There's two types of people who hear consensual sales in the first go, Oh, Eww, Shawna, that is not what you want to say. There are better words to use and the second type here, consensual sales and say, you know what? You're right. I don't want to talk my way into the sale. I don't want to memorize a script. You just want to work with clients who are excited to work with you. Now that's consensual sales.
Do you want to avoid selling to the people that you know, maybe you've built up a bit of it, audience or community, or just have a group of people that you love to hang with and talk with. And the idea of selling them feels weird. Like you just can't do it. This is a special episode about how to sell to your community with Rachel, from rockier tribe.com. She's amazing.
(00:48): She actually has a really crazy background. Just got like this degree in anthropology, a master's in social work, built up this nonprofit bike repair shop in Atlanta, which eventually brought her over to New York city as a DJ. She's got this crazy experience about building a community where you have engagement. People who love you, like the vibe is great. So this episode is two parts. If you're listening to part one, make sure you check for part two. If you're listening to part two, make sure that you start at part one. All right. And Oh wait, if you like this episode, remember you can check out Rachel and say hi to her@rockyourtribe.com or rock your tribe, the Facebook group online. And let's go start the show.
(01:34): What is up everybody? It's Rachel Spee, whack back again today and talking with my good friend, Shauna Beckman about selling to your community, like making sales in your Facebook group, monetizing your Facebook group. The awesome way. The non sleazy way, the not icky way. You're going to love this. I'm so happy. You're here Shauna. So all week I am demoing my new membership program, which is dedicated to supporting Facebook group owners. Particularly those of you who run your own business. And so you've got a Facebook group to keep your ideal clients close, build a community with them, get to know them. And of course, make sales in your business. We are not running a charity here. I've already done that in my life. We are here to run businesses. You got to make sales, you got to sell to your people. And I know that making like sales is icky to a lot of, a lot of people. So we're going to overcome that with Shauna. Who's here with me today. So this is one of the things you're going to get when you join. My membership is guest experts who are so bomb. So that's why Shauna's here. I want to give Shauna the floor today. So tell us about you Shauna, and talk to us about your system of consensual sales.
(02:51): Oh my God. Well, thank you. This is going to be so awesome. So if you guys are watching, I would love to just kind of hear about a time where you felt like, kind of gross when somebody sold you. I'd love to hear about that in the comments. And I believe that that feeling often comes from when you're selling the wrong thing to the wrong person. And so what ends up happening is when you can leverage your Facebook group, you can actually start to know people or at least facilitate conversations where they are willing to tell you stuff like friends will tell their friends, all their problems. And so when you were going to run a Facebook group where you're creating that Goodwill and you're creating sort of that familiarity effect, it can really create trust in a way that allows you to facilitate a very natural conversation. So my experience comes from, I actually graduated from the university of Minnesota. I really love families. I had this family social science degree, and I ended up in a job where I was approaching families for tissue donation moments after their loved ones had died. So
(03:51): God can wait, hold on, pause for a second. No, I know that. I just kind of want to sit with that for a second because this audience may not know that you approached families after a loved one, passed away and asked for tissue donations. So you're in the trenches talking to complete strangers and essentially this is a sales thing, cause there's a transaction here and asking for a very, very sensitive thing during a sensitive time. Oh my God. Yeah.
