Stop Struggling With Sales In Your Health Coaching Business
welcome back to the show now a lot of people in my community struggle with feeling good about sales they either resist sales or they're afraid of sales conversations or they've got a lot of worries about showing up and being salesy or any number of other disempowering thoughts so if that sounds familiar then this episode is for you my guest today is sarah walton and sarah is a business mentor whose specialty is making sales fun as she helps women heal their relationship with money and we talk all about how to make sales less uncomfortable and yes even enjoyable and how to conquer your fears about sales and also how to really dig deep and understand what's going on for you when you are resisting sales she also shares some practical and really unique strategies for implementing all the mindset work that we get into in this conversation i absolutely loved my conversation with sarah and i think that you will too well hey sarah welcome to the show oh my gosh kim i'm so excited to be here thank you so much for having me well i cannot wait to get into today's conversation with you sarah because we are going to be talking all about how to make sales fun and for those of you listening or watching you might be thinking um what fun but i think that sarah is going to help you see sales in a really different way and you know really i'm looking forward to this so i cannot wait to pick your brain on this one sarah but uh before we get to it let's give our audience just a bit more context i'd love if you could just uh tell us a little bit more about the work that you do in the world and about you sarah sure well oh my gosh thank you that's so generous of you and i'm so happy to be here with you today so much like you i love what you're doing for the for health coaches of the world by the way so exciting and so needed um and my expertise is i really help women package themselves based on their experience their expertise and their talents and we look at all of those things we've been gifted as humans because we all get these individual packages we don't none of us come in with these same experiences or expertise so i really have this knack for pulling that out of people having them package it and then make the world a better place by actually selling it um and that is where i just found my joy was there is just this massive fear of selling especially among women i specifically only work with women and there is just this terror and or sleaze factor and or bro marketing factor that comes in when we start talking about sales and people freak out yeah that was so true no let's don't freak out this is like a skill you can learn how to do it you never have to be a jerk she said elegantly i love it that's got to be your tagline right i love it i love it yeah that's awesome okay well i love all of that i am here for all of that for sure so i mean let's just dive right into that i want to talk about you know making sales so what would you say is one of the biggest mistakes that you know we make especially as women you know but one of one of the biggest mistakes that we make when selling okay well there's several but first let me just start with this okay sales is not about you which i think is it's really hard for people to grasp that because when you're on a sales call or you're writing a sales page or you're working on your email copy and you're like i am the most salesy salesy mix mastermind salesman like it's just this awful feeling people feel right it's like just yuck and so what i like to do right there is pause and say this has nothing to do with you and i liken this a lot to being a doctor if you could imagine you're a doctor and you're walking as you arch him you're a doctor you're walking past somebody and they're bleeding out and you just walk by actually like i don't want to be salesy yeah it's like are you kidding me right now someone is actually in desperate need of what you have to offer but you don't want to be salesy about it and when i talk about it that way all of a sudden you can get one that's a really extreme example and i do that on purpose but two what would you ever you would never ever walk past somebody who needed you right and we all know that that's really what we're doing when we're offering what we have to the world is it's actually not about us yes we need to make a living and yes we'll have mortgage payments and yes we'll need to you know my daughter has type 1 diabetes we've got to pay the co-pays like of course that's real and in the moment of a sale that has nothing to do with you it's about the other person so to answer your question about some of the biggest mistakes that we make this one's really tangible and i hope i'm in everybody's ears like i hope i just rest on your brain the next time you're in a sales call like you just go oh my gosh i just did the thing i'm not gonna do the thing sarah said and this is that we talk about our price like a mom asking someone to clean their room it's like so funny i'm like what just happened to your voice like it is so funny but they really you go to this high-pitched like song a voice and it's the strangest thing and we do it because again we're afraid of being sales and we want to be nice to the people that we're selling to yeah so and it's like oh dear no no no so one of the things i hope everybody takes from today is that you say it just like a fact right this guy is blue the leaves on the tree are green to work with me is three thousand dollars like or whatever it is and you just say it and then the second mistake comes