In this episode, we take a fresh look at what a sales process is really for, and how to make it feel clear, calm, and aligned for both you and the person on the other side of the conversation.
You will hear practical ideas to help you evaluate what is working, spot where things get clunky, and make improvements without turning your sales conversations into a script.
If you are ready for your sales process to be more effective and aligned with your business, you need to hear this episode. And if you are ready to rethink your process, book a Superabound Start Session here.
Full transcript:
Welcome to the Superabound podcast where vision-led entrepreneurs learn to build a generous business without sacrificing what matters most. You are listening to episode 355: rethinking your sales process. Hello and welcome. So today I want to talk to something that I think is important for every business owner despite what industry you are in to be doing regularly. And because I tend to work with um smaller teams, lean teams, this is something I think that falls through the cracks at times. Um, I think it's something that when we talk about sales process, the issue that many people have is that for many of us, it takes such a long time to figure out a sales process that works for our business and for us as sales people. Because if you speak to customers, if you are part of creating the marketing, uh you're doing the copywriting, you are overseeing other people who are doing those things for you, then you are part of the sales process. And I think that this is sometimes the toughest part of business for many vision-led entrepreneurs because we love what we do. We believe in what we are putting out into the world. And then sometimes dealing with brand new people who are coming in who don't get it at all, who we don't know if they are our best customers. We're trying to take in everything that they need, put out exactly what we can offer. The process can be really messy. I think it's also a shame because we live in a world where everyone's trying to sell you their solutions. That's what businesses do. But there are many people out there who kind of position themselves as business gurus and tell you that they have the surefire 100% guaranteed formula for sales. And I personally think that the more somebody tries to sell you on their sales process and it promise you that it will work for you and your business, if you just try hard enough and you just work 50 hours a week, that's usually the part they don't say out loud. Um, I think the further away you should stay from those people. Personally, I'm not denying that there are amazing sales coaches out there and there are people who have really good formulas for helping you sell. But what I've noticed, especially in my industry, which is a service-based industry, is a lot of people invest so much of their time and energy on becoming polished salespeople that they end up kind of skimping on their own training, their own work. you know, they are excellent salespeople, but then the service they deliver on the other side of that is not actually of the same quality as it should be, as what they're selling, as what they're promising. And that I think I I know that's not just the coaching industry. I know that's many industries. Um there's a an energy sometimes of really good slick marketing polished sales and then the delivery is underwhelming. I just started with a client uh recently who said they were a little nervous to invest in coaching because every other experience they have had with a business coach has not led to an ROI in their business. Now it might not be the coach's fault. You know we co business coaches don't do the job of their clients. the clients still have to um find out what works and troubleshoot and experiment and put things out there. So, I'm definitely not blaming sales coaches or business coaches. The the end user does have to participate, but I do think that there's a lot of people who get very good at selling and don't get very good at making sure that they can deliver on what they're selling. So, that is my very first thing. And we've talked about this in other podcasts a plenty. I've written about this. Um, make sure that you are able to deliver what you promise. Um, Elena and I actually talked about this on a recent episode of the coaching mixer podcast which you can find at buperbound.com/coachingmixer.
That podcast in fact is for coaches. We have a beverage, sometimes an alcoholic beverage, sometimes a mocktail or tea, and we talk about coaching. It is very unfiltered. Um, and it's just our opinions about things. this podcast. Um, I only drink coffee here, but I really do feel strongly that before you think about refining your sales process, make sure that you would stand behind your product or your service, whatever it is. Um, that means all of the things we've talked about so far on this show. you know, really considering your systems, making sure that you have the client experience in mind and you are doing everything to consistently refine and make that better. I recently shared an example of this. I have a higherend coaching business compared to most business coaches. Um, and I kept having an onboarding issue with a software that our company was using. So, I promise my clients this extensive library of classes and courses and repeatedly, sometimes after weeks of paying, my clients would reach out and say, "Okay, I'm loving the coaching, but this library that you promised, I haven't still haven't gotten an email. Like, what's happening with that?" And it was the software was somehow dropping the ball. Something was glitching with their product. And it happened so many times. I had such a headache with it that we decided we're no longer using that service. And we took it in-house. We built our own Superabound course library, which you can find at courses4creatives.com. Um, and it's been amazing. You know, I'm there's a learning curve. It hasn't been perfect because I'm still learning how to how to utilize it. But it's been really nice to know that my clients can find their courses. If they need a tool and I send we talk about something on a coaching call, I can point them to that tool without any fuss. And if they forget their password, the system will resend their password. And it sounds like maybe just a small silly thing that was bugging me and maybe it wasn't noticeable to my clients, but it really did bother me because it's not the experience I want for my clients. So that's the very first thing. Before you go investing more into your sales, make sure you have a product, a service that is very much worth someone investing in. I would hate for you to go to the trouble of making your sales process better but then have dissatisfied customers because that's unfortunately what happens out there. Once you are happy, once your clients are happy, once you know that you have something that is really beautifully thoughtful, put together, it's ready for the world. Then we want to think about the sales process and um you know I I sell in my own business this podcast you know people have found coaching and decided to work with me from listening to this show. So in a way this is part of our sales process. It's a way for people to get to know me, build a relationship with me and Steve. Um, but what I'm going to really focus on today is like those sales conversations and why we should be rethinking this a lot uh often like once a quarter, once