 How many people here sell something? How many people here hate selling things? So have you ever been to a sales call or on a sales call or in person and you break out in a cold sweat? Or you get all the way through the sales conversation and you forget to ask for the business? All right, these are very, very common things that happen when your brain takes over your selling. So we're going to talk a little bit about that. So what's scarier than heights? What's scarier than public speaking, which is kind of scary, the fear of rejection, right? That's really what is the basis of almost all sales fear is the fear of rejection. So tell you a little bit about myself and why I might know a little bit of something about sales and the fear of rejection. So both of my parents were salespeople. In fact, when I was five years old, my parents were real estate agents. Their broker brought me in to do a listing presentation for all of his agents because he wanted them to see it done the right way because my parents had been practicing with me and I just had picked it up, right? So I've been selling or around selling since I was five years old. But when I was in fourth grade, my parents got divorced and I became a raging people pleaser. And what is the worst thing that can happen to a people pleaser is no, right? Fear of rejection. So I've had to learn to reconcile those two things. My love is selling and my fear of rejection. The biggest thing to learn is it's not about you, right? It's not you and it's not, when you get a no, it's not you. 80% of consumers say no the first four times a salesperson talks to them. Not the first time, first four times a bad salesperson talks to them, any salesperson, right? To get a yes, on average, right? So the first four knows it's not about you, right? It's just how the world works. The number one reason for your rejection is your agenda, right? A lot of times after you've gone, made it through the first four times, the first five calls, the 72% the end of rejection, the what's left over when you get turned down, it's because you're talking about yourself and what you can do for them and not them and what they need and their problem to be solved. So how do we achieve sales nirvana? What do you think? What do you think it is? What's that? Listen to them, dress fabulously, anybody else? Solve their problems. First you gotta get your mind right, right? It's all in your head. How many times have you said this to yourself? I don't wanna bother anybody. I don't wanna bother them. Are you attempting to read their minds? Are you psychic? Right? Cause in our self-talk, we start saying things like, well, they're probably really busy right now. They probably don't wanna hear from me. I'm bothering them. Listen to your self-talk, right? What are you saying? The most powerful agent of change when it comes to overcoming your fear of sales is non-judgmental self-observation. As you're going through your sales, listen to yourself and observe yourself without judgment and you might see yourself doing some things and you say, oh, that's interesting that I did that, right? Are you talking yourself out of sales? Are you playing credit manager? Has anybody ever heard of this? So I used to sell pools, above-ground pools really long time ago, and I went to this ramshackle house, this old dude in overalls with a young pretty wife, and I called my sales manager and I was like, this guy cannot afford what I'm about to go sell him. And he said, you're playing credit manager. That's not your job. Your job is to go in there and solve his problem. And his problem is he wants a pool for his new pretty wife, right? The man had plenty of money. It just wasn't important to him to show it, right? So that has been a very powerful lesson to me as I've moved through my career because I find this coming up again and again, playing credit manager. I'll go into a business and instead of pricing what I think the product or the value of the service is worth, I price it for what I think they can pay me. Right? That's because I'm playing credit manager. I don't know what their finances are. This is all in my head. This has no meaning outside of my own psychodrama. So the less I play credit manager, the more profit I can make. One of the things that I found myself doing when I was really struggling with sales is I realized that I was talking a lot in my head about myself and how this interaction was affecting me. Right? So I'll go to the sales. I'm like, I'm so nervous. I gotta get all these things right. Am I prepared? Am I doing this? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I go in armed with this arsenal of information that's gonna blow them away about how great I am. What's the last thing people wanna talk about? Other people, they wanna talk about themselves, right? So this is a really great tactic to keep in mind is are you nervous because you're thinking about yourself or are you nervous because you feel like you can't solve their problem? Usually it's not the second. Immersion therapy. Are you doing this enough to get comfort? Or is it so long between sales encounters that every time's like the first time? So gotta keep doing it. Do it and I know it's scary and I know it's uncomfortable but you will only grow as a business person putting yourself in these situations over and over and over and over again, right? It's just like public speaking. Public speaking is scary all the time but the more you do it, the less cold sweats you have. So speaking of repetition, do you think the person at the window at McDonald's who's asking