4 Big Issues Blocking Sales Today

Transcript:

Welcome to the “S” Word LIVE. My name is Renee Hribar, TEDx Speaker, Sales Strategist and Author. And my goal today is to help you make sales simple and fun. Today, I’m talking about four big issues that I see super smart women having when it comes to making sales today. 

So if we haven’t met yet, I have been selling for the last 20 years. I’ve been teaching thousands of super smart people how to make sales comfortable, especially when it’s a woman selling to other women. So many people come to me saying, oh, my gosh, Renee, I was taught to, you know, really hit them on the head and say, why don’t you buy it now? And say why until you cry and all these horrible pieces of advice. And I just can’t tell you how amazing it is to hear from my clients, how relieved they feel once they finally figure it out from me, because it honestly, truly does not have to be hard, scary or pushy. There are so many ways to sell without selling. And I talk about this a lot in my programs. You’ll hear my students talking about it as they talk about sales. You’ll hear my clients talk about it as they share their business with you, that it truly is about selling without selling. And it just warms my heart to hear so many people that I touched their lives and helped them. So say hello as you join.

I am so excited to see you here today, and I am going to talk about these four big things. But before I do, I want to share this story with you. There was a super smart woman. She had been an educator. So she had been a professor at a university and not a full time professor. But that was one of her roles. She was paid as a professional writer, and she also had run lots and lots of workshops. She had done lots of work done so well. But she had never been responsible for the selling side of her business. Can you guys relate to that? Where you spent years, decades, maybe even working in your profession, spending time, mastering your skills for someone else? So they hired you because of your expertise. You worked on your professional development. Is that true for you? Where you spent years developing your professional skills that you weren’t necessarily the one to be in charge of the selling. And then that day came and something happened. Maybe you just wanted to have more freedom. Maybe it was you had your fourth kid, maybe you got married and had your first, or maybe you just decided you wanted to travel the world and live the laptop lifestyle. So whatever that might be in this particular case, she just had that that kind of plateau, a moment like, OK, that’s it, I’m done. I’m hanging up my own shingle, I’m going to consult, I’m going to teach other people to do what I have learned to do.

So she comes to the Internet space, creates her business and she’s putting out offers, but nobody’s buying. And then I meet her and. Oh, and here are four of the main things that we discussed. Now, I want to say that the four things I’m about to share with you aren’t only happening in the past, but they’re happening constantly. I have an amazing group of women that I constantly work with, students in my programs and services, women in my mastermind, women that I work with one on one, big corporations and local seed based companies. The goal here is, is that you take this information and you go, I get it. OK, so first one, let me know if you have professional experience and now you’re hanging up your own shingle and now is your time. So as you tell me that, I’m going to go into the first one. The first thing is this most people stink, suck let’s say, at asking questions. Think about it. Not only us, but our clients or our prospective clients. So because, number one, people suck at asking questions, they don’t know how to ask what they need, what they actually need to know. So they might come at us asking, well, what about this? And it feels like, well, that’s a dumb question. Why would they ask me? That is because they’re not good at asking questions.

And ultimately, many of the women that I begin to work with aren’t good at it either. But they’ve had inquiries. They’ve had in essence, you know, I hate the word, but like leads come in. Because when you see someone as a lead, you all of a sudden kind of depersonalize it. And selling is very personal, especially when you’re a woman selling to other women. Very personal. It’s not transactions unless you’re totally at arm’s length and it’s all digital. But most women I work with are working one on one with women or they’re doing done for you services. So, that being said, the number one thing is people suck at asking questions. So when you they get a question and it seems off color, off base, they’re like, well, why are they asking me that? And they blow them off to allow them the space. Help them ask the questions, shepherd them through the question asking process. So if you’ve ever experienced that where someone came at you and asked a crazy off the wall question, you wonder where’d that question come from? And then you almost felt like, oh, jeez. I don’t want to talk to that person, they’re asking crazy questions. Know this. They probably just suck at asking questions. And so how do you combat that? Well, that’s thing that obviously I deal with in my client work. But the true answer, the overarching answer, is to think about it.

Think about what is the best way that I can possibly guide this person? What are the questions I need to ask them to pull out the actual questions that they need to ask me so that we can decide together if working together in some capacity is the next best step? So let me know. Number one, have you ever heard anybody ask you a question that you were like, “what?” and you couldn’t figure out why they’re asking you such a crazy question? Let me know in the comments here. I’ve got my handy dandy technology here today. The second thing that people always, Oh, my gosh, this one I had this one written down, is when I work with smart women, oftentimes they start making decisions for their clients or potential clients before they actually ask. So this really builds on the second one, but it happens so often. I had to put it in here. So what I mean by that is if someone I’m working with says, well, I don’t think she has the money or I don’t think that this is right for her or I don’t think this is necessarily the next best step for her, my question to them is always, OK, well, what is the next best step? What is the next step for them? How much is their budget? And then like, well, I don’t know. Well, that means we need more discovery.

Say hi as you’re joining me live. Thank you for joining me. You can always ask your sales questions below as well. I am checking these comments throughout the rest of the day. So that being said, when someone comes to you and they are getting a preconceived notion from you, that’s not fair to them. So oftentimes as women who are selling to other women, our professional services, whether it be copy writing services, social media management services, writing services, agency services, Facebook ads services, marketing services, all the different women that I work with in the different industries that I have, they oftentimes project what they believe is happening onto the person before they’ve actually asked them. So what I always say is if someone is asking you for a proposal, but you’re struggling to answer what the proposal would be, it’s because we haven’t asked the right questions. We haven’t done enough discovery yet. Let me give you analogy. So if you went into the doctor and you were like doc, you know, my shoulders really hurt me. Oh, my gosh. And they’re like, oh, it’s this. Here, go. Try that. When you feel like you want to, like, check it out, you know, do an X-ray and MRI, and bloodwork.