a year at the most because what starts to happen is you will, as I mentioned, put together this process and you'll say, "Okay, here's my sales process and now I just have to do it a million times and I will have a successful business. Um, that would be great if that's what happened. But for most of us, what happens is we get into a groove with our process and our formula. Maybe we learned it from one of those sales coaches and we think if it's not working and it's not landing with people, there's either something wrong with the people who are coming in and I have to change my marketing or there's something wrong with my delivery. and I have to change myself. And I'm going to offer you a third option. I'm going to offer you the option that sometimes if a sales process is not landing with your potential customers, you know, if you are looking at the people who've come in and been interested in buying but for whatever reason did not. If you look at those people, maybe look at the last five or 10 people that came into your space who showed interest but did not buy. And you think about those people and you say, "Damn, I really wanted to work with them or, ooh, they would have, you know, loved this product that I have and I think it really would have helped them." Then that means most likely it's not that it's a problem with them. Often it's actually not a problem with you as the salesperson. It is something not landing between you, the salesperson, your process, and them. I don't like to ever blame customers. Um, I think that sometimes it's it's just not a fit for people or they're not ready. And in other industries, this might be different. So, you may have maybe a more I don't want to say aggressive sales techniques, but you know, you might need to like really help someone through their own stuff around buying your special tool that you have that's going to help them. You know, if you're uh selling, I don't know, welding masks to someone who does welding, you may have to sell them on those features and they might be like, I don't know what's going to make this different. If you know that you have something that's very special, you might need to talk about what is special about it and talk about what's going to change in their life. For me personally, and I know this is not a popular opinion among coaches, but I'm gonna say it anyway, my job as a business coach is to help people, I mean, ideally help people realize the life the universe is dreaming for them. And that often means having a successful business where they feel like they are making a positive impact in the world. And that positive impact has a reflection of increasing their revenue, making sure that their lifestyle is fully funded so that they can do all of the wonderful things on the weekends um and they're not working 60 hours a week trying to pay the mortgage. That is what I am interested in. And because what I do is, you know, is really designed for people who are actively in business, already making money, they're at a certain level, and maybe they want to grow, or maybe they just want to figure out how to maintain their success without working seven days a week. Because of that, um, I tend not to ever be pushy. I don't ever go after someone and say, you know, this is how your life is going to change and da da da da da because if I have to be convincing, it kind of throws me out of just being convinced. I know I could help the person if they're motivated to do the exercises and the work and the make the effort that we're going to make and if they are open to changing their opinion about themselves because very interestingly a lot of times very successful people have gotten there. This maybe isn't surprising. They've gotten to a level of success by being very harsh with themselves, very strict, very unkind. And so my work is often like helping them shift that narrative to say you can be kind to yourself. You can think about what you want. That's not selfish. That's not bad. That's actually important if you want to go to this next level where you're going to enjoy your life. You're not just thinking about the return on investment. You're thinking on about your return on joy and all the things you put in. So, I tend not to be pushy or aggressive in my sales tactics because I don't want anyone who doesn't feel ready. I don't want to push someone into a state of you should do this. Now, if they do that internally for themselves, then that's great. They can convince themselves if they need to do that. But I never want to do that for them just because of the nature of the coaching. I share what I have. I share what I think would be a path forward. I share some options. And then I let that grown-up make their grown-up decision. And then we either get to work or maybe they hang out and take another course. They listen to another podcast. They have a lot of, you know, we offer a lot of lower cost um lower commitment resources for our clients for exactly that reason because not everybody's ready to make a six-month commitment to their coaching and their business growth. That's not always the season people are in. And so when I was rethinking my sales process originally, I was like, why am I doing this whole contrived sales script where I'm like asking them about their transformation and what's going to happen if they don't do this and you know what do they think someone else in their life is going to think about this and what do they think you know could be a problem and like how much time they really put like putting in. I always felt like that process, which is a popular process and it does work to sell things for certain people. Um, but I always felt like kind of like I'm daring this person to take the leap and make the investment. It felt like some weird like if you really believed in yourself, you would show it by paying me $15,000 right now. I never want that energy. I I never said that to anyone, by the way, but I just mean that was kind of the energy that that felt like. And having been on the receiving end of sales processes that feel that way, um it's not a good feeling. So, one of the ways that helped me rethink our sales process is actually was buying our luxury car. we have a fancy car, fancy vehicle. And that experience, the saleserson, you know, let us drive it around. He kind of said like, "Hey, we just so you know, we don't do any like negotiation here. We just this is the price. There's no like we can't do a better deal. Like there's none of that like car salesmany stuff." They actually set that up as we went in. They were like, "So the price is the price. We don't negotiate. We give you the best price we've got." And here are the five options we have for something else that we don't have in stock. It'll take probably four or five months. So, let's see what we've got and see if there's anything that's a match. He was so unattached to I'm sure he was attached maybe, but his his affect was so unattached to whether we made this purchase or not. And I have to say that that is probably besides maybe my house, that is probably the most expensive purchase I have ever made. And I think we decided within a couple of hours, similar to my house, actually. So I share all of this because when we are rethinking your sales process, the very first thing I think that most people miss, like they think, okay, how do I follow the script? I want you to think about how do I want the person on the other side of this conversation to feel.
