already know about you is where you compound your value. Because you don't need to re earn that trust, you don't need to recreate that safety, you're simply shoring it up with every interaction, and then it naturally leads to repeat business and those very helpful, very awesome referrals.

Erin Aquin  20:28  
So in 2024, we hope that all of this will inform how you move through those four phases of your sales and your marketing. And I think that one of the really fun things to say about all of this is, I like to think of it as like a relationship based, but it's also more authentic way of marketing and selling. Because how you do this is going to look different based on what your vision is, for your business, what your values are. And it may not look like how we do it. And that's great. So the process can can start to inform how you structure this. But it can also just be a really simple checklist before I get on a sales conversation. How have I created safety? How will I create safety with this person? How will I make sure that what I'm offering is actually what they want and what they need. Now, what am I doing to share how lucrative This is? And is there a way I can weave in the effectiveness and just demonstrate that maybe through the call? You know, as a coach, I'll just share this because I know we have coaches here. This was another part of the console process where I stopped kind of doing a formal like intake with people. And instead just said, Okay, I'd love to just coach you for a few minutes to see if this is something that you like, the easiest way for me to show effectiveness was to just do my job on those kinds of test drive calls with people. What better way is convincing? Or talking about what I might be able to do better? Or is letting someone experience what we've got all the good stuff we got? It was just an easier and more aligned method for me. So that's what I do.

Steve Haase  22:29  
So some questions that you can ask yourself, as we wrap up here are across those four phases, awareness, engagement, buying, and recommending or delivery. Just kind of exploring how you're creating the sale at those four key moments of gardening of the business gardening process. Right. So the for the first one for awareness, you could maybe ask, what are all the places where someone can be aware of you? And how are you creating the sale? In those places? For engagement? How are you actually giving them that experience of being an example of the product, like showing it in action, you know, showing the effectiveness of the product, as they're starting to engage with you. In that moment, when you are having the sales conversation? How are you making the sale? Right, then? What do you say or do to create safety and alignment? And then how easy is it for someone to recommend you? Is it just something they want to be doing something they're excited for? And what are the ways that you can actually orchestrate that? Where where

Erin Aquin  23:53  
support them to do it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. This was something I didn't do for many years. And someone said you have a very high was one of my coaches. This is why we need coaches. She said you are really high retention rate. Why? Like what do you just get a lot of referrals and I said, Oh, I don't really ask for referrals. And she coached me on that. So now we have like referral programs. When people sign up for our certification. If it comes from one of our clients, there's a referral bonus, a cash bonus that we give to people because we appreciate that and that feels aligned for us and what we do, maybe there's something different you can do but like think about any of these huge companies my peloton they sent me an email a month saying hey if you tell someone about peloton and they buy a bike, we'll give you some money. I will tell people about the bike. We already we already use you but I will all So except for their gift. I think it's close. I don't know what they, I don't know what they do. But these are great things. If you have a lot of fans in your business, do you ask for referrals to say I am taking new clients, you're a superstar of mine that I love working with, if you have anyone in your life that you think would benefit from this, I'd love to talk to them. It does not have to be icky, it can be very open and free. Yeah.

Steve Haase  25:30  
So we hope that this opened up some new ideas for you, and how you sell how you do your marketing, how you grow your business, one of the areas will kind of help you do this, at the next highest level is actually the skills of coaching. So if what we found as coaches is that the ability to listen deeply and carefully and ask questions about what really matters to the person in front of you, not only does that help them get great results for their life. But it also is a powerful tool for creating selling material and to bring more people into your world and have the impact that you want to have. And so there's so many reasons that we're doing this certification program, but that's one of them is to help people be more effective in their coaching in their leadership at their company, if that's where you find yourself. And so we are excited to be sharing that we have another cohort of our coach certification, opening up in January. And if being a more effective coach, listener leader is something that will help you light your next lantern, we would love to have a conversation with you about that. You can learn more about the coach certification program, besuperabound.com/certification. And we'll put that on that replay with this call as well.

Erin Aquin  26:55  
Thank you so much for being here. I want to wish you amazing sales, aligned marketing, just really beautiful relationships in your 2024 in your business. Let us know how we can support you. You know, we we're not just saying that we actually want to hear from our clients, we do so post in the community, what you need. Tell us more about what would be helpful that we can create for you. We're always up for ideas and we'd love to hear from you.

Steve Haase  27:29  
Thank you very much. Have

Erin Aquin  27:30  
a great holiday. Bye bye. Thank you