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 hear 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.
I'm on the other side of the table. In this episode, my good friend, Dino is interviewing me for a particular mastermind community that he runs. And we are talking all about my sales life, how it got started and what I've learned along the way, especially how I've learned to turn pain into purpose. Enjoy this episode. And remember, you can learn the consensual sales method@clientsandmoney.com in a free web class that will walk you through the process and offer you a chance to work together. All right. Enjoy the show.
(01:02): So here we go. Right. I'm just checking the group. If you don't mind, if I look over here by the way, I'm not ignoring you and I'm not being rude, I'm just checking the other screen just to see what's going on and make sure that we're actually there. So okay. Okay. We should have three or four people join. What normally happens on these shorter, cause this is really just between you and me. It's just a, just a fireside chat as at work. But we put these up in the, as you were saying, we put these up in the units and they're there for all time and posterity and they got a lot of traction after was people come and have a look. Is there, the reality is a lot of our guys are taking the lead from us and are outworking instead of setting on bloody Facebook.
(01:40): Yeah. So then everybody's working. Yeah. You know, the deal, there are those groups where people just seem to be in and engaged, you know, that term all the time. And I always, I go into those and go, right. Okay. You've been in here for about an hour and a half. Who's doing the work. Yeah. So, yeah. And I know, I know, I absolutely know because I know your work ethic is off the bloody chart. So I know you, I know you get there. So without a mind, thank you so much for giving up a bit of time coming out of the chat, welcome to the spotlight of awesomeness. So as is often the case with these things, I kind of like to start at the very beginning, which is Julie Andrews said in the in the film, it's a very good place to start. So how about we do that? Where were you born? Where did you grow up?
(02:21): So funny, the long story, the short version is I'm from Minnesota. I lived there my whole life. My mom actually was a 15 year old runaway. So I was born in Colorado. My dad, like at all. And she eventually moved back to Minnesota where I grew up and met my husband in the same town. Went to college there, bought our first house there. We'd eventually relocate, but I love everything about Minnesota and the Midwest culture. And yeah. Is there, was there something that
(02:54): We're going to go into that in a little bit more depth, but just the a that's cool. That's cool. We're not ripping away your childhood in two sentences. That's not going to happen. Okay.
(03:05): I had a really young mom growing up, so my mom she's turning 50 this year. So she's really young. She had me when she was 15. And then I didn't really know my dad. So I've lived in a single parent household, basically my whole life until she remarried when I was in high school. But by then I kind of had one foot out the door.
(03:22): Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Colorado is an interesting place as well. It's a, they've got a few mates that live that live there, plumbing part of the world. Actually,
(03:31): There's a couple of brothers who are big into hunting and stuff, so that's kind of her, some of her family moved out there and that's what brought her from Minnesota to Colorado. She just went out there and stuff.
(03:41): Right. But your heart pretty much, isn't always has been in Minnesota by the sounds of it. Yeah. Wonderful. Sometimes your childhood it's worth just digging in because you know, there are siblings and there's kind of a interesting dynamic and the mom and dad at home and, you know, maybe they're entrepreneurs and there's something there there's kind of worth digging into. Sounds very much like life really started for you pretty much in your mid to late teens. Would that be fair?
(04:06): Yeah. So my mom's like a really, she's a great person. I know that she did her best, but she kind of emotionally stunted, like when we were growing up
(04:16): And yeah,
(04:17): There were a lot of things that I learned quickly and that I've applied to business. It's just like being able to pick on like the energy and like when somebody is tense or feeling mad, or my mom would give you the silent treatment, if you, like you said the wrong thing for months, like there were one, there was one time where she was so mad at me for like, just some really like minimal thing and did talk to me for literally the whole summer that I was home one year when I came back from college. So I'm sharing this because I think that had a real, it has a really important part of the way that I approach conversations is being in tune to like what people aren't saying all the time, because that's just as important as the words that they S they say.
(04:55): Yeah. interesting. And we'll, we'll come onto this as we get closer to kind of what it is that you do now and can your life's purpose and what have you. But do you find that, that, that that's a difficulty that we have, you know, with being remote and being on screen and not being physically in the same room with people, do you find that that has an impact on reading body language and just, just getting the energy?
(05:15): Yeah. I think that a lot of people have this idea that like, that it doesn't matter because you're doing it online, but I think it often matters even more now because it's, the internet is only amplifying what is already true. It doesn't mask the human, like the interactions that are required for a really real and open conversation.
(05:35): Yeah. That's a very good point. And actually that kind of brings up another, another thing that stuck in my head from an old mentor of mine from decades ago, he used to say that the more high-tech we get the more high touch we need.
(05:45): Yeah. Because yeah, very similar. Yeah. We sort of think that because of the internet that it, it, we don't need it anymore, but it's almost like,
(05:52): Yeah, like more in some respects because you're compensating, aren't you, for the things that are uncertain that are unseen once you pick up in a room to, to an extent. Yeah. I do miss that person after, so it's okay. So you're in your teens, you're off to college. What did you study or what was your, what was your kind of focus?