right after that which is like the deafening pause that happens after we say our prices right everybody like freak out your heart is pounding you're like oh my gosh here's what we have to understand when our hearts are pounding or we're nervous once again we're making in about us and what's actually happening on the other side is that person is going through their own process and we interrupt it because we start throwing features out well and then you get this and then you get that and then you get and they're like dude i'm trying to see where how can i figure this out and i liken this you guys kind of to thinking about how you would react if your water heater broke right now that's a thousand dollar breakage at least for you know depending on the size of it depending on where you are that's a lot of money and when your water heater breaks you find it you go find the money you deal with it you figure it out and a lot of the times when we're in a conversation like that what's happening on the other side is the person just heard something like okay my water heater broken this is what it's going to cost my business is broke and this is what it's going to cost right my process is broken and this is what it's going to cost i'm not healthy right now and this is what it's going to cost and you got to give them a minute to sort of figure out one how important is this to me is my health this important am i ready to take this on right now and the last thing that process needs is a bunch of features right and one more thing right they're like what i'm just trying to figure what just happened yeah so you just want to really honor somebody else's process and that takes um a little bit of patience on our part and uh and and honestly um some compassion and humility does that make sense kim like did that that makes so much sense yeah that so many gems in there like really starting right from the that just the mindset flip of that sales is not about you but of course we make it about ourselves i mean it's like so many things in business actually we make it be about ourselves and it is not about us like you just have to keep on relentlessly focusing on the other person on their experience on what they need and how you can help them um yeah that's that's just so beautiful but that's it's a tough thing to do like to say your price because everybody feels nervous about their pricing and say your price and then just to shut up right quiet but that is i mean whatever mindset tricks you have to do to like just keep yourself just allowing the other person to have their process like you said right you've got to allow that space um and it's gonna feel like an hour but it does it's like it's like did someone just freeze time did i freeze is my zoom still on what just happened through all that is this real life yeah i mean all that sort of comes in and it just you know in those moments um by the way if you guys just freaked out or you're like i can never do that i could never do that i would love for you to keep a post-it note either on your screen or near your phone or whatever you need to do that just reminds you why you started your business and just bring yourself back to planet earth and if you're feeling really nervous or you feel like it's taking a long time obviously if it takes a super duper long time one of my favorite questions is did you have any questions about that that can help don't do it too soon only if you're like seriously dude or be frozen like then maybe you can ask that um but if you're finding yourself responding physically like you're starting to get nervous or you're sweat or you're like i really can't bite my tongue anymore just wiggle your toes inside your shoes it really it makes a big difference you remember you're bad you're fine everything's fine the world is not going to explode it can feel that way in that moment you're fine and then look at why you started your business and that's why i say keep that post-it note there because it really does it pulls you back down to planet earth you wiggle your toes you literally feel yourself get pulled back to planet earth um and then if you feel like something's happened or they're still thinking like you know did you have any questions about that or is there anything anything else i can do to help you make the best decision for you yeah those are great really practical suggestions i love that anchoring idea of of wiggling your toes such a simple little thing and nobody has to know so great by the way you guys can use that all the time if you're fighting with somebody if you're nervous if you're in a big conference room or if something's going right wiggle your toes it's so helpful oh that's beautiful i love it okay well let's talk a little bit more about discovery calls because i know that um you know for many coaches particularly in the beginning of building their business you know this discovery calls can be really anxiety provoking so how about preparing for it is there a way that we can prepare ourselves for discovery calls in a way that you know feels good tell me about what your ideas on that oh i love it well first of all you have to make sure you're getting the right people on the calls um and so i would always say before you even get on the call make sure you have a wonderful welcome message to somebody who has just scared the heck out of themselves and decided to get on a call with you like they are so scared right they're like oh my gosh she's gonna cost nine million dollars she's gonna sell me oh my god so remember they're nervous yeah so really supporting them through that