Avoid Playing “Information Booth”

Avoid Playing “Information Booth”

Have you ever gotten a great question from someone and it’s a LOADED question?

It’s great to network and connect, that is what opens the door to communication and true connection, but when it opens the doors to “I have a quick question…” and it really ISN’T a quick question…that’s where trouble can start.

I dig into scenarios that come up for my clients and what I advise them to do in today’s episode of The “S” Word LIVE show. I am sharing the most current sales training direct from real clients and student scenarios happening THIS WEEK and boiling it down to ACTION steps you can take NOW to make YOUR SALES simple and fun!!

Take the next step TODAY and grab my free sales training
www.ReneeHribar.co/zerotosales

Transcription:

Hello and Welcome to the “S” Word LIVE.

My name is Renee Hribar, Sales Strategist, TEDx speaker, and author. And I’m coming to you live every week with the “S” Word LIVE to give you in the moment, hot off the press answers that I get from my clients and students every single week. Now, this week I got the same question today three times. So I had something completely different that I was going to talk about, because people always are struggling with lots of things.

Right. And when it comes to sales, 

it can be scary, crazy, especially if you’ve never sold for yourself before. Hey, you’ve become a master of what you know because you’ve spent time doing it. But unless it was sales, you weren’t responsible for bringing in new clients. So now that you are a business owner or an executive and you are responsible for it, in addition to everything else that you do, it can get a little freaky scary.

So in the Internet, we hear advice, sometimes good advice like hey, get out there and network. Hey. Networking is good. If done properly. I have lots of caveats there. So with this question, here’s what it is. Its avoid playing information booth. This is what I’m titling this. Avoid playing information booth. Tell me below, have you ever been asked either in a Facebook thread or in a PM or even in a reply to an email? “Hey, what if….” Like one client is a web designer and she gets asked all the time, “You know what If I have this plugin and this is happening and that’s happening, I mean, is it a Squarespace problem?” That’s it. That’s a question that somebody might get. Let me know if you’ve ever gotten a question like that.

Or I have a Doula as a client and she gets asked questions like, “should I have the baby at the birthing center, at home, the hospital? What do you think?”

So these are valid questions, but these are not from clients. These are from people that we meet that we network with either in person or virtually. Have you ever gotten a question that is definitely a good question, but hard to answer in a short little blip? Let me know in the comments. Let me know if you’ve ever gotten a question like this. I have another client who’s an ad strategist, and

she’ll get a question like, “hey, I had an ad that was running on Facebook and Instagram and all of a sudden the ad tanked and my click through rate went down the toilet. What do I do?” Hey, that’s a great question, right? It’s a great question for an ad strategist. And she one hundred percent could answer it. But these are often big questions. I get questions all the time. “Hey, Renee, I need help with my sales. Where do I start?”

Well, it ultimately is a loaded question. Right. So have you ever received a question, whether it be in a Facebook group or in a thread somewhere or on your own posts or in response to an email or in Messenger or D.M., and it was a great question. But to answer the question, you just don’t have all the information yet. Has it ever happened to you? Let me know in the comments. Yes or no? I think that for many of us, because we are, and I’m going back to the beginning here, selling for ourselves often for the first time, it is our perception of sales that we think, oh, I’ve got a question. Oh.

Oh, I got a hot one, Bobby. Right. And we got to, like, jump on and be like, oh, let me tell you. And you spend an hour answering that question.

But in reality, it’s not even the answer that the person really needs. The person that asks the question oftentimes doesn’t even know what they really need. And you think they do because you are an expert at it. You give them this long answer or you spend time and effort because you’re caring, you’re genuine. You genuinely want to help people. So you don’t want to blow off questions. Not only are they good people to talk to that are, quote unquote leads. I hate that word, by the way. I don’t use it anywhere in my business.

But also, they’re people, they’re humans and you’re a human and you’re caring and you’re loving and you’re kind. So you want to help them. And that is a good question. But it’s going to take time to answer. So there are definitely caveats that I want to implore you to utilize. There are two words that I want to teach you. The word “specifically” and, well it’s not really a word. It’s “more harm than good.” So if you can get those two things in your pocket as a framework to answer these very good questions from very nice people and you want to be kind and helpful back because what happens is I’m going to teach you exactly what I mean. But what happens is they ask a question, you give this very long, detailed answer. It’s not actually what they needed, but they didn’t know that and they didn’t know it until you answered. And then they have more questions with which you then are kind of in a pickle jar because you’re like, well, geez, I’ve already answered these questions.

I don’t want to leave them hanging, right? We don’t want to leave people hanging. We want to help. We’re good people. They’re good people. These are good questions. However, what ends up happening is you’re like, well, geez. That’s exactly what I do for a living. But at that point, it feels like now you’re trying to slide in some kind of sleazy sales strategy. Right. I definitely don’t want you to do that. So here is a knee jerk reaction.

