How to “Henry Ford” Your Sales Process

Transcription: 

Hello and Welcome to The “S” Word LIVE. My name is Renee Hribar Sales Strategist, TEDx Speaker and author. And my goal today is to help you make sales simple and fun. So if we haven’t met yet, I have been selling for over twenty years, my goodness more than that. Since back in the mid Nineties in midtown Manhattan, working for one of the cutting edge telecom companies, SkyTel. So since then, a lot has happened and I’m here to share those nuggets with you. So today is all about how to “Henry Ford” your sales process. So what do I mean by this? Well, for those of you who don’t know, I live currently in Detroit metro area. So Henry Ford is like a big deal here. And he has this huge museum and everything about him is about innovation. In fact, there’s even a great show that Mo Rocca does there. It’s called The Innovation Nation. So what did Henry Ford do and how can you do that same thing to your sales process? So innovating your sales process, say hello as you join whether you’re live or on the replay, let me know where you’re at. So innovation to your sales process, what does that mean? Well, Henry Ford did not invent the engine and he did not invent the car. He didn’t even invent the assembly line, but he put them all together to be able to create a systematic process that allowed the masses to get the benefits of having a car.

So how does this work for you? Well, this is where I teach my students. I work with my clients, even the women of my mastermind about innovating the systems that they have. So what does it look like for you? So let’s say you’re talking about your marketing, right? Because it’s all part of your sales process. Your marketing brings people to, what I say, “the front door” sales lets them in and sits them down. So your marketing needs to be brought in on a systematic basis. If you’re not even putting up a post in Buffer where it can be published every single week, then that’s the least you can do for your business. So create some sort of simple process. I use Buffer. It’s fantastic. I’m at an affiliate. You can use HootSuite or any other process. So use a prescheduler so that you don’t have to think about it. So that you don’t have to sit down and go, what am I going to write? You simply can share other people’s posts, other people’s blogs, other people’s business pages. So that, my friends, is a way to do marketing that brings in the sales process. So if I’m thinking I want to sell to those five certain businesses, whose content would I share? Theirs! Right. Wouldn’t that make sense?

So as I fill in or have my assistant fill in what I’ll be marketing that week I can innovate. I can innovate the sales process by bringing in people that I want to talk to and sharing their content so I don’t even have to be a content creator if I don’t want to. So that being said, number one innovate the marketing side, plug it in, bring people in that you want to talk to and share their stuff on your platforms. It’s a great way to start a conversation. Number two, start a conversation. And so to have that process to Henry Ford, that sales process have a simple structure. The first call isn’t about making a sale. It’s about connecting. It’s about finding out about them and them finding out about you. This first initial contact might be in messenger. It might be on the phone, it might be on Zoom, it might be on Facetime. Doesn’t matter. The point is, is that first initial contact, some people call them coffee chats, whatever you want to call it. The idea here is, is to innovate it. Right, so that Henry Ford it. So what parts can I pull that make it super simple and fun? So that is up to you. But of course I have lots of ideas and here are some of them.

So to create that simple and fun idea, it’s like, hey, let’s talk. I have this much time. OK, let’s, here are three things that I like to talk about. Now, because I systematized and “Henry Forded” my initial coffee chat process, I actually created an entire interview series because I kept asking people the same things and their answers were fascinating. And I thought, I can’t be the only one to hear this. I’ve got to share it. So that actually ended up creating more content. So it started building on the step one of innovating my sales process. So now I do have content creation. It’s based on connecting with people and then that step two I’m actually connecting with them and I’ve systematized it cause I ask the same questions every time, so it makes it easy to do at any time. Here’s a secret, though. I’m really ever only doing this three or four or five times a month. That’s it. It doesn’t have to be every single day. So here’s the third part of systematizing or as I call “Henry Fording” your sales process. When you do want to make an offer, have a system, have a proposal, template. Have an agreement template, an email, I call it an email sales page template, so these are all things that I have inside of my courses and programs and people work with me specifically.

It’s all inside my Sell Like A Mutha’ program. So for those of you who are listening and I know Kristin is a student in there, she’s got access to all that stuff at any time, grab, swipe, go. And so if you’re listening to this and you’re thinking, goodness gracious, I’m spending way too much time thinking about what to post, spending way too much time thinking about who to talk to, spending way too much time making offers. “Henry Ford” it systematize it. And if what I’ve shared with you doesn’t ring any bells with you. And it makes it feel even harder that maybe we should talk. Maybe you should become a student in Sell Like a Mutha’. So I am doing a big fun, big thing in my group next week that you probably would really enjoy. Make sure you click the links wherever you find them around this video. Follow the links and come and hang out with me more. Make sure you look for my emails. Make sure you come into my Facebook group. Let’s hang out on social platforms, whatever it is. The bottom line is you don’t have to make it so hard. If you’re working, if you look at your day and you say, well, I’m working three hours a day, if you’re spending more than one hour a day on that, creating content, connecting with people and figuring out how to make a proposal, that’s too much.

Right. So, yeah, we don’t want to be a “salesy” person. Goodness gracious. That is the worst thing you can do. Nobody who’s a “salesy” person is actually in sales anymore. They usually get kicked out. They don’t make any money. So that being said, I want to encourage you that if you’re not “salesy”, if you are an introvert, if you don’t like being pushy, then this process that I just mapped out for you is one hundred percent going to work for you. However, if it brought up more questions than it did answers, then you want to click the links and hang out more, get the free stuff on my website, come into the group and make sure that you get the answers you need it. Sales does not have to be hard. Like I say in this show, every single week, I can teach you how to make sales for yourself, for your own business, whether you’re a copywriter, a virtual assistant, a web designer, a travel agent, a Facebook ads manager, a coach, a consultant, an author. That’s what I do. I teach sales to make it simple and fun. And so today I shared my “Henry Ford” it system. I hope you take this and knock it out of the park. Have a great day, guys. See you next week. Bye.