process either with tips or ideas or what to expect on the call or three questions i'm gonna love ass asking you and i love you know i'm really excited to hear your answers that kind of a thing um and then the other thing i always say before every call i have two tips on this one if you have super duper fancy shoes that make you feel amazing put them on and yes i'm talking about that crazy pair you can't believe you spent all that money on go get them put them on before they call i swear it makes a big difference um and i'll get into that more in just a second and then the other is to recognize that every single sales call is an opportunity to say to change someone else's life and that's really what you want to focus on is this is an opportunity for me to change someone else's life i think you know with what you know can what you do and what all your all your people do and what you guys are doing i mean oh i could go on and on i have such a i don't even know what the word is i just this affinity for people in the healthcare industry but also to to like actively support people in being more healthy i can't like i have two autoimmune diseases i shared with you guys about my daughter like my entire family was severely obese when i was growing up like i've seen what happens when people don't take care of themselves so for you to ground yourself back and say this is an opportunity to change slash save someone else's life yes that's sort of a ho-ho-ho oh my gosh how can i help you that changes the entire tone of the conversation and it also has you remember who you really are and why you're doing this again i want you grounded in that for as long as possible inside that phone call because it's not about you um okay and uh let me just talk about the shoes for one second yeah tell me people are like wait the shoes get back to the shoes the shoes yeah i know and it's funny because i don't really i'm not a shoe bag kind of gal um i'm much more of a vacation really good food kind of girl but that's okay um i do love a good pair of shoes and here's what i'll say to you guys i just really want you to understand this as well when you're talking about your own prices and you're talking about the experience that your clients will have working with you as a coach and here's the deal you could go buy a pair of jimmy choos or manolo blonics or whatever the heck pick a name you want to buy right you could go get those or you can go get a pair of sneakers for 20 bucks right they're both shoes and they're both gonna help you walk across the floor right and they're both going to protect your feet from getting like gross dirty at least we hope right so they're both shoes but the experience that you have as a human being in putting on those ridiculous shoes i just think like oh my gosh you know that feeling people have that is a whole other experience of being alive it just is and it's not again i don't really care about shoes it's not that but i've also had that experience right if it's really like oh my gosh this is amazing and really following that through right with where that money is going but there's the salesperson who's working with you of course there's all of the people inside the store everything there there's the leather on the shoes the person who expertly crafted those the person who designed them the rest of the fabric that's probably come from different parts of the world that people died just so right the architecture i mean if you sit down and think it's a work of art and you are now participating in the amazing cycle of supporting other people's dreams and other people's expertise and other people's talents and boy is that exciting because now you're really involved in the world and in our society in a different way and i want you to remind yourself of that by putting those shoes on and understanding that you are a human being who appreciates your fellow humans you're not afraid to pay for your fellow humans talents right and really understanding that that puts you in a totally different headspace when you get on a call with somebody who's about to do the same thing for you right where they're like oh heck yeah no she's the one for me she totally gets severe obesity in a family when you're a little girl watching people eat ice cream like she's gonna get that you can't pay for that i mean you can but it is worth so much more just like the experience of walking out of the store with those shoes is so different from the sloppy sneakers you don't really care about very very different experience and you want to create that experience for yourself so you're creating it for your potential clients yeah i love that and that you're right it's such a that would be to put out like because we all work from home and you know we're just the dream of even pretty pandemic um yeah but we we don't we i mean do we even wear pants half the time let alone shoes right but i had to look down and check i wasn't sure yeah but i love it like just actually wear the shoes not just for like just for the message that it's going to give to you and how it will influence your energy in how you show up on the call for your potential client i love that suggestion sarah that's so awesome okay i am curious about your thoughts on why so many people are scared of sales like what what's going on here and and what can we do when we feel really scared well i mean have you ever had a really crappy sales conversation i've been like on the receiving end right i'm just pressuring you yeah right yeah that's at the heart of all of it is like oh my gosh i never want to do that to anyone else