Thank you for joining. I’ve got people joining from all over the world, from Canada, from outside the US, from all across the USA. I see you guys. I’m so delighted that you guys are here and sharing this with me live on The “S” Word LIVE show every single Wednesday. I just love that. People ask me how do I keep doing this show for the last two and a half years? I love it. That’s why. And it’s my way to share with you exactly what is happening now in the sales world with your business specifically in mind. So let’s get to this.

Ok. So when they ask these great questions, I’ve given you some examples, so if you’re just joining, make sure you listen from the beginning. If this answer comes out, this is what I want you to answer, because if this question comes to you, this is the answer I want you to come out first.

What do you need help with specifically? That will help you and the person asking to zero in on maybe it is a quick, easy answer and then you can be of help quickly. But oftentimes, and I’ve seen more people joining that I know are experts in their field, you know, like Wendy, she’s a travel concierge. I have utilized Wendy’s services many times and I know that she gets asked questions like what’s the best deal for a flight to Morocco? That’s a loaded question. How many people are going? When are you going? What are you going for? How long are you staying? Do you want to travel? I mean, like where you’re coming from? Are you coming from England or are you coming from California? Big difference. So each question that we get, we want to help them.

But every question we get requires either specificity, which often the asker does not have, or it requires this. And so here’s the next one. After you ask what can I help you with specifically so that I can be of the most service because we want to help people. The next thing is, I don’t want to do more harm than good.

And that is a genuine answer, because if you give them a quick shot answer, even if you give them a long answer, it may not be what they need because they don’t often always know what they need. Does that make sense? So it’s a round-robin. So when you get these initial questions, it does mean they are someone you should talk to. From a sales perspective, I want you to answer their question, but I want you to give each of you space to be able to answer it thoroughly.

So I’m not saying, hey, throw out a sales page link or hey, get him on the phone so you can sale ’em. What I’m saying is ask them, what are you asking specifically? Maybe I can be of more help if I can get a zeroed in question. Not in a snotty way,

again, your energy, your asking that, can you be more specific, is helpful to them because it helps zero in the question, and you get to be that genuine, kind, honest, loving, amazing person that you are to help answer them. I see Irena on here. She’s an energy worker. She can help with so many things. If they say, oh, I’m feeling low, she could answer that in 8,000 ways. Well, is it because you’re you’ve lost a loved one? Is it because you are adrenal fatigue? Is it because you’re off-kilter and you haven’t had enough sleep? She would need more questions answered before she could give her best advice. I see Candie on here. She’s a 25 year master bookkeeper. She knows all the different ways to help every single business keep more of the money that they make. OK, that means if you’re a food trucker, she can help you. You’re an Etsy person. Great. You sell nails. Great. You’re a hair salon. Great. You’re an online business coach. Great. She can help you keep more of the money you make and make projections that help really, honestly, project more money into your business. But if you’re like, Candie my books are crazy. Can you help me? Her answer needs to be 

what specifically do you need so that I might be able to answer you quickly? Or better yet, hey, I don’t want to do more harm than good. If the answer is still very broad and general and would take you lots more time to answer and it still might not be the right answer, then say listen, the best next step is possibly, and maybe you have a form or an application or maybe you know, if you’re one of my students and someone that I work with. I’m all about the quick and easy 10 minute phone call, not to try to get them on the phone to sell them, but to truly try to get the full picture. How can I possibly be of service or helps you if I don’t know everything about what you’re talking about? There’s lots of different aspects to any one question. You with me guys? So avoid playing information booth. Still be that genuine, caring, loving, amazing person that you are helping people. You’re putting yourself out there. You’re putting time into content, into live streams and podcasting,

and writing articles and blogs and posts and people are seeing it. And they’re saying, man, I see that she is a person that I can get a great answer from. And you want to help them. Yes. They very well may be potential clients, but they also may be a potential connector or a potential collaborator. You don’t know what that is. So instead of shutting them down and saying, I hate when people ask me dumb questions, because every question is dumb until they know better. Right? I ask dumb questions all the time. I’m sure about things I don’t know about. So instead of saying that or instead of saying, oh, I’m going to answer all your questions right now as if you were my own child, because that’s a lot.

So somewhere in between those two areas, this entire framework that I just taught you, the “specifically” and the “I don’t want to do more harm than good” will help you frame it out. So, of course, there are scenarios. Of course, there are specifics. And ultimately, that is what I work with with my students and my amazing clients. So if you want to hear more about how to work together, make sure you send me a private message and hey, maybe I’ll ask you how to ask me specifically and then maybe we can talk it out and find out the full picture to give you my best advice. The bottom line is this today’s a great day and you can make it even better by connecting with the people that are around you that need you today. Thank you so much for sharing this time with me. If you have questions, you can put them down in the comments below. And I will see you next week for another episode of The “S” Word LIVE.