(06:07): Yeah, so I was part of the generation where everybody was like, do what you love and you'll make so much money. So I actually studied I had a combination degree in three studies, so it was public health, child, psych and family, social science. I knew that I wanted to work with families in some capacity. I love families. I love learning the inner communication and relationship dynamics amongst blended families and different cultures and stuff. Yeah. So I studied that.
(06:34): Interesting. Yeah. A lot of people are chat too. I've done some of that at uni or professionally. It's something that's been pretty vocational based on either something has happened to them in childhood, within the fund family dynamic or in an extended family. And it seems you're very, very, you know, you get somebody who had some significant issues, shall we say, with mental health when they were younger and they become a psychologist or a psychiatrist, or they get into therapy or they get into counseling. And that you find that if you trace it bite, you find the roots. Yeah. Very, very much back in the, the family dynamic or in childhood somewhere. And it's kind of, it's kind of interesting. You think that hadn't just your upbringing and also what you saw around you, did that have an influence on, on when we chose to run a college read at college?
(07:18): Yeah, I think so, because I think that family is, I mean, family is really important. That's kind of all you have. I think that's kind of like all you have. And so, and it's always been interesting to me how, how different each families are, but like how you really have these like similar threads through like all families and I just fascinated by people. And I think that really is, it shows up inside of families.
(07:45): Yeah. I absolutely obviously coming from a large Italian family, it's kind of why in a baked in with us pretty much bacon is probably a good word for an Italian family, actually. Yeah. Let me just pause for a second. A couple of the guys who have hopped on, I see Jason and Pascal and metallic. Hey guys, thanks for you'll be getting this a little bit after the woods have issued from my mouth. There is a lag but great to see you. Any questions you've got by the way, although Shauna, we will talk about this later, Sean, Sean is going to be doing the MMC, the mentoring masterclass next Monday from really looking forward to any questions that you've got in the interim or just observations or things that you pick up on from the conversation as we kind of walk through a life, just drop them in the comments and we'll pick them up if we can't get to them while we're chatting, we'll pick them up afterwards. So thanks for showing up. So, okay. So you're at college and kind of what happens, how long did you stay for the standard period? You'd be there for an extended period of one of them there.
(08:37): Yeah, I guess I finished a year early, actually. I wanted to get in and get out. So I'm not like super school orientated. I, yeah, so I just bloated up on a bunch of credits and I, it was finished in three years instead of four. Right. But that lasts third year. So I met my husband while we were in high and we dated on and off and we ended up at the same college together and we were going to get married when we had finished college. And so I was just kind of waiting for him to finish up that last year. And I had this weird bloating in my belly that was particularly one sided. So whenever I'd laid down, it would like extend out just on my right side. And I thought that it was like, I don't know. I just thought that I was bloated or gassy or something.
(09:18): And I called the doctor thinking that they could just prescribe me something over the phone because I had just, I had literally just like finished school and I had just started this new job at this, like as a receptionist, basically as at a pediatric clinic. And they were like, no, no, like, come on in. If it's, it could be your appendix, it could be something really serious. So I, I came in and within two weeks I was having massive surgery where they removed, they removed my right ovary, which was the size of a grapefruit and my, and a portion of my left and which was the size of a lime. And they said, this is a type of cancer that you want to have. It's a low malignant potential tumors on both sides. So if you want to have children, you should have them like right away. And I was 21. My husband was like pre-med and or my, my fiance at the time was like pre-med and we were waiting to finish. And we knew we always wanted a big family, but we were just sort of like waiting to get married.
(10:13): So we got married actually three months later and took us two years to have our first child. And then it took us two years to have the second one. And then we would eventually have five kids within seven years. So the three would just kind of come. They just kind of came back to back to back. And we were a little surprised because it took us two weeks to have the first. And so yeah, between like 23. And I think the last guy became when I was 23, four, five, six. Yeah. So I was like right in my thirties when the last baby came.
(10:42): Yeah. Yeah. Wow. That's a hell of a story. So essentially with half an ovary, you gave birth to almost like a football team pretty much. Yeah.
(10:51): Seven years. Yeah. It's pretty crazy.
(10:54): Yeah. And I know it's not the only amazing story you've got, but that's one hell of a story. I'm going to tell you lady. So suddenly you've got this enormous family pretty much. Well, me, I'm saying I'm one of four, so yeah. But we, we, we were very stretched out by comparison. I think I'm trying to think my youngest brother runs us. I think there's nearly 20 years between us actually. So we got a big gap. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But yeah, yeah. It's, it's sorry, 20 years. Jesus one was saying, sorry, 12 years. What would you say?