(04:20): Yes. And not just like donation where we think of like kidneys or like a skin graph, this was actually eyeball donation. So we're talking about like, Oh my God. Yeah. Right. So it's like, totally. It's like even like next level weird. So it's like for cornea transplant, you know, or like research purposes and so really awkward conversations that most people don't want to have. And you mentioned that it was like it's it's sales essentially in the sense of it's a transaction, but they would never say that it's really more about facilitating an honest conversation about what the deceased one wanted and what the family wants to do moving forward. And do they have the right information to be able to make a decision? And that's really how so then like fast forward, I just started casually helping friends navigate their own conversations. And I realized that there's, they're very, very similar in the sense of, you're not like convincing somebody to purchase your stuff. You're informing them and inspiring them to make a decision to action. That's it? So the sheer fact that your Facebook group creates an environment where they know you and they happen to know what you do. It will naturally lead to more sales. Even if you're not hard selling
(05:28): Right. Then I'm just going to stop you there for a second. So we can take some comments. So the VEC says, hi, hi and Beth, who's been with us all week on these live videos. So Beth says off so often I feel the energy of a sales person, instead of someone who wants to share a good fit or opportunity your energy does come through. And part of what you teach in your system, consensual sales Shauna, is that it's not always about saying those like exactly right words. It's about conveying your energy and just being honest. Yeah. And Beth said, Oh, bodily tissues, not facial tissues, no bodily tissue donations. And Beth says, thank God for my transplanted kidney from a deceased donor and her family. Yes, yes, yes, yes. And thank God for the people that donated blood when I needed a transfusion after my hip replacement. So shout out to the donors and families of donors out there.
(06:24): Totally. It's a crazy, beautiful gift. So go ahead. What were you going to go? I think I want it, Oh, this is what I was wanting to say to Beth Beth, who was saying like, sometimes it can feel like there's weird energy with like a sales person. So I try to make a point to making, not that I'm necessarily using my Facebook group to like sell every single person I'm treating each person kind of like as a connector to my client. So then if they have the problem and again, just happened to know what I do. If that's the person that I help, it will naturally lead to sales. So either they're going to become a client or they're going to become a connector to my client. And that's important to me because I don't want to have them to feel like I'm just selling them either. But Hey, if they have access to 200 people are there, they've got close friends with a dozen people who just happened to know what I do or they could introduce me to, it can really exponentially grow your business.
(07:19): Yeah. And that's what I was talking with NATO Riley about earlier in the week, one of my private club members, we've been working together on his Facebook group for awhile, his area, super niche, like DIY ethical hackers in the cybersecurity space, teeny tiny industry. So we're not banking on building him a gigantic group. It's all about being super focused and having the exactly right people and creating the exactly right offers for them and his group. His members have turned into his army of marketers. And what's interesting is, and this is a question that I get a lot. And you know, what if most of my effort on social media is on LinkedIn or another platform, should I be running a Facebook group as well? And as long as you're not spreading yourself too thin, you can do this. His people have followed him from LinkedIn to the Facebook group because he has that authority in his industry that they'll follow him anywhere. But then they'll take his teachings in the end, his leadership and go right back over to LinkedIn and recommend him to people in their network. And that's the circle of social media life.
(08:24): Absolutely. It's. Yeah. And so you just need people to start talking about you and if you can get them to start talking about you, you can take the conversation over from there, right. Then that gets like real easy, but it sort of that initial, Hey, I exist and I'm here. I didn't want to just say shoot, Oh, this I'm in a Facebook group where the lady has like amazing content, like in her little leg vault that you can go through, but she's like never there. And she's there every like couple of weeks, like she'll make a post and it's, I love it because you end up waiting for her. So while you can still create Facebook groups and be like this ongoing presence, you can also have run a Facebook group where your people are excited. Every time you show up, you know what I mean? So like, there's both worlds here. If you don't feel like you want to just like, feel like you've got to manage this community every single day and make it this huge, like heavy burden.
(09:13): And that's why I feel like there's no silver bullet magic formula that works for everybody. It's all gonna depend on how much authority you have in your space. And what's natural for you. If you've got a whole bunch of really great trainings and people can go at their own pace and you can pop in. Sometimes that works, I've worked with another client. And like the sticky thing about her group was people were really in it for her and her business is built in such a way that they needed to come see her else where like, you have to know what your community wants from you and what they expect from you. And like what you are willing to give in order to gauge what your personal strategy is going to be. So it's like so nuanced. And that's why I was previously doing like group coaching, like taking people from a similar point a into a similar point B, but everybody's kind of on their own path. And everybody's got their different super powers and different ways of approaching their business. That's why I'm doing this membership. Now.
(10:16): I just say that makes it important that they don't just follow like this generic sort of template that they really getting somebody to pay attention to them and their business and their clients, their potential clients.