which if we think about it is actually a really nice thing like let's not run around and be jerks right right it's like we make this collapse of like oh my god i'm gonna be like that person and i think somewhere along the line uh all of sails in our heads got like collapsed into that one moment and it's it like does take some work to sort of pull that apart and recognize that we would never do that to somebody else and i think what is included in that is a great deal of self-trust and the idea that i would never do that but i have to trust myself not to turn to those tactics when i'm scared right so let's say your water heater just broke and you're about to get on a sales call and you forgot your expensive shoes and you're in that like panic like oh my god i have to make the sale i have to i have to i have to i have to right that's where that starts to come in and so there are a couple things i always remind people to do in that moment because i think at the heart of it we would never act like that we would never do that pressure sales like i call the bro thing yeah yeah you're gonna miss out you're gonna it's like whatever that is right that weird creepy thing people do um that always comes from fear it comes from our own fear of lack our own fear of like oh my god can i really do this um is my spouse gonna make me go get a quote-unquote real job like all those fears that come up we act like idiots when we're scared i mean we really do and that is universal all of us do it and so it's like that's where the self trust has to come in and have us recognize we're not gonna do that and the best way for us to get to that it sounds really funny but it's um an exercise in self-forgiveness so i'm gonna just back up just a tad like i do but um you said you work with women who had been raped stay with me i swear to god there's there's a connection here i promise and you're like what yeah but it really is i just i think every time i share this every woman goes oh my gosh yes so what we would talk about in those conversations was that the physical act right as awful as it was that was healable right like our bodies are designed to heal bad stuff can happen to our bodies we can get hurt we can accidentally cut ourselves when we're making toast in the more like our bodies heal and that part of it actually wasn't as hard to get through what was hard to get through is without exception women would say to me i knew i knew the second i heard his voice my body screamed run i knew i should have gotten out of that situation and i didn't do it and that form of self betrayal is actually what we had to do the work on right because that is brutal right and so when you hear that and i know other a lot of women go oh my gosh yes i know that feeling right and it's like these women were like i didn't want to be rude and it's like oh my gosh we've programmed ourselves to get hurt instead of being quote unquote rude it's really looking at that and what we need to do here to really get to that moment where we can trust ourselves that even when we're scared we're going to show up as our best selves is to actually go back and find your own moments of self-betrayal which sounds awfully deep to make sales fun right you're like wait a second lady i thought we were in here talking about fancy shoes and it's like yes that is part of it but in order to be really great at sales in order to really understand that you're here to help people and you're here to transform lives and you're here to make things amazing for other people you've got to trust yourself and it's very difficult to do that if you're hanging on to an old story of yeah but i just i stayed in that relationship too long yeah but i'm not really certified in this or yeah but right and you start pulling up these things then when you go to sell you start acting like the bro dude right and now we've got a problem because you're reinforcing that story that you can't trust yourself which sounds crazy and like i said i know it's a little deep for sales but it really doesn't matter if you wanna like to just be amazing at helping people you gotta heal your own stuff and it's one of the reasons i love working on sales because there's so much magic that comes out of it yeah i love that i i mean i'm i absolutely agree that you do have to go deep like yeah we are talking about trying to make it fun but you've got to unpack all the stuff that's happening under the surface or else or else you're just kind of trying to put frosting on you know things that are really deep seated um and so i love that example and those strategies of how to really like examine your fear you're scared of something so what is it like let's really unpack it and look at it um rather than running away from it and letting it and pretending it's not there and just letting it run the show yeah absolutely yeah i love that okay i want to ask you about the concept of disappointment or like not hitting your revenue goals so let's say that somebody sets a big revenue goal because this is what we're all about you know we set these these goals and we're we're wanting to we're working towards making it happen let's say somebody sets a big revenue goal for their wellness business but you know they're not they don't reach it there and repeatedly this keeps happening they're not reaching their goals tell me a little bit about what you think is going on with that so many things right so many things but usually what i find is it's a lack of clarity on exactly what needs to be sold in order to hit the goal which sounds silly and that's not everybody so if you just rolled