(11:21): Okay. Okay. So yeah, so my mom had other head when she remarried to the two more kids. And so those are my brothers and we're like 18 years apart, so
(11:31): Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Okay. But it is, yeah. It w when it's like that, it's kind of, because you become more than the older brother or sister, I guess when there's such an age.
(11:40): Yeah. You kind of feel like an aunt a little bit, because you have to, it's also weird, like watching my mom raise my brothers because it's like a totally different parent than what me and my sister had growing up. So it's, yeah. It's kinda funny to like, watch my mom evolve as a parent, too, and her style over the years. Yeah.
(11:59): And it is interesting. And particularly when you've got an interest and you, and you kind of, you, you stand back and you look at it with a different perspective than don't be the lenses differently. You look through. It's fascinating. So college, so this all happens. You're out of college. You're about you you've, you stepped into a secretarial or PA role. And suddenly it's like, get married, have kids, your life suddenly compressors. So what's that like, because, you know, I guess your plans have kind of just gone out the window and you're into a different set of plans. Yeah.
(12:27): Yeah. So that's funny because I, I eventually would move from that sort of behind the desk job and move more into a field where I was using more of my skillset, which I was approaching families for tissue donation moments after their loved ones had, had died. And I had this job because, well, it was, I didn't want to be receptionist forever. Right. But it also allowed me to work nights and weekends and overnights. So me and John had just like this rotating schedule between like, he would be with the baby during the day. And I would go to work, you know, at night. And we just kind of had this rotating schedule, so he could go to school. I could go to work. And we had this, like we had like one or two babies at the time. Yeah. So I've started to navigate this part of my life in that way. And I was there for a little over a year before my husband would relocate our family across the country to Connecticut, where he went to his, like out as post or whatever.
(13:24): Yeah. So this is a lot going on, basically. And then you alluded to this actually in a text that you posted just on the, under the event, advertising this, talking about, you know, speaking to, and communicating with people who are, have at a recent bereavement or going through some grief, what was cause, you know, we, we don't just rock up and do these things natively, no matter how empathetic or compassionate we are. How did you find that?
(13:48): Yeah. So I had just applied for this job that was like listed within the university system. And there is part of the university that facilitates tissue donation for transplant purposes or research. Right. Because the university has one, they have Mayo, the state has Mayo clinic, but they also are like a top tier research school. Right. So I basically applied. And what would happen is deaths are reported sort of to like this database. And that database indicates if this person was like a designated donor on their driver's license or not. And then that is sort of forwarded to these donations, these like tissue donation or organ centers. And you are then facilitating that and approaching the family and like getting them the option to donate or facilitating the next steps. Right. If this person was particularly designated as,
(14:40): Okay, so this then falls to you to do what specifically.
(14:44): Yeah. So the name pops up on the screen. You're, you're sort of, you're taking sort of an in your sort of qualifying them if you will. Right? Like, do they have this disease or this ailment, and then you're calling the family either while they're on their way home from the hospital, or usually why they're still at the hospital and you're just, you're letting them know like, Hey, sorry for your loss. You know, you're facilitating that sort of empathy, but you're also letting them know like, Hey, would you consider like donation tissue donation? And it was weird. It was you to think of donation. And they think of like their kidney or their like skin or their long, this was actually eyeball donation. So for like cornea transplant. So it's like kind of like a whole other level of weird that most people don't even know that you can donate your eyeball tissue.
(15:28): Right. Right. So, yeah. So I would just facilitate that conversation. And then the next things is, you know, you, you send in the text to do the retrieval and then you're clearing that tissue for transplant, depending on what doctors prefer, what, or, you know, or if it's just going to go straight to research. So we are like, superwoman, I'd love this job. And I love the people who I worked with and we were sort of in this open office with like four or five other people, and you could hear how the other coworkers were approaching families. So you could learn like little nuances or like the way that their cadence would change or their tone of voice, or like different verbiage. And then they could also hear you. So they were also giving you feedback about like, Hey, like try it this way. Or when the family says this, like you could say it that way.
(16:11): So it was like this really great environment where you were just improving and like taking care of these families and navigating these conversations with them. And I love that so much that I feel like that's, this is like a sign up, but I feel like that's often missing in the way that the courses, the course sort of culture online presents itself as, because the best learning happens, like when you can watch and see and practice together in a group and actually have that safe, you know, that, that sort of like safe environment where you don't have to feel judged or intimidated at all.
(16:45): Yeah. It's very, very true. Fun fact, I did some consultancy work for orange. Who're a large, very, very early mobile phone provider in the UK. And now he has that happens. And I did some work just up the road, actually from here where I am at the minute, there are two very, very large call centers and I was doing some development work for them, but I was, I was on the phones and kind of watching people on the phones and, and they, we developed a kind of pod before pods were kind of known as a pod system and a buddy system. And that was the whole point of it was to nurture the guys because they were, they were been orange, had a very, very good culture. I have to say it was a Dutch organization that sat behind them at the time.