(10:28): So the one thing that remains that I think cuts across is that if you surround yourself with the people that you wish to serve, and you genuinely care about them, which is one of your main points and just continue to have conversations with them, they're either going to eventually buy from you or at least talk about you, to people that need your service.
(10:49): Absolutely. And when we talk about like having conversations with them, it doesn't have to be like always super profound. Like you can talk to somebody about your shared sense of humor, your shared experiences or your shared values. And so when you can do that, it's going to put yourself on their radar when they go and they see somebody who's looking for somebody that what you do and because you're facilitating that relationship. And even if you're just talking about, like I said, those examples, it can be enough for them to take you remember, and like share with their own network and people
(11:19): Let's talk about hand-raisers right. So one big piece of my strategy for Facebook groups is if you do one thing in your group, every single day, create an engagement, post a one-line question. That's thoughtful, humorous, interesting, engaging. Cause you're about the answer to that. You care about the answer too. Right? So keep it on topic relevant to your tribe and you know, their purpose for being in your group. So let's say I asked in my group, why haven't you launched your Facebook group yet? Right. And I'm setting up for hand raisers because I help people launch Facebook groups. And so I get a whole bunch of answers. What would you do if you were in my position? How would you go about commenting back and even maybe having private conversations with these people?
(12:05): Sure, sure, sure. So the very first thing that I would do is I would engage a little bit publicly. So anybody who's reading that post or there's like, there's always going to be fence sitters, fence fence-sitters and people who are just going to read through the thread and not actually comment. And you want them to also see a response. So I would give them sort of like a teaser or like a thoughtful comment that gets people like, Ooh, like she cares and she knows her stuff. Right. I've moved the conversation over to DMS. I would sometimes I'll take a screenshot cause people tend to have really short term memories and nothing worse is like going into your inbox and being like, who is this person? I don't remember commenting on your posts. Like, what do you want? Right. So sometimes we'll just take a screenshot, I'll say, Hey, like, thank you so much for, you know, you made this really thoughtful comment.
(12:47): And I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions about your answer here. So what you're doing is one you're getting permission to talk further and two, which is important. And two, you're getting them to clarify on a problem. So when you both are in agreement on the problem, then, then, and only then can you actually offer a solution? So many people are just like, Hey, let me sell you this stuff because you raised my hand. Well, it's like, I had never even said I wanted that. Right. So you really have to clarify and agree on the problem before you even move into the solution. Because when they start saying the details of how you can help them in the form of your solution, it's only at that point that you know, that you can actually sell and like present an offer. I won't even really talk about my offer and tell like, we're all on that same page.
(13:33):I think that's why people feel so gross about sales, because so much of it is done in a way where the is assumed that you have a problem, right? Someone approaches you and offers you a solution before you even acknowledged that there was a problem and that's rude.
(13:51): And like the severity of the problem. Like, just because I have a problem doesn't mean that I want it fixed. That's right.
(13:57): Sure, too. Yeah. And I think that's kind of, I feel like if we could pinpoint where in the typical sales process that it makes everybody really hate it or feel like they hated it's that it's like someone coming along and getting in your face and going, you have a problem. Nobody likes that.
(14:14): Or if you were giving the solution before I've even said, I have that problem and want it fixed like that, you can't do that. You can't do that because selling is essentially solving problems. And so if you are selling too early and this person doesn't have the problem, it's like, you're creating problems that they don't have. And that's, what's going to make people turn red and be like, who the hell is this? Like, what are they want? Right. Why are you bothering me? Right. That's what makes me go crazy. Yeah.
(14:45): Okay. So let's say I'm selling something in my group. Yep. No. What could it be? Okay. Let's say I'm like a high ticket coach or something, you know, and I'm selling like a thousand dollar program. Sure. What do I do? How do I go about this? How do I approach my group about it? What should I do?
(15:02): Sure, sure, sure. So I would start to ask what makes you think that this person would want your thing? Like why would somebody want this? You're a high ticket coach and you're selling a thousand dollar offer. Well, why would anybody want that? Give me an example. Okay. I'll give you an example. So let's Griffin. Okay.