I mean, do you want to like do some deeper dive work before you just zip diddy do da give me an answer? Right. So that’s what I’m encouraging you to do, is play that role of the doctor. And don’t just assume that the person that you’re talking to has a specific need. Don’t assume that they have a specific budget. You have to ask. So that builds up the first one. And the second one is don’t make decisions for your customers or potential customers or clients or potential clients. Ask them questions. Farrah says, oh, my gosh, making decisions for people without asking. Yes, exactly. Tracy says, wow, never thought about it like that. Thank you. Yes, Tracy, it happens to the smartest people. OK. Here’s number three. Oh, and this one comes up all the time. Too fast. Too soon. So when I start to work with a woman, usually she’s super excited. She wants to get good at sales. She’s ready. And so I teach her the basics or she takes one of my courses or programs. She’s like, all right. Yeah. And then she goes out there, but she goes too fast, too soon.

So she skips all the pieces of the puzzle that were there in the first place, what makes women so great at sales. Because when I ran sales teams, when I had my own sales agency, the best salespeople that I’ve ever worked with were introverted women, because once they learn the skills and strategies. Wow. They are so good at tuning in and asking questions and connecting one on one. It’s a very personal process selling. So those people were so good at that. So not that I want to put anybody in a bucket, but truly the best. So they don’t go too fast, too soon. So what I mean by that? Going too fast, too soon, being like, hi, how are you? Here you go. No. So once they learn the strategies and techniques and the sales scripts, they just want to blast that out to everyone. The bottom line is this, selling is a process. No one will care what you have, even if it’s the best, juiciest, exciting, bricks of gold, literally, if you don’t know who you are or believe in who you are, or believe that you have the actual authority to give them this answer. So  on the Internet we talk about know, like, and trust, right. So there is an example that my sales manager gave us back in the day. My goodness, back in the mid 90s, we were working in midtown Manhattan. That was where the office was. Thirty ninth between fifth and sixth. And he was like, it doesn’t matter what territory you’re in. It doesn’t matter what campaign you’re on. He’s like you just need to go out there and build a relationship with people. And then, and then you can make them offers.

We’re all like, no, no, no. Just give us the best territory. Just give us the best territory. He’s like what’s the best territory? We’re all like Times Square. That’s the busiest place.

Has the most offices. Those are the businesses we want to connect with. They’re the busiest. They’re the fastest moving. They’re gonna have the money. They’re going to have the employees that we need to sell the products and services that we were out there selling for in the telecom industry at the time.

He’s like fine. I’ll one up you. I’ll give you dollar bills. 20 Dollar bills. Here you go. Give them out. See if you can give them out to people. If you can give him all out and be honest, I will give you 100 dollars. I’ve told this story before. Some of you might remember it. Not one of us did it. Not one of us could do it. Because even if we’re handing out literally free money. Here you go. Here you go. We couldn’t say anything. That was the difference.We couldn’t build a rapport. We couldn’t tell them why. We couldn’t tell the story. We couldn’t share anything. And that’s part of selling without selling is telling stories. Sharing your story, sharing your why. We are so good at that.

When we allow ourselves to do it. So that being said, it doesn’t matter. Even if you’re literally giving out free money, people will so be like no. Even if they need the money, they’re like, no. Truly, relationship building is key. So too fast, too soon. Avoid that. That’s one of the biggest problems. And then. Oh, my goodness, this one. OK. This is the fourth one. It’s the quick win problem. I have so many clients who have come to me who have said, oh, I just want to give them a quick win. OK.

Well, first of all, true transformation takes time. And unless you’re in a transaction business, you know, it’s not really the goal. But what I’ve come to realize, and this is something I think a lot of women discount, is that a quick win can come in a way that most people don’t realize. So let me ask this question. Do you have a family? I’m sure you do. Or friends that are close to you that no matter what you say, you’re like, you never listen to me, right? You’re like, please listen to me. You don’t feel listened to at least all the time. Right.

So if that’s the case, truly, you’re one of many. You’re in the club. Because most people go through life, our day in and day out, people just aren’t listening to us. So when I get on the phone with someone or when I’m teaching someone to talk to a potential client, the quick win, that big hurdle can be overcome by truly listening. Right. So the quick win can be done by asking the right questions. By truly connecting with them, by building the relationship. By avoiding these big block issues that I have just broken down for you so that we can truly connect. It’s not about that hard core sales. I’m going to force you into something. You’re gonna get it because I made it so enticing. Instead, it’s like it’s a two way street. And this allows us to have that quick win where it’s truly just us reflecting back to them. Most of the time on the initial sales call, again, I don’t. I’m not always a one quick call kind of girl. I like to develop relationship. I like to talk to people long term. And if we don’t end up working together initially, everybody we get on the phone with is always a connector, a collaborator or a client. And oftentimes one becomes all three over time. So that quick win is that reflection that here’s what I heard you say. You said this. You said that. You said this is your budget. This is your timeline. This is what you’re trying to accomplish. This is what you’ve tried. This is what hasn’t worked. This is what has. Is that what I’m hearing you say? That, my friends, is gold. These are the big block issues that so many women come up against. If you have heard this today and you have identified that these are issues you’re also experiencing. Click the link and let’s continue the conversation. Have a great day. Thank you for coming to the “S” Word LIVE show today. I’ll see you guys next week.

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