(17:22): And it was very, very kind of new age almost. They were very inclusive, but there was this kind of, you know, the, the, the guys who came into a training where they, the type of trainers who just one more as a call center just get you, you get on the phones and you get on with it. It was that kind of, rather than let's look, we're all in this together, you know, rising tide and all that. Like let's just learn off each other. So that essentially was what the pod was all about. Absolutely. Get that. So what do you say to the guys? You just be quiet. I'm just looking at the guys who are on they, Simon, Simon and Chloe have joined us. Awesome. Mary, this has arrived from Canada. A wonderful, wonderful. So just for the guys I know some of the guys watching, we'll be thinking about sales conversations.
(18:00): Yeah. And we're really kind of getting towards that now with this is, I guess this is the Genesis of it all for you very much. There's this job and that beginning of, you know, that, that spark, if you will, but you're, you're taking to this. It sounds very much like a duck to water almost. And for, for a lot of the guys watching, they get bum clenching moments, pretty much every, every single time they think about lead generation level alone, having a conversation with somebody, because of course it's not the wheelhouse, it's not the zone of brilliance. They want to do what they love to do. And having conversations with people who are cold in particular, you know, really makes them very, very uncomfortable. So how come you, you get into this and, and it just lights you up.
(18:37): That's a really good question. So are you asking, like, why this, why does this excite me? Why does it, why does it matter?
(18:44): A lot of people would have gone. Yeah. And I saw it at the call center, actually, even in a warm environment, a lot of people went, you know what? This is not me gone because they weren't prepared a step. It was them, but they weren't prepared to step through the resistance that we're feeling or the discomfort, other people very much like you took, it, took to it like a duck to water. But at the other end of the scale, which is, they liked selling and converting it wasn't about the person that was about the challenge and the people in the middle with the ones I really kind of warm to, or the ones who wanted to, you know, there was something in them that just wanted to give and wanted to make sure the other person got what w what it was they signed up for.
(19:19): Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's a great question. So I'll tell you this quick story. So when my family relocated, my family moved from Minnesota to Connecticut, and we were in Connecticut for three years. And that was a really, really hard time for my family. We had had three kids within three years in the five within, you know, six and a half. So I had all these babies. I was all alone. We weren't making any money. We were like losing money for that lot, for like two years. And my husband he's getting his postdoc, which is basically like, he thinks he's in the NFL draft for science. And so he is like working nonstop on the weekends, working late. Like, it was so stressful and fifth baby rolls around. And I have, I have nobody, no family, no friends, like nothing. Right. And we went to church, unlike that son, we went to church on Sunday and this like old lady, that's like really sweet grandma.
(20:11): She comes up to me. I'm like pregnant kids everywhere. She says something along the lines of like, Hey, do you need help? Right? Like, do you need somebody to watch the kids? Like, when are you doing, do you need anybody to help watch the kids? And little, did she know? I never met this lady before little, did she know? Like, that was my biggest problem and my biggest fear and my constant struggle of like, how am I going to go to the hospital with all these kids and nobody to watch no family. And I'm like stressed out to the max and she just simply offered, right? Like she just, just did this really nice thing. And the same thing happened later, like struggling, like not making any money, losing these kids, a friend, I didn't ask her this like ordered groceries and send them to my house, bacon butter, like yogurt, all the really fancy stuff, like a hundred dollars worth of groceries had had them delivered to my house after I had given birth.
(21:04): And I'm sharing this because I, as, as a religious person, I believe that God is always working through people. And so when you open your life to conversations into people like this, I believe you get to experience God in a really real and intimate way. So even if I'm not hard selling, even if I'm not like trying to get a sale every single time, I believe that when you are warming your light to relationships, it's like a really beautiful thing. Like, you don't know how, like, how God is going to use this interaction or this like conversation for something really, really cool.
(21:41): That's lovely. Yeah. And I'd say, because I Catholic by birth, let's put it that way, but not Catholic by practice. Although James Joyce said, once a Catholic, always a Catholic, and there's some bit of that than that, but I'm not. Yeah. I've got, you know, not God fearing God loving, but, but not necessarily. I've expanded my view. Shall we say, what, what, you know, God is the universe, whatever. So I, I tend to have much more eclectic, shall we say very, more generic conversations about the concept of God with people, although I'm absolutely, as you can imagine, very at home, we're talking about the God in all his or her or its forms. But the idea of just that there's this kind of humanitarian, shall we call it energy that flows through all of those connections, the binders,
(22:24): Well, has that ever happened to you? Like where you have a friend or a conversation and you're like, fed is like exactly what I needed to hear or receive like right at this moment, it's like so beautiful.
