Hello, and welcome to the limitless entrepreneur podcast. I am your host, Nicole Laino. And we’re talking today about everyone’s favorite topic, sales. Sales are the lifeblood of every entrepreneurs business, if you are not making them, you are certainly not feeling very empowered. It is the worst feeling in the world to most entrepreneurs, because sales sort of equals success in a lot of our minds. So if we’re not making sales, we’re not successful. And what happens is when I talk to entrepreneurs, and they say that, you know, I’m not making sales, I’m not making money, I’m not making enough money, I’m not making the money that I want to make, or they feel like it is constantly a struggle. Usually, it boils down to them not taking action, consistently enough, in the right ways. So not taking action on, you know, doing the things that will create sales that will create opportunities in their business, not putting themselves out there in a way that leads to conversions. And when we dig into that, we tend to end up with something like they don’t feel comfortable, they don’t feel comfortable with sales, they don’t feel comfortable with the sales call. They don’t feel comfortable with the lead generation side of their business. Because and this word comes up a lot. They don’t want to feel salesy. They don’t want to be seen as salesy. And so we’re going to talk about that today. And I’m going to give you three little tips, three things that I believe like just a little bit of a framework that can get you out of the sales, the salesy mindset. And really just shift your perspective on what sales is and how to approach them in your business. So the first one is, sales is serving. And you’ve probably heard that before, you’ve probably heard, sales is service selling is serving don’t sell you serve. And that can often to a lot of people sound like lip service, that saying selling is serving is really only serving the salesperson to allow them to do their job. But it isn’t something that people truly believe. Now, that is only true if you if you’re not executing on the other two things that I’m going to share with you. But that’s the first thing that’s kind of the foundation of this is that shifting your mindset that selling is serving, that you are providing a service by selling to people. Now, if, first of all, understanding that sales and business is nothing more than solving problems for people solving problems for your ideal client. And if you truly believe that you solve a problem, and you’re talking to someone who needs that problem solved than it truly is serving. So that is the space if you find yourself that you are not able to step into that place of service that you are not even able to truly believe that selling is serving, then you need to check yourself as to what it is that you offer. And that leads us into the second that the into the second tip that I have for you. So the first one is selling is selling is serving. The second one is knowing what you offer, which is really how you serve the value that you have to offer. This is so essential. So like I said that in order to believe that selling is serving that you are serving an audience that that the person that you are talking to the person you are connecting with online, the person who gets on the phone with you to shift your energy into that service based space, you need to know what you are offering. Why? Because we need to know if we if if our goal is to serve. And we serve by solving a problem for someone, we need to know if we are the solution or not. So a lot of entrepreneurs, a lot of coaches out there digital course creators, they sit down and they’re speaking with somebody and we’re very focused on making the sale. We’re very focused on on you know, getting to the yes or not getting a no or getting off the call. And what we really need to do is is sink into the understanding what our value is understanding what your value is, what is it that you have to offer this person because in order to solve a problem, we need to know if we are the solution. And once you start doing that, and you are truly rooted in your belief that you have value to offer. This is honestly the biggest hurdle for a lot of people is believing that you are valuable that your expertise is valuable that it is needed, that it is worthy of people’s time, attention and money and you We have to do the belief work first because you can’t sell what you don’t believe in. So honing in on what you offer is so essential and so key. And if you find that you so so the first one that I gave you the the selling versus serving, if you don’t believe that, or if you are having trouble embodying that, then take a look at Tip number two, do I know what I offer? Do I know what my value is? Do I know truly why someone would work with me? why someone would hire me why someone would buy my product. Do I know how I help. Because if I don’t know how I serve, it’s going to be difficult for me to believe that I can serve. Right? So this is tapping into into your value. So take it take yourself through an exercise of saying do I truly know what I have to offer what I have to offer people, and then that tells you who your niches. So, so that’s the second tip is knowing what you offer. And really sinking into that and digging into that and, and if you have to write it down, before you hop on a sales call, or before you go into your lead generation activity, you need to write yourself a little note, this is how I serve, this is who I serve. And this is how I serve them. This is the value that I have to offer an N that with an anybody who talks to me who has this problem today is lucky to have come in contact with me. Because I’m the answer to their problems. That’s the space that we need to occupy. So when you sit down and you do your lead generation activities, or you sit down and you’re ready to hop on a sales call with somebody a consult call, understanding that you are the answer to their