you if you want fries with that has sales fear? Oh, they don't because they do it 700 times a day, right? So just like I said, the more sales conversations you have, the easier it gets. You want some good news? It's better than french fries. Your job's not to sell, right? But what is the job? Your job is to solve problems, right? So all of that self-doubt that you get, all of the anxiety that you get when you're going through the sales conversation, if it's about you and your product and your sales quota and I really need to make this sale, that's a different experience than what's your problem and how can I fix that for you? I was gonna say who do you solve problems for but my elementary school English teacher popped up in my head and so I apologize for the unnecessary whom here. But so for whom do you solve problems? Not everybody in the world, right? Everybody in the world could probably benefit from something you do but that doesn't mean that they're your ideal client. And the more you get clear about who your target market is, the easier it is to solve their problems, okay? I recently got really clear about who my target market is. I thought my target market was the website owner, you know, the HVAC guy, the lawyer, the people that I was building websites for but it's not, it's my referral partners and I can spend my time and my messaging building that connection with my referral partners who then, you know, I can solve their problems. Your prospect needs a trusted guide, not a salesperson. You wanna elevate yourself to a trusted advisor. You're there to help them, you're here to go with them on their journey, right? You want to help them get where they wanna go and you wanna make them look like a genius. That is really your job, is to make that person who hires you, who connects with you, who puts their reputation in your hands. Your job is not to deliver a product, your job is to make them look fantastic. Some quick tips to get started on that. So, ask them what's going on. Don't even start talking about yourself. A lot of people, they just show up at a sales call, they break out their pitch deck, they start going through it, talking about how great they are, the other projects they've done. The prospect is already asleep, right? Don't even start talking about yourself. Just introduce yourself and just ask what's going on in your business. Get to know what's happening with them, what's their process, what, how's their workflow happen. Then ask what's their greatest pain point. My biggest referral partner that I onboarded, he had been dodging giving referrals to people because he was top of his industry, everybody knows that he's got extra work, they're always trying to give the referrals from him. So, I just struck up a conversation with him, I was like introduced myself and found out a little bit about his business and I said, what's your greatest pain point? And he said, I hate content. And in my head I said, I do too. But I said, why don't you let me take that off your plate? I built some trust with him and we've been referral partners ever since. I recently went and spoke with a guy who was a referral and I walked in and he was very angry. He had been talking to web people all week. I was the sixth person he had talked to and he was over it. And I needed to break down that anger and get through to him. And so he had been through six other web shops who came in and did a song and dance and auditioned for his work. Don't ever audition for work, right? You're past that. I don't care if you're starting, you're past the point in your career where you have to audition for work, right? So what I did was I just asked him, I was like, so what didn't you like about all these guys? And what didn't you like about all the vendors that you've hated working with? And he said, they have no hustle and they don't know how to communicate. I said, well, have you ever worked with anybody you liked? And he said, dozens, dozens. And I said, well, what's the commonality? All those people. He said, they hustle and they know how to communicate. What do you think I tailored the rest of my conversation around? You know, listen to what they say when they're agitated. It's not necessarily a bad thing. This is an opportunity to find out what's behind the pain. Once you've finished listening, now you get to talk. And then you bend your story and your solution to fit their story, right? So I'm selling this guy a website, but what I'm really selling him is hustle and communication because that's what he's buying. They just told you. So a lot of sales gets bad reputation, especially, you know, the used car salesman, right? That's a classic cliche of cheesy, greasy, sleazy sales. Doesn't have to be that way. So here's some, we're gonna take some classic techniques and update them for the digital age. Has anybody ever seen a sign going out of business? Right? It's kind of an old school technique. They do it because it works. What do you think would be an updated version of that? We're talking about scarcity. This is how I do it. I'm booking up quickly. I'd really love for your business. I really like to have your business, but my next available start date is in two weeks and that's a moving target. So I can only take on one more project. I'd love for it to be yours. Anybody ever have to deal with the traveling vacuum cleaner salesman or old door-to-door salesman who as soon as you open the door, they put their foot in the door. I don't know if y'all, maybe I'm dating myself. They don't really do that anymore. So foot in the door technique, today's