(22:35): You do wonder sometimes whether it's God working through his or whether it's something that's just built into us, if you like, we are, because it was so it wasn't that it's, I can't remember the passage from the Bible where Jesus says, ye are gods, but essentially because we are made in the image, if we, if we go down that route. Yup. Whether you believe it, whether you take something from it, the reality is we are powerful beings and there's a lot about our souls that we just don't know. And the connection between, you know, between people in that dynamic that takes place, sometimes things happen where you're just kind of in float, whether you attribute, attribute that to God or life or whatever, it doesn't really matter. At the end of the day, the fact is it happens. And it is a beautiful thing. It absolutely is.
(23:15): So I, that resonates with me very, very powerfully. So, so there's an expanded kind of expanded purpose here, I guess, in some respects, because you have that added dimension, that what it is that you do as well as just being a bloody good human. Yeah. It's just wonderful. So you take two, you take two sales by the sounds of it, and you're doing this, but of course the family's expanding and you're now in Connecticut, you said, yeah. People step out of nowhere and help you, which is fabulous. Yeah. But eventually you're going back to Minnesota. So just take us from that part of your life and what's going on and the kind of transition.
(23:52): Yeah. So from, in between like this office job and like helping families, you know, facilitate the conversation with donation, I was cleaning houses. I was cleaning houses on the side.
(24:01): Just give me the chronology. When was this? I
(24:03): Was working two jobs. So I was working my overnight jobs and then picking up cleaning houses in between all that. And I started to this was like before podcasting was a thing. I actually had somebody say, Hey, do you know what a podcast is? You should check out. I love marketing. I think you'll really like it. And I had to like search for it and like, listen to this back in, you know, like 2011 and loved it, started to learn everything about marketing from Dean Jackson and Joe Polish. Right. And I loved it because every, everything that I could find at the time was about selling products. And this was a cleaning company, right. This, and they were, they were real estate agent in a, in a carpet cleaner. So everything they talked about really hit home about like, Hey, this is personal, you're going into somebody's home.
(24:44): And I just ate up everything I could about marketing listened to them nonstop. And when we moved to Connecticut, I started taking that skillset. Plus what I had learned in conversations, like awkward conversations and just actually helping friends who were like graphic designers or photographers, close their deals, even when they were applying for jobs. Right. They wanted help with interviewing. So I started to see that they would take what I would say and turn around and like pay their bills, like make more sales in three weeks. And they had previously, like, I started to see that this was a thing. It was like a happy accident. I was like, Oh my gosh, like, this is like, this is working. So I just started casually like offering my services in like small packages. Right. Like the first one I sold was like, I think it was like $1,500 for three months.
(25:31): And started also picking up projects. Right. So like I would sell for people on their phones when they were trying to sell packages, I would cold pitch as a freelancer. And then just spent like the next five years refining that skillset, our family, actually, we moved down to Alabama. So my husband would eventually get a job as a professor down here in the South. And that's where we live now. We've been here for three years. And since that time, the skill that I've been paid for, I'd been hired by a friend I've been hired by like international companies to coach as their like person for their programs. I've been hired to coach franchises, how to improve their sales, picking up projects. And now I just run this sort of membership community where I'm just helping them field and navigate their own conversations to getting paid. Fabulous.
(26:19): Yeah. And actually I was, I was talking to Robin Waite who runs and they confidently charge more great, great groups. Yeah. Super guy. And of course that's his thing. Take your shot. Where the, the last book he published was all about packaging, essentially. That was that's. What started was he bought a golf pro who was who was selling by the hour essentially, and a golf golf businessman who was a, he was a student of his, if you like come along to improve his swing, started talking about packaging and, you know, you couldn't have got, I think, a better grounding than listening to Dean Jackson and Joe Polish back in the day, you landed on your feet there. You really did. Yeah.
(26:57): And then that was the sort of the thing is that with the cleaning company, what I discovered is that you don't, you don't have to talk a woman into like hiring a cleaning service. Like she already knows she wants it. She just got to convince her husband. Right. So I learned, like I sorta had to help navigate the marketing where it was like, we're not quite talking to the woman, we're giving her the message to communicate to her husband and why she needs the service. And so it's sort of those nuances where people can feel stuck where it's like, maybe I have, maybe I serve lots of different people and don't have a niche, or maybe like they want it, but they need help talking to their husband about it. Right. So that sort of skillset just kind of became very transferable.
(27:34): That's a really good point. It's so I'm hoping we're going to explore more depth than we've got time on the MMC. But again, the Don Miller talks about this and StoryBrand the, the, the, essentially having a message or having something that is so strongly built into the culture that somebody else within your organization or a client, for example, or a fan can explain what you do as well as if not better than you can and succinctly, and I guess in some respects, that's it with the sales process. If you're selling through somebody, who's an influencer to a decision maker ultimately, or hidden decision maker, that's what you want to be doing. They have to mitigate that.