your eyes and said no uh i know what six people every five my right i got i know but a lot of the times people just don't know um and so you just throw this random number up on the wall because you're supposed to yeah right everybody's like get your six figures get your this get your that hit your 10k a month like it's like that's awesome and yes we do want to hit those goals but our brain can't wrap around that actually just had this conversation with one-on-one clients she's like oh i wrote my million-dollar check from the universe i'm like yeah your brain has no idea what to do with that that's awesome that's fantastic put it up on the wall make yourself excited like my revenue goal i can see it right now like of course let's get that up there that's fantastic and today right now what do you actually need to do in order to hit that number and i don't think people like doing that work but it really is the question of like let's say it is ten thousand dollars a month what does that mean how many packages would you need to sell is it a group program and if so how many people need to be in it and then from there it's how many conversations a day do you need to have kind of question right so you really got to break it down to the point that your brain knows what to do because oftentimes it doesn't know what to do with the million dollar check from the universe it may as well be a hallmark card it's like that's nice i don't know what that is and i certainly doesn't mean anything to me and then the other thing i think we don't spend enough time on i really hope you guys let this like just like crawl into your brain and sit there for a minute is we don't track our success meaning we don't track the actions we took to cause success right so it's like i've had to say to clinton they're like i'm in a lull all of a sudden and i don't know why my sales are dropping and i don't know why i said okay what did you stop doing or what did you start doing go back and tell me what actions you took on a daily basis or a weekly basis that caused those initial sales like what happened there what were you doing and then what did you stop doing or what did you start doing and usually there's something in there once in a while the market will shift like right now nobody wants any online programs they want direct coaching with people like that the market will shift from time to time and we just have to pay attention to that that's also real but for the most most of the time it's one of the two you don't know what you do that causes success so you can't repeat it or you've picked some arbitrary magic number that has no meaning to you and so you don't know what actions to take to cause it yeah that's great i love how you broke that down because it's you're absolutely right i mean if we're not we don't reverse set of a goal that that means anything and then how can we reverse engineer it and then you know because then it's just like an arbitrary number and well how on earth is that gonna actually happen so yeah that's that's great i love that um can you talk to me about the concept of codependence so i think that i've seen you talk about this idea of like high functioning codependence and i'm curious about that i'd love for you to tell me a bit more and talk about the role that this has in sales oh goodness well we might run over time just a tad but so hang on your hats and glasses you guys okay because this is where it gets really fun awesome but high functioning codependence is one of my favorite terms and usually when i say high functioning women's ears perk up right it's like what and then i put in the codependence and don't know what to do with that which i get this is not my term i believe it came from rene brown um but it's the idea that we as women so i've been talking about this forever but i'm so happy to finally have like a term for it so and you probably know this too kimray but as women we have more connective tissue between the two hemispheres of our brain which is one of the reasons we are crazy and we'll be like yes i want chicken for dinner did you get that did you defrost it yes i write that and you're like typing an email at the same time and the phone rings you pick it up and you send a text right and you're like that was like just tuesday whatever that's the high functioning piece of us we really have that ability to bounce back and forth between the right and left hemisphere we can manage all those things we're fantastic at multitasking and um and this is something that um humans born into male bodies tend not to have as much of right so those of you who have brothers or male spouses and they're watching tv and you say hey can you help me with this thing they go but i'm watching tv right because they do one thing at a time now neither one is better right we need people who really focus in on one thing at a time and we need people who can manage 18 things at once right they're both fantastic but where it does leave us as women is this extraordinary ability to be high functioning is actually damaging over the long term right but we don't stop doing it because there's a codependent piece to it and that codependent piece looks something like oh my god kim i saw your video and you're killing it right or the neighbor who's like oh my gosh you're so amazing you're so selfless you're like yes i have no self that is correct right because you are just running around like crazy so it's this idea that we as women are rewarding each other yeah for functioning at a level that is really unhealthy right and this is where the stress comes in this is why