version, tripwire product, right? It's tripwire product is that little thing you can sell them that can establish trust. It may be it's a discovery session. Maybe you're not selling them a full website. Maybe you're just selling them a session to decide what they really need. My favorite tripwire product is keyword research. I love to do that for people. It's very high value. It's a low investment builds trust. It's stalking the client. What about now? Now? What about now? Today's version continuing to demonstrate their value to you and the value you can give to them, right? So instead of being like, hey, I haven't heard from you for a while. Are you still up for this? Maybe the conversation is I ran across an article that made me think of you and the particular problem that you have. You might find it interesting. Here's the link. Staying top of mind without being annoying and continuing to demonstrate your value. He who talks first loses. Is anybody familiar with this? Yes? So for those of you who aren't, the principle behind this is when you're in a sales conversation and an uncomfortable moment happens. Usually it's around a budget question or asking for the business. There's an automatic silence. Now human nature wants us to fill that silence with anything, a lower number, easier terms, anything to make that dreaded silence go away because in that silence we project rejection. He who talks first loses. So if as the provider I talk first, I'm usually gonna reduce my position of strength. The client talks first, usually they're accepting your proposal and they're not really losing but for us, we've won, right? Updated for the digital age, this one still works. What are some other old school techniques that you've seen work? Anybody? What techniques have you had used on you? I once worked for a sales company and they said, it takes an average when you're doing in-home sales of seven closes before the person will say yes. And I remember asking, well how do you know if you've tried to close them too many times? And my manager said, when you hear the sirens, you know you have time for two more closes. Of course, that's not the kind of selling that we do today, right? Today we're just talking, we're building relationships, we're providing value. So I went through that rather quickly. We've got some time for questions and I know that you guys have some questions. So who would like to start? How do I start a conversation for cold calling? So how cold is it? Are you just calling them for the first time? I would say, hey, how you doing? I'm so-and-so. I'd like to learn a little bit more about your business and how I might be able to help you. And once, what do you do? Just start with probing questions as much as they'll tolerate before they push back. Yes ma'am. So one of the things that, first, you try to prevent that conversation by talking about your value that you're gonna solve for them. Because if you've really gone deep with them on their value and they're pushing back on pricing, it's probably because they don't have the money, right? Not because they don't appreciate the perceived value because you have already shown them that you can solve their problem, right? So at that point, what I would do, if I would try to tailor a solution to them or I would try to make an introduction to somebody else who would be a better fit for them, right? Because if I just lower my price, that means I was overcharging them to begin with, right? So I can either take something out. Well, I would really love to work with you and I'm sure we can come up with a solution for you at that price point. Which one of these things do you think is not essential to solving your problem? Everybody's not your client. And I have people, I mean, and it's really great to know the people who are above you in the food chain and below you in the food chain, right? There's some projects that come to me are much too big for me. I have, I refer them up. There are projects that come to me that they're not a right fit for me budget-wise, I refer them down. Can you share, you talked about this scarcity tactic that you have, which is great. Do you have any other pointers like that that kind of give you a little bit more leverage? One of my greatest tools is my booking calendar, okay? So when I send somebody to my booking calendar, it's very clear that I'm not just sitting around doing nothing, right? I have very few spots available because I'm busy. Also, I had someone, and this may be a little off topic, but I had a client, a potential client, ask me why I thought I deserved his business. And I said, I didn't care if I got his business or not. I'm busy. I can solve his problem. That's why I wanna be there. If I'm a fit for him, I was like, and he loved that. People love strength. People don't want somebody begging for their business, right? I don't need your business. What I need is a relationship with someone where I can make a difference. That's really powerful, right? Other scarcity, for me, the booking, and I only have so much time on my calendar. And just saying that my next available start date is a moving target, that's mostly the scarcity that I use. I'm not anybody else having good ideas about how you can use scarcity. So very specific time slots available. Now, here's one that I do use when people wanna ask me if I work after hours, because some people are working on their side project and they can't talk during the day. I say, well, I can only take on two after-hours projects at a time because I have time for my family. I already have one. That's