(28:10): I'm so glad that you said that. Cause it's just like a fundamental point in the consensual sales processes that like, I don't need you to heart. I don't need you to like hard sell. I don't need you to like, try to convince somebody. I just need you to make sure that they understand what you do. Is it clear? And is it, is it sticky? Right. And it's clear. And if it's sticky, the sheer fact that you're talking to somebody that might have a problem that you solve will naturally lead to more sales simply because they understand it or they'll connect you to your clients and this will help you exponentially, like get those sales.
(28:42): Yeah. Putting it. Yeah, of course. Because the easiest thing for somebody to say is no. And ultimately I said before position, isn't it? Yeah. For a lot of people, just a question that came out from Chloe. I was talking about StoryBrand. Cause she, she does that over here. This goes back to the tissue donation gig. Yeah. And I, this actually came up with me. I ran a T with doorknockers back in the day, you know, the guys who just, God was great blood in front of them.
(29:07): That I do that as a cleaning lady. When I first wanted business, I was just, I need to go get some business. And that's how I started to that's
(29:15): Drag a couple of PT, friends of mine. Fitpros who we haven't got business. And our life is hard. Right. Come with me. Yeah. Knock a few doors conversation. Yeah. Literally I dropped them in properly in the deep end. It's like, are you going to have a conversation with people I'm not the door? And then literally you just handed.
(29:32): I love that. I love that. I feel like that's something that everybody should have through.
(29:38): It's a baptism of fire, but my God, but it's a great question that clothes come up with, which is how do you even start the conversation like that? Now I've got a response, which is you just do. But of course, any instruction that starts with a word, just probably isn't gonna work for most people. So what's your, what was your, what's your response to that for somebody who's doesn't have the chutzpah or the, or if you like the skill that the Babs you've got.
(30:02): Yeah. Yeah. I don't want this to sound cruel, but like, I don't talk to anybody that like, I don't, I haven't like found something that I could talk to them about, so I don't force it. So I try to look for like a shared experience, a shared sense of humor or a shared values. And that's kind of how we connected. We connected on shared experience with, you know, charm offensive and then we were in other programs. So like, again, I'm not trying to force a conversation with somebody that I have nothing to talk about. I just, if I can't find something based on just a quick, you know, a couple minute gathering of information on their profile or their website, I'll just skip it. Right. And I'll just find something that I like about them. And I'll just try to make that relevant. Like, Hey, we happen to be in the same trauma fencing community.
(30:41): Like I'd love to know if there's anything that you're working on that you might need help with. Or I notice X, Y, and Z, like wanting to just let you know, I really appreciate your content or what you're writing about. And this is why if you can get specific about why it matters, it will go a long way. What feels weird. And when it feels awkward and sort of your DMS is when somebody is commenting and it's just like, Hey, I like you. Hey, you seem really cool. Hey, how are you? It's like, like it's not relevant. Like, it doesn't matter to me. But if you said, Hey, Shauna, like I noticed X, Y, and Z, and it matters. Or I noticed, I think that you're really cool because of eight X, Y, and Z. Like that will go a really long way. So if you can take the focus off of you and what you need to say and just try to find something that you can connect with somebody on. And again, you're not using that as an opportunity to sell quite yet. Right. But you're using it to warm up your life, to warm your life up to these relationships.
(31:33): Love it. Absolutely love it. And I got, of course what we're saying here, but at least, and forgive me if I miss, if I'm misinterpreting this, but we're pulling away from the LinkedIn definition of connection, which is just that you've got somebody on your network as a, as a link. And we're actually looking for genuine connection. We're looking for something that binds us and having a conversation around that. Yeah.
(31:54): Yeah. Your network is like the most important thing. And so I don't want to know, I tell people this. I said, when you add me, like, I want to make sure that I know every single person who is on my feet, like I actually want to know them and that they know me. So it doesn't make any sense to just go through and add a whole bunch of people. Right. It also means that sales starts with you. Like, what do you like, what can you talk about? Where can you show up and like participate and be a good participant in certain communities.
(32:22): Yeah. Yeah. That really resonates with me. So let me pull you back, because you're now on this, this journey five years of kind of honing your craft as, as you were, as, as it were, but yeah. How he's just got himself. Finally just got himself a gig and you've got five and you know, and you've had some pretty stressful years by the sounds of it. So in your head, where are you with all of us?
(32:46): That's a good question in my head. I just want to put in a good day's work with people where I can, like, who, who need this skill that I have, right. Like I just want to come in, do a good job, roll up my sleeves and be done with it. So I've been doing this and sort of a small, like membership capacity where I don't have to make, I don't want to build an empire. You know what I mean? Like, I don't want to have this like multi-million dollar business. I just want to have it, like, I just want to take care of my family, put in a good day's work and like, feel that sort of good kind of exhaustion. So if I can do that, that's kind of what I've been building over the last two years now is just sort of getting to that point
(33:27): And what sort of wonderful I get that will resonate again because our crowd, that's all our crowd. Very, very much. You want to put your head down on the pillow at the end of the night and go get some good. Absolutely. So before we get to that, and it's a regular thing, you've got some challenges to what kind? Cause we all have them, you know, we, we, we have imposter syndrome, we got a issues with pricing. So we're working way too hard for the money that's coming in, et cetera, et cetera. We're, you know, we're, we're working with clients, despite the rhetoric, we're working with clients that sometimes just don't vibe and we just get it wrong. How about you? What kind of challenges have you had as you've been building the business?