problem, that you have the ability to change the right person’s life. And it’s your job not to get them to say yes, not to get to the end of the phone call not to get through the end of your script. But leading into tip number three, your goal is to qualify and figure out is this the type of person I can help? Do they have the problem that I solve? Are they the type of person I can work with? Am I the answer to their problems? Am I the solution is what I provide the solution for them. So that third tip is that your sales conversations, if you are truly serving with your sales, if that is really where you’re coming from from a place of service, then your sales process is bringing people into your sales process. So you can qualify them. You can qualify your prospects through this sales process. We’re qualifying we are evaluating, we are evaluating whether they are the type of person that we can help, whether they have a problem that we solve, and are we the best solution for them. Now what this does, this is so key, the qualifying aspect, the evaluating aspect, when you’re evaluating the person, their situation and thinking about whether you fit that is that is so essential. Why? Because it shifts you out of that typical beggar do me a favor, buy from me mode, when you are in that that, you know, do me a favor, please join, please sign up buy from me now. When you are in that energy, you are going to get people that aren’t are not attracted to that we talk a lot about attracting our ideal client. We do that with our energy. We do that with displaying the fact that we solve a problem, we understand their problem, we understand it better than they do. And we are the solution to that problem. We can help them get to where they want to go. And our questions that we’re asking them in the DMS on the phone call, whatever it is, what we are doing is we are qualifying them, we are evaluating whether they are a good fit for our program, we are evaluating whether they are someone that we can truly help. Which is why whenever I’m in a launch, whenever I’m talking to people, and I invite them to a call, I always say I’m like you know, you can hop on a clarity call with me I do clarity calls all the time, free of charge with everybody. There are no strings attached. And I you know, I’m always saying to them, If I don’t believe that I can help you. I will tell you that. I don’t invite everybody into my program. And I mean that I tell people all the time, I don’t think I’m the coach for you.

I think what you need is something else. And that happens quite a lot. Maybe they’re not at the right place. Maybe they’re not at the right stage of their business. Maybe they don’t have the type of Business that it’s my specialty in helping, if you’re not a coach, you’re not, of course, you’re not as a digital course creator, you aren’t someone in the service based entrepreneur space, then I’m probably not the coach for you. If you have a brick and mortar, that’s not really what I do, doesn’t mean I can’t help you. But I’m going to let you know that maybe that’s not the problem that I solve. That’s not my zone of genius. And when I’m doing that, when I am, when I am evaluating them, I am interviewing them for a spot in my program. And that puts me that shifts me from a disempowered position of giving my power away to whether they say yes or no, and puts me in a powerful position. And that powerful position is me sitting there and asking them questions, where I’m not trying to, I’m not asking them the questions, or what a lot of people do on a sales call is you start giving them your resume and telling them all the ways why you can help them because you are trying to get them to say, Yes, you are not evaluating them, you are selling them. And people don’t enjoy that. And neither do you. Usually you get off those calls, feeling kind of icky. And so if you’ve ever had that experience before, I invite you to try this, to try sitting down with yourself before you hop on that call. Before you write back that DM and think to yourself, what is the right question for me to ask right now, that would help me evaluate and determine whether this is the type of person I can help. Whether I whether the value I offer is the value they need, when you come in from that place, so if you were sitting there and you were in, you worked for a corporation, and you interviewed someone, you would feel pretty powerful, they’d be wanting a job with you. Because they have a problem that they don’t have a job, or they don’t have one that they like they’re looking for a new one. And you have the answer to that problem. You have a job available, and you’re determining whether they are the best person for that job. They are evaluating you in this instance, as well. So what we’re doing though, is we’re determining whether we extend the invite into our programs, and whether we believe that we are someone that they are someone that we can help. And we’re recognizing that they have questions too. Because also same thing, and in a job interview, they may not want the job. A job interview always ends with Do you have any questions for me about the position about the firm about, about the role about what it’s like to work with us, our company, culture, whatever it is, because there are always decisions when you’re dating, we always have the decision whether to go out with someone or to not, and they have the decision whether to go out with us again or not. These are the same things. But to go back to the dating analogy for a second, think about how unattractive it is when someone is chasing you. And when someone is just showing off, and they’re not interested in you at all. They’re just giving you their resume. They’re telling you about them and why they’re so great. Nobody really wants to be on a date with somebody like that. So don’t show up to your sales calls like that. Show up trying to help them get the answers that they need. And helping you get the answers