And I think about that luxury car experience because they made us feel really great. You know, they were like, "Hey, do you want to check out this car? Hey, do do you want you welcome to take it for a spin." and it was very calm, very casual, but not unprofessional.
Interestingly, a lot of the more scripted formulas for sales, I think I think the reason people gravitate towards those things and like those things is because then it feels like there's a reason that you can point to if it goes well and there's a reason you can point to if it does not. That makes sense. And if you need those touch points for yourself, then yes, develop a formula. But if you are just following the process of here are the 10 questions in order that I ask and then I make the pitch. What happens is then you are not necessarily reading and hearing what the other person says. And this is where I think being a coach comes in very handy. But if you're not a coach and you're not like a trained trained to notice people's the way their face changes or the way they go hm like you're not in relationship with that kind of listening. It's really good to practice sometimes taking away that formula and just saying let me just find out what this person needs and then I'm going to truly tell them if the thing I have could help them and I'll tell them why. and I'll tell them why based on what they've told me. It gets to feel more like relationship building in a conversation rather than let's just get through these 10 questions so that I can show you what I've got. Because what actually happens is then the salesperson is really only just thinking about them and their own needs. They are not thinking about what is going to be amazing about this service for this person and their and what they want what they want. It's very easy to start going through the motions and have it feel very wrote. I also think when you are considering your sales process, you should think about the flow. Um, if you've been following kind of a set schedule of sales, that's amazing because you can actually look back and say, "When do I feel like we are really I'm really together with the person I'm talking to and when does it start to feel a little bit disjointed, a little bit all over the place? Those places where you feel togetherness, those are probably aspects of your sales conversation you want to keep. the places where you feel like it goes off the rails that we're talking over here, we're going over there. Um, that is something that is a problem to be solved, that's a challenge to be fixed. Um, and that could be around maybe having too many decisions on your call. you know, if you require the other person to show up, you know, if you're selling you're selling a service and the best way to do that is to have some information about the person beforehand so that you can do a demonstration of your of your service. Um, if you don't get that ahead of time on the call, spending any amount of time trying to find it, pull it in, all of that, even though it's not your fault as the salesperson, you know, the person didn't send it to you, they didn't give you their information, um, it makes the whole thing feel messy and it puts questions in the person's mind. It's an interruption of the flow. So, always have a backup plan. If you have to do any kind of a demo on a sales call, having something where it's no problem if you didn't get information from the person ahead of time. I think people hate filling out forms if they don't know you and they're not invested. You asking them 20 questions before a sales call kind of feels like a bummer. You don't have a way to kind of do your own research um and get what you need as the salesperson beforehand. um find a way to do that. I used to when I first started coaching, I had a very detailed form that people would have to fill out before they could get a consult call with me. And a lot of people don't want to do that. Or a lot of people would fill it out with useless information and I would read it and I would go, "This does not tell me anything about what this person is showing up to to know about. I you know it's not helping me and now I feel like I'm supposed to be prepared based on information they really didn't get me give me. So I'll share what I'm doing right now. So rethinking our sales process. I have gone from people can just book a call from a Facebook ad way back in the day. Um that was a wild time in my business. I had a lot of people who were not really ready for coaching or interested in coaching or just didn't show up at all book from those ads. I don't suggest that. Um I have done traditional consult calls of varying lengths, sometimes 2hour consult calls, sometimes 20 minute consult calls. Um, and I've done everything from following someone else's script, which felt very robotic for me and disconnected me from the person in front of me. And I have done calls where I knew a little bit about the person ahead of time and I just showed up and asked, you know, what would make a difference in their life and then I put together a proposal either right there on the call or after the fact, which often felt much more personal to the client from the feedback I've received. Right now, I'm actually not doing consult calls at all. If someone has been listening to the podcast for a while, maybe they've done some of our other programs. Um, they can now just book a 90minute start session and it's not a discount. It's it's the same as kind of what they would be paying if they were in one of my VIP programs. It's a little bit longer. So, I guess that's kind of a benefit because I don't know them. I want a little bit more time and a little bit more information. But it's a real coaching call. They are buying a coaching session with me and we're going to coach. We're going to do thinking partnership. They can bring any aspect of their business. They could bring their sales page and their sales process and say what I want in this call is to refine my sales process in a way that feels good for me to deliver. uh it gives me something that's going to connect with