(34:03): Sometimes my ego gets in the way, right? Like, Oh, like they should just come to me or, Oh, like I don't have to put an offer out or Oh, like it just, yeah. I just kind of sometimes have this ego where like, I don't want to sell. Right. I don't want to put an offer out there. I just want people to come to me. And I think that that really prevents me from actually hitting, like, that's actually like a roadblock that prevents me from getting where I want to be, because that's not true. Right. Like people can want what you have. They could have a list of problems, but maybe nobody ever actually presented an offer at the right time. And so I've got, I worked through that and I know a lot of people do too. Right. Like they just want those things, the sales to fall from the sky and fall right into their lap. Right. And it's like, that's not how it works. That's not how people
(34:49): Yeah, exactly the point. But of course that's yeah. If you come to business, being a business owner or an entrepreneur, and maybe, maybe you, you hang around in watering holes and pools and groups where those terms abandoned ground, but actually you are owning your own job and you have an employee mindset. Then you bring that with you by nature is I just want to do the work that I want to do. I don't want to be walking. I don't want to do sales. I don't want to get involved in lead gen. I don't want to do aftercare. I just want to deliver this service and do great work, which is understandable. My response normally for that is just go get a job. That's not the gig. That's not how it works. Yeah. Fascinating. So, so, so a couple of little nuggets for the guys then ahead of next week, Sean, because truthfully, I could extend this for another hour and really get into this.
(35:37): Cause there's just so much in you and your story that we could talk about and indeed what you do now, but I'm kind of mindful of the time. So a thing to avoid something that the guys probably that you've seen thousands of times that the guys are probably doing or thinking about doing in their sales process, if you like from birth lead gen, all the way through to after aftercare is you. And I know the sales process doesn't stop when you sell. Yeah. When you get to, so, so all the way through that, that, that life cycle and that journey and what is something you see happening habitually that we absolutely should not be doing or should avoid.
(36:09): Good question. I see a lot of people making the decisions for their clients themselves. So they're literally robbing their potential customer from making their own choice.
(36:20): That's a powerful, powerful statement. So what does that look like in action?
(36:24): Yeah. So it's like either, like they told me they have a problem or are struggling and I'm not going to offer it because, Oh, they can't, or they're in another program or they just spent money on this. Or I know they don't have any money or like it's going to cost too much. Like they just start like, like it's literally robbing them of their own choice. And that's where I see it come up the most is that they either won't present an offer after knowing somebody is struggling. And it doesn't mean like, Hey, will you buy my thing today? It's just like, Hey, if you want to talk about how I might be able to help you with a particular package that we, you know, that we can co-create, that will absolutely support you. Like, I'd love to talk about it. Like that's, that's, it's just an invitation to talk further about your particular offer, but yeah. That's, or this is like one, so like one, one, one client is like, you know, offered a landing page to re like as a copywriter offer to write a landing page. But the lady also needs like website copy. Right. So instead of offering the choice and giving that person a decision, they're not even going to offer it because Oh, like the landing page is already too much money. Right. So it's like, that's wrong. I don't think you should be doing that. Yeah.
(37:30): Have those conversations so many times, but yeah, the second guessing I liked the way you phrased it though, making the decision for the client second guessing the outcome would you call, it goes way beyond just the sales conversations. Of course. Yeah. Which leads in, and a lot of it comes from the I'm not worthy imposter syndrome. You're not full sort of way of thinking and feeling that it will not work out because I'm not deserving. All that stuff that goes on unconsciously or subconsciously, but it's there and it manifests in sales conversations. And I love that making decisions for the client instead of just going, what do you want? I'd be open confession here. I was like this with my kids when I was a younger man. Very, very much. It's just deciding for them what would be a good thing for them. You know? Like I get really excited about taking them to Disney in Paris, Disneyland in Paris now as a hop and they get very excited. But that's an example of yeah. Yeah. I think this will be a good thing. I'm booking this. We're going not what do you think? Yeah.
(38:28): Yeah. And this will happen when you're, you're more obsessed with your solution than obsessed with
(38:33): The problem. Like if
(38:36): You can be more obsessed with the problem, you can co-create solutions all day.
