A Lot with a Little
Welcome, friends, to the Courage & Clarity Podcast. And this week's episode is a great one all about selling and getting customers -- and also why I'm pretty much certain that you're over-complicating it.
Selling simply is something that I've been talking about quite a bit so far this year, having kicked the year off with my Selling Made Simple challenge. And now that I'm walking my Crickets to Customers students through my 8-week framework, I'm starting to see all kinds of shifts happening in their thinking about what it would take to grow the kind of business they want, or to generate the kinds of results they want. These are simple methodologies that you'd be surprised they weren't right under your nose the whole time.
In case you're new here, Crickets to Customers is my signature training program, and it's the way I work with my students. I help them nail down their message, figure out what it is they are trying to do, and build a tight knit community that you can use to get customers quickly. More on this in a moment, but if you wanted to get a bird's eye view of the six-step framework I teach, I'm bringing back my popular FREE training: 6 Steps to Go From Crickets to Customers. Click this link to sign up and get the on-demand training instantly!
Here's a sneak peek of what we're diving into today:
Why you shouldn't focus on what you should say [06:53]
Why you don't need thousands of followers to have the kind of business you want [15:55]
Shift away from complicated systems [21:26]
I'm going to approach this conversation about how to keep selling simple and focus on getting customers by talking about the "sales myths" and the essential shifts you have to make in your thinking to avoid those traps. These shifts will make selling easier and more fun, and will uncomplicate the whole process for you. So I'll talk about each one, why you should shift away from that thinking, and a simple exercise you can do to help you shift.
There is not a "right thing to say" to get people to convert
Have you ever thought to yourself, "If only I knew what to say, if I could nail my pitch, then I would be able to convert…"? Are you constantly thinking that there must be some perfect combination of words and phrases that would say it just the right way so you can sell?
If you found yourself feeling this way, I can almost guarantee that you've also felt sleazy about selling, so I know it doesn't feel good. That's because you are trying to convince people to do something. I am here to tell you, you don't have to convince anybody to do anything, and I'd actually go a step further to say that you cannot. People convince themselves (just think about the last time you bought something, and I bet it wasn't because someone convinced you to do it).
"I am here to tell you, you don't have to convince anybody to do anything. And I'd actually take that a step further and say that you cannot convince anybody to do anything."
But there's good news! There is something that's so much more important than saying the right thing or trying to convince people, and that is building trust.
Instead, ask yourself, "What would it look like for me to build trust with my people? How could I cultivate relationships? How could I show people that I am the right fit for them?" It changes the conversation completely.
Now that you're out of convincing mode, you are in discovery mode. That means that you see yourself as someone who is going to help people discover what it is that they need to know to make their own decision. You have got to get curious, you have to start asking questions, and you've got to start wondering with genuine curiosity. Where are your people's heads? Speak to them from that place.
The other thing to keep in mind is to constantly ask yourself, "How can I be helpful, even to just one person? How does it feel to be them? What would I say to that version of myself?" Share a piece of your own experience. Being helpful, and being vulnerable, is what builds trust.
You don't need thousands of followers
Lots of us are walking around carrying the belief that we need to have thousands and thousands of followers, and this huge platform in order to make our business goals come true. But what ends up happening instead is that we start with trying to grow our platform and then we get really discouraged and overwhelmed, because it's such a huge goal to tackle from the beginning.
The shift I want to offer is that we've got to stop believing that the only way to have an insanely profitable business is to have thousands and thousands of followers paying attention to you. Instead, focus on creating a tight knit community
I have students in all kinds of industries, from fine art and jewelry to Egyptian hieroglyphics, who have been able to achieve sold-out group programs with fewer than 100 people in their Facebook group. How do they do that? It goes back to building trust, and having the right message to really resonate with your people.
When you shift to thinking about how you can build a small but mighty community, you can start thinking about why small communities exist. For starters, they exist because people are super fans, and they are super fans because they get tremendous value from being part of the community. The question, then, is, "How would I bring a tremendous amount of value into a tight knit community? How would I need to show up and serve to make my community someone's favorite place on the Internet?"
Shift away from complicated systems
We all hear a lot about systems, funnels, Facebook ads, email sequences, and all that crazy stuff on a regular basis. And I want all of us to shift away from these complicated systems to a more simple way to run our business.
(Before you say anything, all those tools have their place and I will not disparage them. I use all of the things I just mentioned, but I use them now that I'm much more established than I used to be.)
"If you want to start getting customers quickly, forget the idea that you have to have tons and tons of people following you -- that will come with time… But in the meantime, there is no reason that you can't build a small but mighty community right now, that is centered around an insane level of value."
So how do we go from this complicated quagmire of tools to a simple business? We need to pare this thing down to the simplest version that it could possibly be: your business exists to get customers and clients. Make that your whole, primary focus, and see everything in your business through this lens. If your only goal right now was to get your next customer, what would you do? I'd venture to guess that it probably doesn't involve LeadPages, Instagram stories, or algorithms. Most likely, it involves asking yourself, "Where is my next customer coming from?"
If that sounds exhausting, know that it won't always be like that. When you're in the stage of business where you have traction and can scale, then you can put some revenue towards paid traffic, or maybe hire a copywriter to help you fix up your website. But please, for the love of everything, do not even think about doing those things until you've got the dollars coming in to support them.
I know that it's 2020 and we have the Internet, but old-fashioned business building -- which involves connection, conversation, and community -- are tried and true tactics that are more important now more than ever in our digital world. You can combine old-school and new-school things to create the kind of business you want that can support your life. I hope that this message has inspired you to go out there and focus ruthlessly on getting your next customer in a simple way, where a little can do a lot.
Links & Resources
FREE On-Demand Training — 6 Steps to Go From Crickets to Customers