my ideal clients that's hopefully going to feel so good for them that they buy from me and we can do that on a 90-minute call from there because I don't love I don't love sales calls. I would rather just do my job for people and if they like the experience then I give them the options for how we continue to work together. Um, I break a lot of rules as a coach. I do a lot of thinking partnership. I review people's copy. I'm doing book coaching right now um called the author's table where if someone is writing a book or doing a longer writing project, I will literally review their writing and talk it through with them to help them develop the structure to help them think through how the reader will receive it to keep in mind maybe the future marketing for how this is going to fit into the ecosystem of their business. It isn't just like how does that how does what you're talking about or thinking about make you feel. I love mindset work, but as a business coach, you know, going back to what my new client shared with me, I think it's very hard to show people and give people a strong return on their investment. If you are not willing to roll up your sleeves and get into the details of someone's business and someone's life, if someone and maybe it's not always monetary. I have some clients who they don't need me to help them with their financial success because they are doing really well. They don't need my eyes on their sales copy. But what they do need is support to unplug so they can work a 4 day week. They need my support to give themselves back a mental, emotional, and spiritual space. And that is a return on investment for them because otherwise they wouldn't have a life. They would just be working all the time. So, I offered you some ideas. I'm not going to give you the formula. Part of me was like, "Oh, I could give you the five steps to rethinking your sales process." But I don't want to do that because I think that where this really begins is taking a good look at what about your sales process feels good to you, feels authentic, feels in alignment with your vision and your business values. and what tends to be a natural guide to those potential customers and clients to buy from you. And then on the flip side, look at the moments in your sales process or on your sales calls that feel disjointed where you lose people. You know, what's the email in the funnel where people drop off? What's the email in the funnel that people most buy directly from? These are things that we want to look at and to consider. And maybe my final thought here is like consider for you not having more loyalty to one formula or sales playbook than you do to the actual outcome you're trying to get. I've watched a lot of people blame themselves for their sales not being what they wish they were. And then I've gone deep into the process and we realized that it actually was not the salesperson being a bad salesperson. It was the process was a mess or the process was unaligned or felt pushy in a container where the customer needed safety and reassurance and instead they felt bulldozed. So these are hard things and they are I mean I consider doing a start session with me if this is something you know you need to explore because we do sometimes want it to be like just oh if I just tweak the way I ask this one question would that make it all better? Sometimes we have to be willing to or at least open to changing the whole thing for the sake of your business surviving. I've watched a lot of businesses commit to their sales process all the way to bankruptcy. And that sounds extreme and harsh, but I've really watched people say, "No, it's not the sales process. It's the market. It's the economy. It's the customers. It's this. It's that I'm like, but they didn't look at maybe the sales process you've been using for 5 years is not aligned with what your clients today need to hear from you in order to feel safety alignment. Um, feel that they're going to get more than what they are paying from this transaction and that it will be effective. So, our sale process, SA E, it's got to be lucrative, it's got to be aligned, it's got to be safe, and then you have to make sure it's effective. I am very happy to work with you on this if it's something that you would like to explore because it's tricky and it's very hard to see when it's just you or people in your business. I know sometimes people say, "Well, I'll just take it to my team. I'm going to take the sales process issue to my team and we're going to solve it together. I'm going to say something that you might not like to hear, but I want to just offer it out there. Your team probably doesn't want to change your sales process. They are probably committed to the work that has been done to get this formula up and running. They are going to want to find ways to keep it in the status quo. most likely unless you have a very visionary team. Um, most of the time this is something that CEO clients get a lot of push back from from their sales team and from their, you know, their core people, but it has to be done. And you might need to do it with a thinking partner who's walked other people through this before and um will really help you to find a more aligned process that becomes flexible enough that you can tweak it that you can play with it that it can be more organic and responsive. That is what we need. Got to rethink the sales process every so often. So I hope that this has been helpful. uh you know you might be like uh Erin why please reach out with questions or complaints to me and the team at hello@be superabbound.com and if you think actually a 90minute session would be really helpful to go through this with someone who's not on my team and who's not emotionally connected to my sales formula. You can head over to bsupbound.com/cconultation
and that is where you can book a start session. You can buy it right from that page. You do not need to spend any time talking to me about it. We will get to work. 90 minutes just you and me and your sales process or whatever you want to bring. And we'll talk to you again soon.