(38:39): That's beautiful. Yeah. Yeah. Simon talked about this and we had, we had an event in wrong a couple of years ago. It seems like a lifetime ago. Now we're doing the, we're talking about the foundations of entrepreneurial success. And one of the five characteristics of wildly successful entrepreneurs is that they align their passion with a big problem that we solve. So they get passionate about solving the problem and you just hit the nail on the head. Don't be obsessed with your solution, be obsessed with solving the problem and the problem itself and the pain that the problem is putting your your clients through. I would say that is just beautifully put, thank you for that. I'm just, I'm making notes furiously as well.
(39:14): And that gives you like a good energy going into the conversation where they're not going to feel like all they're trying to sell me, they'll act like they'll really feel like if you can just kind of have that frame of mind, like it's going to actually help you sell.
(39:27): Yeah. Yeah. Very, very much. One of the great things about talking to you, I find it. And I, I, it's rare. I've got this with a few people, but not many is that sometimes you just get a new lexicon for ideas you've already got, but you can't express them. Yeah. And I think it's one of the great things about you. You phrase things in such a way that it gets, it's easy for a concept or an idea that you just haven't been able to put your finger on to just click, even though the rhetoric is there. It just doesn't like it. You know what I mean? It doesn't fall into place and just, and just kind of click and it just did. So thank you for that. Okay, cool. Well, let's flip this to the positive. What, what's one thing really that like a big lever the guys can pull in terms of sales conversations that will make all the difference for them.
(40:10): One thing, this is something that I've picked up from John Buchan with the charm offensive community. But like, if you're feeling awkward or if it feels not, if you're not sure, like, if this is right, just say that, say the most honest thing that you can say, Hey, like this might be a little awkward or Hey, this might come out wrong, but it's like, if you can facilitate and focus on having a really honest conversation, that's really going to go a long way because one, most people are very forgiving and two, like they're going to appreciate that transparency. So anywhere in the sales conversation, if you're just not quite sure how to say something, just say that to say, this might sound awkward. This might sound weird. I hope this is enough. Like, I hope this doesn't bother you or Hey, if it does, we don't have to ever speak about it again. Right? Like we can just throw it out and pretend it never happened. So letting, if you can be honest while kind of being a little charming, I think that that goes a long way in the sales conversation to having an open and honest conversation. And that's just half the battle. If people feel safe enough with you, they'll tell you almost anything. So if you can focus on that sort of feeling of this is a totally transparent and honest conversation by showing you I'm being vulnerable, that kind of gives them that permission to reciprocate.
(41:23): Yeah. That's lovely. Again, another expression for my volt when people really know you care, they don't really care what you know. Yeah. Very, very, very much. And yeah, that gets abused. I think it all flows, but, but it's very true. I think. Well, that's lovely. So essentially what you're doing without being structured about it necessarily and mechanical, but you're essentially pre-framing what's to come and just putting it in a setting where it's kind of okay. But you've given them a nice, a nice, because people don't like being boxed in or painted in the corner, you've just given them a nice door to walk through that gives them room to maneuver if they feel a bit awkward. Yeah. That's nice. I really liked that Charlotte. Seriously. There's just so much I could talk about, I just want to see if any of the guys who've actually closed. You said she's off to pick up the boy because it's that time of the day. Now our schools are getting out, but she's looking forward to the MMC. Just, I want to close off the spotlight conversation, but just seed the MMC for next week. So in a nutshell, what can the guys look forward to when they come along for the masterclass?
(42:21): Yeah. So I'm going to teach you the process from beginning, like to actually finding a client to closing that client. Right? So the conversation nuances that will get you from where are they to actually like money in your bank.
(42:34): Right. Okay. And what again, what I like, cause obviously I know the process. What I like about this is much like, you know, Simon and I bang on about, yes, there are steps, but steps don't make a blueprint. It isn't something you follow mechanically. There are principles that you follow that you teach that allow us to understand how to navigate and negotiate the various steps because they're different for everybody. And the experience is always different, even for yourself, with different people, which I really like about it. So essentially there's a structure, a framework that we call that, that, that will guide people through the process. So they understand what to do when they come up against a situation that they haven't previously come up against at that point in the process. Is that, would that be fair? Yeah. Wonderful. Right. Well obviously I'm on that is, I've got no choice, but I believe there are anyway, because it's going to be brilliant. Shorter. It's been an absolute delight. Thank you so, so much for giving up some time and coming to talk to me.
(43:25): Cool. This was awesome. I appreciate you and everybody who was watching, leave us a message. If you want to talk a little bit further, I'd be happy to hear more about what you're up to.
(43:33): Yeah, please, guys. And for those of you that watch this on the recording, we, the vast majority just join us in the group. Just reach out to her. You'll get some contact details at the back of the MMC next week as well. We'll probably broadcast that into the group so you can see it, but just reach out to, I don't know anybody. Who's more approachable. So take advantage of,
(43:49): Yeah, absolutely. Talk to you guys soon. Thank you so much.
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