a red flag. You don't want that client. Maybe that's a presumption, but when people, when you really have to chase a client, unless you're in like a super competitive market where you have to fight for every client, if you have to chase them, they're not worth catching. Because they don't respect you. They don't see the value in what you're doing. And that may be that they really are too busy and this just isn't a priority for them. Maybe when they circle back around and there comes a time where it is a priority for them, it's gonna be better, but that will be a nightmare. Because not only are they not have time for you, they're not gonna have time to get the content for you. They're not gonna have time to meet the milestones. They're not gonna have time to cut your check. Isn't that sad to see someone that you really want to help and you know you can help them, but you can't be their savior. You know what I'm saying? You can't fix business models unless that's your job and they're paying you for it. Yes, sir. So one of my favorite lines is, we were brought together for a reason, but not this reason. Can you repeat that? I have loved working with you, but I feel like my business is going in a different direction and I've identified somebody else who I think would be a better fit. Yes, yes. Right, absolutely. So the flip side of scarcity is abundance and I would like to add to there if you get one of these clients who doesn't respect you and you took it out of a scarcity mindset because you're thinking, I need to go ahead and take this, that project is going to bog you down and you're going to miss the next three opportunities because you can't disentangle yourself from them. Yes, ma'am. I have a little social proof on my website, but I don't talk about myself. I mean, I tell people that I have a network of people that I can tap for any knowledge that I'm lacking. I'm very transparent about my skill level, but I really don't talk about myself. I talk about them and I talk about their problem and really get in deep and I ask probing questions and then if someone says, you know, can you tell me of another company that you help this way? I say I can, but I like to keep that information private because this is a very personal relationship. I can tell you about the results we achieved but I'm not going to be making an introduction. Yes, ma'am. I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about the ongoing sales. So if you have a retainer client and you've been working with them for, say, two years, how do you then go back to them? Because now everything's a little bit more expensive. You've broadened the project, but they're still getting the same pricing. How do you then raise the prices because that's never very popular with a client? Well, have you provided value for them in that time? Absolutely. Is the value increasing? Absolutely. Then there needs to be an exchange of value. So one of the ways that I had a conversation with someone is I started doing, providing more value for them than they were paying. And then after about a month of that, I sat down with them and I said, let's do a review of the last six months. And this new service that I've been providing for you, a little, you know, I've been going above and beyond, has that been valuable to you? You want to get them nodding? And I said, great, I'd love to have an exchange of value. This would be my pricing to continue the service. Because they don't want to do you wrong, you know? Most of the time where we're getting undervalued and we're not making the money that we need to do it is because we're not asking for it. Yes, ma'am. So I have a talk that I gave at WorkCamp Atlanta last year. You can find it on WordPress TV. It's called Building Your Referral Network. But I'll give you the Cliff Notes version of it here. So what I did was I moved to Atlanta from New York. I didn't know anybody. I didn't know anybody who did what I did, right? And anytime that I talked about my business, my family and friends, their eyes just glazed over, right? So I needed that connection, not just for referrals or anything like that. I needed that connection. So I started going to my local meetups and I started going to as many as I could fit into my calendar. I got there early. I served. I stayed late. I was quiet. I didn't talk about myself. Nobody wants to hear the new person come in and talk about how great they are. They don't know you from Adam. So I started serving and I started asking questions and I started identifying people who were doing things that I wanted to do, but they were doing it better than I did. And so I would emulate them. And then a mentor came to me and started mentoring me and teaching me. And then I showed up applying what they taught me. That's the biggest thing is when you are in community and someone's taking you under their wing is to show that you're actually learning and you're applying that, right? So then this does not happen overnight, okay? So then you start finding out how can I help you? What, once again, tell me about your business, right? So now it's a different sales opportunity. Tell me about your business. Tell me about what kind of people I can send to you. How can I help solve your problems? Or your graphic designer? What kind of businesses do you like to work with? I'll keep my eye out, right? Start providing value. People will naturally start wanting to send business to people they like and trust. Don't be a flake, right? This is the biggest thing. If you say you're gonna do something in community, do it. Even if it means