that you need to figure out if you can help them solve the problem that they have. So you’re asking questions that are helping them figure out what is their problem? Is it something that you help with? Can they afford you? Is this the type of thing that they invest in figuring out what your qualifying markers are, is so important. And going through that exercise you’re going to by listing out all the things that you need to know about somebody, your ideal client would be xy and z would have these traits would have these would hold these values would be able to afford a certain price point. Has this problem needs to solve this wants to achieve this, by knowing those things, you know what questions to ask, because you’re just trying to get the answer to that question. So that tells you what the question should be. So having those pre written out and pre thought out for yourself, that’s going to take away that whole feeling of like, I never know what to say in the DMS I never know what to say on a sales call. This will do that for you. So going through that process can really help you. Yeah, and also you show up in it in a position of of power, which puts you in a in a space of control. And then ultimately we we don’t want to be aggressive of course, but laying the groundwork and letting them know that this is how the call will go. I’m going to ask you some questions. I’m going to you know I’m going to evaluate I’m we’re really evaluating what, whether this is the right fit or not. And letting them know that and taking control of the meeting or taking control of the DMS, we’re always so afraid of making people uncomfortable them thinking we are salesy. And we often then what that does is, we think that we think that by taking control that they’re going to be uncomfortable. But the truth is, is that by us not taking control, that’s actually way more uncomfortable for them. Because they don’t know what their role is. They don’t know what you’re doing. We go in without a real directive for the call, or we go in without a real directive for the DMS. And it just feels like small talk that kind of, you know, we’re dancing around the real topic. That’s what being salesy is being direct, is you figuring out if you solve somebody’s problem, and if you determine that they don’t have the problem that you solve, bless and release, you didn’t try to sell them anything. You don’t sell them something that you don’t think is the solution. So I hope that this was helpful seeing this broken down in these ways that so let me recap the three tips for you once again. So these are the three tips to do up your sales game to sell without being salesy, and to really truly make every phone call that you get on the potential to close to take away all of that feeling of achiness around your sales process, and didn’t really develop a sales process for yourself. So much was given in just these three tips. So I hope that you’re writing all of these down and let me recap them for you. The first tip is that selling selling is serving and if you are having trouble understanding that and truly believing in that if it still feels self serving and salesy to you, and feels icky, then you need to dig into Tip number two, which is knowing your value, knowing what you have to offer, knowing how you serve, because that leads us into grounding yourself in that now you are on a quest to find people and qualify them. That’s our third tip is qualifying the prospect in your sales through your sales process, qualifying them to see if they are someone who needs the value that you offer, who you can serve, who has a problem that you solve. And then you decide whether you extend a an invitation to join your program. If you tell them about a product or service that you have that can help them. That is how you end it, they’re in a place of service. If you don’t feel like you can serve or you don’t feel like they are they can be served by what you offer, you do not offer it. Therefore you are never selling. The whole process is an evaluation. The whole process is a qualifying is a qualifying exercise. And when you make these shifts, you will see your sales process change. But more importantly, you’re going to see the way that you show up for sales change, you are not going to be afraid of making those reach outs you are not going to be afraid of having those calls, having specific time laid out on your calendar to make sales. And this is also this is a process that you can teach your salespeople if you’re someone who has a team, if you have social sellers out who are working for you. This is a process that you can pass on, you’re telling them how to qualify how to figure out are these people, my people, and whether they should be either for them to be closing for you or if they should be passing those calls on to you. Because you don’t want unqualified people, if you have a sales team working for you, their job should be qualifying and sending you qualified leads. That is their process, they might not be at the point where they can close sales for you yet. But they should be getting to the point and the purpose for them being there is to qualify those leads to see if they are someone who should get on a call with you so you can close them, then the conversation becomes much different. They’ve gone through that whole process. And then you are just taking their questions, figuring out if you think they are a fit, and then closing them on the on the call. So I hope that this was helpful for you. Sales can be fun, sales can truly feel like you are doing a service if you implement these three tips, and you create a process around them rooted in these three tips. So I hope you guys found this helpful. Remember, you are only limited by the limitations that you accept and when you stop accepting those limitations. That is when you become a limitless entrepreneur. Thank you so much for being here guys. You

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