When you have a sales problem, you also have a marketing problem. 

Here’s why: Marketing is designed to bring clients into your audience and to set them up in a way that they gain awareness about you, the problems they’re having, the solutions you offer, and why now is the time to take action. 

When it comes to consistent marketing, having a plan and sticking to the plan, being able to say these are the pieces I’m putting out and here’s why I’m putting them out. Here’s the psychology behind it. Here’s the buyer stage that I’m targeting through this piece of content. Every piece is intentional. 

Depending on what stage in the buying process they are, you’ll speak to your audience where they are. 

Problem aware – you’ll talk about the problems they’re experiencing and why they matter

Solution aware- they’re deciding what’s going to be the best option for them. Is it a service, an offer?

Product aware- They’re shopping around. They’re looking for the person who fits them best. 

A lot of people are trying to do too much with one post and go through multiple buyer stages in one post. Or the opposite where they are barely hitting the buyer stages that it doesn’t have an impact. 

You need marketing to bring your people in and sales to bring them in as clients. 

Want to learn more about buyer psychology? Get the course here.

So what about the sales process? How do I bring in clients?

The first thing you need to know about sales: talk less and listen more. 

If you don’t currently ask permission to start a sales conversation, that’s your first step. 

And that can simply be:

Hey, do you mind if I ask you some questions?
Are you comfortable if we talk about X?
Is now a good time to talk about this?

Humans love autonomy and when you focus on autonomy and consent you build a sense of comfort in the conversation. Asking permission says, hey, I value you. I’m going to listen to you because what you have to say is important. 

Another part is mirroring and validating. 

It goes back to making it about THEM. 

Mirroring is taking the last piece of what they said and repeating it back to you. So that might sound like: Okay, I hear X and it sounds like this. Can you confirm for my own clarity? 

What mirroring does is create awareness inside our brain that someone is listening to us and it creates trust in the sales process. You create space so someone can be vulnerable, talk about what’s really going on, and know that your relationship isn’t going to change and you are there to help them. 

Emotional validation is another huge piece of it. It’s where your people feel seen, heard, understood, valued. Asking the right questions, getting them to talk about themselves, having them describe what they want and holding that space for them. 

When you ask the right questions, validate, and mirror in your sales conversations – it makes for an easy close. This is what’s going to help you bring in more clients.

Closing Sales

If you’re not closing sales at the percentage you want, it’s because you aren’t pre-qualifying. So you’re not asking the right questions to lead them into making their own decision about whether or not they need to buy this program. 

You’re waiting for someone to say yes. You see the DM screenshots of people saying “Yes I’m in!” but you don’t see all the questions that come before that. 

It’s not the time to nurture your people in sales conversations. You’re at a conversion point. What you need to do is ask your qualifying questions and then close. 

Here’s some examples of qualifying questions: 

• What are the biggest struggles in your business? 
• What are things you have tried in relationship to X?
• If you could see yourself in 6 months, what would that look like? 

Here’s some ways you can close:

• If you’re ready to get started, I’m ready to send things over to you. What’s the best email? 
• Does Monday or Tuesday work best for you for your onboarding call? 

Both of those are just asking a question and having them answer, but notice the question isn’t about whether or not they want to buy. The questions are assuming that they’re buying and that they want it, because if they didn’t they would have said something. 

For those of you struggling to sell check out Salesy.

Salesy is a monthly membership that focuses on sales to help you sign more clients in 15 minutes or less daily.