women more women have strokes you know one of my best friends is a nurse on um the brain ward of her hospital she said i don't have a single shift where there's not a woman who unexpectedly had a stroke it's like just what happens right and this high functioning codependence is so um important and it's going to take us as women talking to each other about how it's not necessary to function at that level and to not create the codependent piece which is yeah you're so fantastic you're so great it's like how are you yeah oh my god i love that that just like i really that really resonated with me the way that you just described that yeah yeah i have yet to find a really awesome woman right who's out there like really powerful and everyone's like oh my god she's amazing who's not like yes it's like this big sigh of like you mean i don't have to keep going at this level yeah no you don't and we need to support each other in in taking a beat there a little bit more often i think yeah so the like because that codependence is amongst ourselves like as women we keep on like and it sounds like it's being supportive like we're supporting each other like you go girl like that kind of thing but really it's just keeping this this cycle this hamster wheel going um i love that that's so fast yeah and what that'll do is you're so worn out and you're so nervous and you've done all the things that by the time you get on a sales call or you're coaching someone and you're looking to cause results but you are so exhausted and you are so spent that the next time you're on a sales call you're like oh well i didn't cause results for susan so maybe i shouldn't be doing this right when actually the culprit is one not looking at where there's some self betrayal which if you're functioning inside of the high functioning codependence there is because you're turning off your own needs in order to get more accolades so that's a form of self betrayal so really looking at how we can start to heal that and supporting each other in healing that um yeah i love that like we can still support each other we need to continue to support each other but supporting each other in you know a different way like like you said that question of like how how are you how are you doing yeah yeah yeah that's really powerful okay amazing this has just been such an amazing conversation sarah you are seriously such a gem and you've shared so much value here tell us where people can go to connect with you and learn more about your work yeah sure so you guys you can come on over to sarahwalton.com if you really want this freebie you can go to sarahwalton.com this is a free gift i have for you guys um and it is a freedom calculator remember we were talking about knowing exactly what you want to make i have you start with the number that will actually have you feel free um like your shoulders will drop a little from your ears and you're like oh my gosh i can do that right and really looking at it um from that perspective and then there's a whole workbook behind it on how you can figure out um how to sell this thing how to market it in a way that will actually attract the right people so that you can hit your freedom number whatever that number is and nobody gets to judge that but you that's the great thing about having to be a workbook is nobody knows so you don't have to be embarrassed um or too excited like oh my gosh i'm so egomaniacal that that's my number you're fine either way we love you yeah um and then if you guys want to know you know a little bit more you can head on over to youtube i have a weekly show there called sarah uncut and heaven help me i just turn on my phone and start talking and nobody ever knows what's going to happen it's frightening it's so much fun so come on over okay that sounds amazing i will put those links in the show notes um before i let you go though sarah i would just love to ask you one last question so if you were going to share you know one key takeaway we talked about so much great stuff so many juicy things today but you know just one thing that that people could do or maybe just the very first step that our audience should do right now you know to to put some of this into practice what what would that be what would you say oh my goodness i know it's tough right right well there's one thing i would leave you with this thought and it might spark a different conversation but i'm gonna leave you with this thought anyway and that is that money is infinite which everybody goes what just take a second right now and just look around the room every single thing that you can see in your own line of sight is something somebody created and sold and as long as you can trust yourself to create something of value money is infinite i love it i'm gonna i'm gonna leave it at that because that is just such that's beautiful food for thought so amazing thank you so much sarah this has just been such a pleasure okay well there you have it i hope that you found some practical ideas as well as some mindset reframes to help you on your journey to embracing sales so that you can help more people and make more money because that's what i want for you now i would love to hear from you on this how do you feel about sales right now and what is the very first thing that you're going to do to begin to make sales more fun for yourself let me know in the comments below this video or if you're listening to the audio of this episode just find me on instagram and let me know okay that is what i've got for you today have a wonderful week and i will see you again very soon you
2022-06-02 21:53