you're gonna show up early to set up the chairs, you better show up early instead of the chairs because the person that doesn't show up to set up the chairs does not get the referrals. Yes, sir. So how much preparation before they drop in on a new client? And if you should charge for that? Is that what you're asking? No, no, no, no. Because then you're working for them before you've gotten paid. I do the bare minimum and I don't mean to be disrespectful to my prospect, but I wanna look and if I can't see something glaring, a glaring issue when I just do an overview, then maybe I'll go deeper. But what I do is I, there's usually something very obvious and it's usually in their messaging, in their, you know, maybe the functionality of their website and I'll go in and I'll just talk to them and I'll say, you know, I noticed, you know, X, Y, Z. Because that gives me just enough where I have not spent the time I could be selling or making money, throwing it away on a prospect who may or may not do business with me, but I have also a little bit of skin in the game that I've shown interest in them enough to prompt a deeper conversation. Like you should have a basic understanding of what they do, but I don't believe in spending five hours of my time that I could be billing or spending with my family on somebody who may or may not do that. So I would say an hour or less. As much time as it takes to drive to their office, double that. Someone who's very aggressive. Now there's some people who are aggressive with you because they've had bad experiences. And if you can uncover what those bad experiences were, then that's a positive. But I had somebody, they had a $1,500 budget. They came as a referral and I work with anybody who comes by referrals, no matter what their budget is, I'll find something to work for them because my referral partners are the most important people in my business. But this guy, he had $1,500 and wanted me to dance and perform and explain to him and go into detail about why I deserve to charge so much. That's a red flag, right? People who are flaky, they're late for the meeting or they stand you up. One time you get one grace period and somebody had to have been bleeding, right? That second time, if they're more than 15 minutes late, no, because you don't have, unless you are really successful in your business and you have really reached the pinnacle, you don't have time to waste on these jokers because they don't respect your business. Why should you respect theirs? And obviously, if they're not respecting you, they're not respecting their processes and they probably don't have any and that's gonna be a train wreck. Yes. So when I moved to Atlanta, I didn't have a car. I lived in a basement. I had a special needs two year old and I worked nights at Longhorn. Did I take any crap job that came my way? Yes, absolutely. And I thanked a good Lord for it. But as you go forward, that should be less and less. And if you get to a point where it's, your bills are getting paid, that's when you can really start getting picky. When you book out. So what I would do is I would get booked out six weeks and then I would double my prices. And then I'd come back where I was only booked out one week and then maybe that was too much and I'd lower it. I'd book out six weeks and I'd increase my pricing again. And the more stabilized I got, the more particular I could get. So it is absolutely true. There are sometimes you're just gonna have to take a client no matter how bad they are to put food on your table. And there is no shame in that. And that is perfectly fine. But that should not be a permanent situation. Yes. It really depends on what types of projects. So my capacity is about eight web projects a month. I also have a coaching service. My capacity for that is five because I wanna make sure that everybody gets their attention that they need. And I'm an introvert and too much talking breaks my brain. All right, we've got time for one more question, I think. Yes, Nathan. So I haven't always been super confident. I've always been arrogant, but those things are different. So when I did not have the self-confidence I needed to sell, I played a little game with myself. So I had done sales for other people who set crazy pricing and I could go out and sell it for them, right? Because I was selling their thing. I was selling their process. And it wasn't about me really, it was about them. So when I started out on my own, I was like all shaky need, very much a wuss, but I was determined. So I played a little game with myself. I pretended that I was selling for somebody else. And when someone said, well, that's a lot, I could say, you know, that's the price. Because I'm pretending that the big boss made the price, not me. You know, I just played little games with myself to make myself have more power than I actually had. And I had power all along. It's just, I didn't know how to claim it. But the stronger you get, do it more and more and more and more and more and more. Get on the phone, make the phone calls, right? Now I have zero fear of the phone, okay? Can you imagine getting to the place where you have zero fear of a sales call at all and you know that you can close 75% of the calls on the first phone call? That comes from calling and calling and closing and closing and putting yourself in those positions over and over and over and over and over again. That's how you get there. So thank you so much. You're gonna find me on Twitter, it's my website. And if you're interested in connecting with me, there's my booking app. Thank you.