(15:20): Yeah. So let's say I help people launch an online business in 12 weeks through my strategy.
(15:28): What makes you think that they want that
(15:30): They would want that because they don't want a nine to five or they need to get out of a nine to five. They want to be financially independent, but they need some structure because they don't know how to go about launching a business.
(15:43): So what makes you think that they don't know how to launch a,
(15:48): They keep saying that they need help. Okay.
(15:53): That's a good point. So, okay. So they're verbally telling the people around them that they want to start a business, but they just don't know how. So that's a good start. And I would dig in to tease out that answer a little bit into, to find the visual proof of what makes this person seek a solution. Where can I point in their life? And they say, ah, that's, that's them admitting they have a problem. Or that makes them aware that there's a problem. So is it their boss who overlooked them for a promotion? And they're like, fuck this. I got to get out of here. Then you speak to that. Then you promote that conversation in your Facebook group, right? Say, Hey, if you are in a job right now and you feel like your boss is just about to overlook you for promotion, I want to talk to you.
(16:34): I want to talk to you about how I can help you or answer this particular question. So you can move the conversation into the DM. You really have to create an instant identity that people go, yes, that's me. How did you like that describes me perfectly. And that's exactly what would happen. If I, if I got up this morning, kids are screaming. They spilled milk the dog shit on the floor. And if I sat down and looked through my phone and somebody described what exactly what I was going through and said, Hey, did this happen to you? Did this happen to you? This happened to you. I want to talk to you about how we can organize your morning, like blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right. Then kind of stop picture solution. You'd have my attention. I'd be intrigued. And that's half the battle is just getting somebody to start a conversation with you. And that's how you can leverage your Facebook group. When you're selling is just, just kind of tease out the visual representation of where that problem exists in that person's life. What's the visual.
(17:29): So that means that you've really got to know your tribe. Oh yeah. Yeah. Because once you're in their heads, then you can hold up the mirror to them and you can make that list to them. Like I could list out all the reasons why you want a Facebook group and you haven't started one yet. And I think it really nuanced too, because a lot of us help people get from like a point a, to a point B. And sometimes that point a is exactly the same for everybody. And sometimes it's a little bit different. So you have to tweak your messaging depending on that. Am I helping people who have not launched a Facebook group yet? Or am I helping people who started one and got stuck and need some help moving on? And this is kind of where the difference between a coaching program, a course, and a membership comes in because a membership allows for people to be at kind of different entry points and you're using a strategy and principles to help them move the needle wherever their needle is. Whereas with a course or a coaching program, it's more about everybody's starting in a similar place and ending in a similar place. So I think this also gets to the heart of what is your offer. So your offer makes sense to your people, which then makes the whole sales process so much easier.
(18:47): Yeah, totally. Yeah. Then you're like a green on everything that you want together. Like they told you what they want [inaudible]
(18:56): And that's part of the premise of the private club where I'm helping Facebook group owners rock their Facebook groups. But what I want to work on with everybody is using the Facebook group to really, really, really understand your ideal clients so that when you make your offers or you develop your offers, it's a no brainer for them. I think that's kind of where a lot of us get stuck as business owners is we imagine a solution and offer a product or a service that makes sense to us and like what has happened in our lives. But you need to know, it makes sense to your tribe. And I think that's one of the gigantic benefits of running a Facebook group, because you can ask questions all day. You can have a poll even.
(19:41): Yeah, this is actually a great point. I was running a webinar and it was like how to book clients, which sounds basically the same of how to book, happy to pay clients and hands down, based on the responses inside my group, they wanted one version over the other like significantly like significant data compares like dad significantly more than the other one. And you'd think that that would be like, they're the same thing, but they're not, they're not to your ideal client. And so your Facebook group really allows you to leverage and tease out those like nuances where it's like, is this version going to work or is this one? And you don't have to guess you can really just get their answers in real time. Yeah.
(20:24): And this is something I found in another client's group. She helps business owners with their SEO. And so we created a poll in her group to find out what people wanted to learn in her group. And two of the choices were ranking on Google and SEO. And the thing is, they're the same thing, but people out voted, they voted ranking on Google, like 2d one versus doing SEO. So even it's the same thing to you. You want to know the language that your ideal client uses to talk about their problem. Can I share another story? Yes.
(21:02): Sweet. Okay. So I started sales coaching like five or so years ago and I used to say, I'll help you sell. And I ended up attracting like a lot of like network marketers and I wanted to help like client booking businesses sell. So I had to change my messaging. And now it's basically I'll help you book clients and make money. And even though those two things are the same thing as selling, it's going to attract a different type of person. And so when you have a Facebook group where you can, again, tease out those nuances, what in your mind, they're the same thing, but clients and sell is like the same thing, but it could have a huge, huge impact on your business and your messaging and who you're attracting, then the clients that come into your world.
(21:45): So let's talk about reflecting your ideal client's language back to them, because this is important on this sort of like macro, you know, attract the right people into your world level. But it's also on the micro level of having those individual conversations with them. You need to also reflect their language just in your individual. Like they say something and then you say something back. So you've got a system for this, you know, every time I asked you, like, how should I talk to this person? It's always the same answer. It's like, well, put their language. You know, you say what they said back to them.
(22:22): Yeah. Yeah. And that's, it's like, if you're trying to sell that ability for somebody to give you money has to be their own idea. Like you can't tell them what to do. You can't talk somebody into something. It has to be their own idea to give you money. And so what you're doing is when they talk to you and you're just simply saying back or clarifying, like what they're telling you, it becomes, then what you're doing, it helps clarify their own need for your service. And then buying from you literally becomes their own idea. So when we think that sales is like talking people into things, you're for using your Facebook group to facilitate that conversation where you're, then just helping them clarify again, the desire to change. Then when they say I'm ready to change, I want this. This is exactly what I'm looking for. You say, yes, I'd love to help you with that. You know, I'm really good at what I do. Right. And I mean, you can kind of play into a little bit, depending on the nature of the relationship. But then, then the sales part just becomes process of like what day? And when's the first payment.
(23:22): So let's run through like another scenario and a Facebook group. So let's say I have like an evergreen product. That's, there's no launch for it. Let's say I've got Facebook groups, masterclass. Hey, so how would I go about selling this evergreen product to my Facebook group?
(23:40): I mean, you could have a launch strategy and launch strategies. Aren't something that I, I know I have experienced in, but I really wouldn't give like expert advice on like how to run a lodge. But what I would do is I would maybe have like a couple of days where you're like, it's a hard promotion period for your product. And then if you're having this conversation over DMS, you're like, Hey, you got to grab this product. Or like, this thing is really going to help you, you know, like here's the link. But before sending the link, I would just say, if I send this to you, is this something that you want to purchase? It's like, is this something that you're going to purchase this week? So like before I just send the link and drive it, which I actually just somebody in a it's just somebody Kate had this problem the other day where she was just like somebody was saying, Hey, I love, I'd love to buy that thing.
(24:22): She dropped the link here. You know, don't do that before you drop the links to, if I send this to you, are you going to buy it? Are you saying, are you going to buy it? If I send you this link, if I buy you this link, are you going to say, are you telling me that you're going to get it before Friday? I mean, are you, I'm kind of riffing here, but you get the idea, right? Yeah. It doesn't feel like you're chasing them. It doesn't mean that you have to like harm them, but it does get them to commit. And that's, again, that's half the battle is just you're inspiring action to get people to move forward with what they said they wanted. So what else
(24:54): Somebody asks you over DM, or even out in the open in your Facebook group, how much does your thing cost? What do you say
(25:03): And what sort of depend kind of on the nature of it kind of depends on the context. Like, it's not like you have to hide your price. There's no secret that my program is two 99 or up to 3000. But if it's somebody who has a problem, I would just say like, before I just give you the price or I'd say, are you interested in buying? That's the first thing I would say, are you interested in buying? Let me clarify the problem to make sure that it's a good fit. So again, before every solution I'm identifying in green on the problem, I'd say my stuff isn't for everybody. I don't want anybody Joe Schmo in the program. So it's important to me that we have like a really honest conversation about what you're going through. It sort of, there's this idea that's been coined. It's like your buyer has five awarenesses of your product and their problem and the potential solutions in the marketplace before they buy.
(25:50): So wherever they are on their awareness of their problem and their solution, you will sell differently. If they're a high, sophisticated buyer, they're like, I've done my research. I've been wanting to work with you. I'm ready to go. You say, all right, are you ready to buy today? My program's a thousand dollars. Boom, done. Like, I'm be direct. But if they're like, Oh, I'm, you know, like, I'm not sure exactly what my problem is. And I'm just kind of looking for a solution, totally different conversation. I wouldn't drop that price for them because it would just be like picking a number out of thin air and that's not going to do them any good.
(26:19): Well, that brings me to not every client is a good client. You don't necessarily want to sign everybody up. So this also protects you from getting into a picky client situation. So when you're helping to diagnose their problem, you are also diagnosing whether they're a good client for you too.
(26:38): They need to feel that they need to feel that. Like, I mean, I don't want it to seem, you can't be close to your audience or you need to be like totally guarded, but they need to feel like this is a little bit exclusive and that's going to really help them create that desire. It's really going to help them want what they can't have. And so if there's a little bit of resistance right there where you're, you're letting them know that it's a really special type of person, they're going to try to sell themselves into your offer.
(27:04): That is true. And I think this is also the case when building your Facebook group as well and building your tribe is that there's got to be a little bit of a sense of exclusivity. So it feels special to be there and people want what they can't have. You know, your system is called consensual sales. And so there's dating references all over the place with this stuff that applies to both sales and building your Facebook group too. It's like, you don't want to be chasing people down because it's going to send them running in the other direction. And that's true for dating. It's like, nobody wants to be chased like that. You know, it's like, we all, we want to like, you know, be the one who chases a little bit.
(27:43): Yeah, absolutely. There's nothing worse than having somebody who's overeager that you're not going to believe this on Instagram. There was this guy who was in the stories promoting like this 30 day, like profit for your podcast thing. And it basically like, Hey hand raiser, who would be interested in this? And I said, Hey, like you have my attention. This is really great. And if this was at like four 30, okay. And so he responded back to me after I said, Hey, like, I'm interested in this thing. He said, tell me a little bit more about your podcast. Well, bedtime bath time, kids practice dinner, clean up, like planning my work day for tomorrow.
(28:18): And you have five kids. Can we just throw that in there? China has five children. So, but like busy evening routine. Yeah.
(28:26): Yeah. Yes. So I finally get to bed like 1130 at night and I like pull back open Instagram. And at the time I was thinking I wanted to like respond thoughtfully. I wanted to tell him really what my podcast is about and have the brain space to like answer 1130. He responds. And he says something like, if you don't bother to answer, I'm not going to be able to help you. And I was like, Oh, well, well, I was like, I don't even know if I want your help. I couldn't believe it. And it was so rude. So rude to like, as if I'm just sitting there glued to my phone, like, what if I wasn't an accident? Or what if something serious had happened? And not just like, I was doing all this stuff with my family for, at four to 11 at night. And I'm sharing this with you because wait, what was the point right before this?
(29:11): The point was salespeople chasing you down?
(29:15): Like that's. Yeah. We don't like that. Overeagerness it's no big deal. If they just said, Hey, I wanted to make sure that you saw this message or, Hey, are you still interested? Or like, Hey, I'm sure you're busy. So I wanted to make sure, like, just, I wanted to send this up to the top of your feed. So you don't forget, like that's actually giving me something right. Instead he's taking and stealing my time by saying something like don't even bother to respond. I won't be able to help you. I was like, Oh my gosh, like just okay, we're done. Nope.
(29:42): Don't want your stuff. I'm embarrassed for you. Leave me alone. Hey, there, hope you enjoyed part one of this episode. It's just too good to limit to one show. Join us next week to hear the rest.
(29:56): This is ThePodcastFactory.com.
