EP 299: How To Design Your Own Sales System

Tara McMullin: This special episode of What Works is brought to you by Mighty Networks, Mighty Networks makes it easy to gather your customers or clients together on a private dedicated platform. So you can share the courses, conversation, and events that will help them reach their goals. Plus, as a Mighty Networks host, you have full access to your member list, built in payments and smart customizable features to enhance your brand. Start your Mighty Network free of charge today, go to mightynetworks.com to get started. Very few small business owners start out as confident salespeople, in fact, selling is quite often a new business owners number one, fear. Many avoid selling, some stumble through it, and still others look to leaders and sales trainers to learn their methods and duplicate their models. And in that process, they learn what works, but they often also learn that what works, doesn't necessarily work for them.

I'm Tara McMullin, And this is What Works, the show that brings you behind the scenes of how small business owners are building stronger businesses. All this month, we've been examining sales and selling, asking what works when it comes to asking someone to buy what it is that we're offering. First, I talked with Autumn Witt Boyd who shared how she realized that she'd taken the trend towards sales automation a little too far, and has since developed a hybrid process, that's high touch without overwhelming her. Then I talked with Katie Hunt who shared how she had a fabulous new offer launch without spending tons of money on advertising or recruiting an army of affiliates. Last week, I shared my conversation with Kate Strathmann where we both shared our reflections on building less harmful sales systems. Systems that are less manipulative, less urgent, and more in line with our values.

This week, I've got four more stories to share with you from small business owners who have intentionally done things their own way when it comes to sales and selling, they've found what truly works for them. Even if it bucks the prevailing wisdom or would make a pro marketing expert roll his or her eyes. Before we get there, though, I wanted to share some questions that you can use to examine your own sales process. Now, first, I want to say that I don't think learning someone else's sales system is a bad thing, and I don't think every effective sales system being taught today is inherently manipulative or harmful. Even if you plan to find your own version of what works, learning about effective sales systems can help you get creative with the way you do want to go about selling your offers. Now, when it goes wrong is when we don't take the time to carefully examine and analyze what's going on in a sales system that we're learning. And instead just naively follow the instructions.

So these questions, which I formulated from the conversations we've had this month, can help you take a closer look at a sales system that you've learned or one you've created and make sure that it's creating the experience you want your customers to have. So the first question is, does the sales process mimic the experience I want customers to have after they buy? Both Kate and Autumn talked about how they wanted to align what was special about the type of experience they offered with the way sales conversations actually went down. For Autumn, that meant incorporating more personalized human conversations into what had become a really automated experience. For Kate, it meant making sure that the collaborative co-creative experience she was building also carried over into the content and conversations she was having around her program. Before you decide on what your sales process should look like, it's helpful to get really clear on what people love about what you're selling in the first place and how they experience it. How much of that experience can you carry over into how you guide people through the sales process?

The second question is, what values will I prioritize as I design the sales experience? Katie knew that launching her new membership site, even while many small business owners were reeling from lockdowns was the right thing to do. She wanted to be able to provide support that was easier to access when they needed it most, but she wanted to make sure that the way she talked about the new program and guided people to buy was in line with her values, especially since there was already so much tension and anxiety in the air. She adjusted her sales messaging and even the price to make the offer stronger in the midst of uncertainty. Now, you don't have to squeeze all of your personal or company values into a sales process, that can be really overwhelming. So which of your values do you want to prioritize? Maybe your value for collaboration inspires you to sell differently, or your value for inclusion creates an opportunity to close the deal in a new way. Choose one or two values that you really want to highlight and ask yourself how that particular value can play out in an effective sales system.

The third question is, am I giving potential customers more agency or less agency by design? Kate called out that at the root of many harmful sales practices is a desire for control, control over communication, control over the buying process, and control over the outcome. Looking back at my conversation with Autumn, automating your sales process can be a form of control. It doesn't have to be, but without intentionally designing the process to empower your customers and make sure that they're the ones choosing the right next move for them, an automated sales process can easily devolve into a process that chooses the prospects next move for them.

The fourth question I encourage you to ask as you examine your sales system is how can I use my sales process to build stronger relationships? Sales systems are often designed in a way that turns a budding relationship into something much more transactional. What seemed authentic and organic even at a distance can turn into something that feels like a quid pro quo. Kate shared that she approached her recent sales process with an eye for sharing her offer in a way that would encourage future sales by using the process to start building stronger relationships now. The content she created, the way she asked for the sale and the process of actually inviting people into the program, all reinforced this goal.

And the final question I invite you to ask is how can I frame this conversation to reduce anxiety? Let's be frank, sales conversations often make us anxious. We get anxious as the salespeople, will they buy? Will they think I'm stupid? Will I hit my goal? Will they think my price is too high, too low? And our potential buyers get anxious too. Will this solve my problem? Will I like it? Will I use it? I'm missing out on something really good if I don't buy? Unfortunately, many popular sales techniques are actually designed to increase anxiety. They're designed to make people fear missing out. They're designed to make people experience new problems or to step on old wounds. And I'm sure I don't have to tell you that that is just no good. What I heard from Kate, Autumn, and Katie, was a conscious decision to reduce the anxiety their potential customers felt. And in turn, they experienced less anxiety about sales and selling themselves.

Kate reduced anxiety by being really direct with her potential customers. She didn't beat around the bush about what she was offering and she made it really easy to determine whether or not they wanted to buy. Autumn reduced anxiety by having personal conversations with people who were considering her legal services, so they could both feel good about the next steps. Katie reduced anxiety by creating content that showed exactly what a new customer would get when they bought and explain the best ways to use the product so that they could know what the experience would be like. Consider what part of your sales process makes you the most anxious and why, and then consider how your customer could be feeling anxious, worried, or unsure too. Think about how you could alleviate anxiety through the sales process for both you and your customer.

All right, let's get to this week stories from business coach, Ashley Gartland, marketing expert, Amy Lippmann, brand strategist and designer, Mel Richards, and work reinvention coach, Lydia Lee. Listen for how they incorporated these same considerations in defining their own unique sales systems. They designed their systems with personal values, strong relationships, reduced anxiety and agency in mind. First up, let's hear from business coach Ashley Gartland.

Ashley Gartland: When I first started my coaching practice, two different mentors shared two similar sales processes and accompanying sales scripts. They were similar enough that I had the thought that this must be the only way to run sales calls. After all I trusted my mentors and I was completely new to selling one-on-one services and running sales calls. Without those scripts, I wagered that I would have felt pretty lost. So I took the scripts and I drafted what I called a sales call flow in a Google Doc. I printed off a bunch of copies to use, to stay on track and take notes during my calls. And I used them for quite a few years. Now, I got decent results using those scripts, I even had above average sales conversions by industry standards. But the more that I used them, the more I felt like something was missing, or maybe it was more that I felt like I was borrowing someone else's recipe for a successful sales call. And at that point with a little experience under my belt and more trusted my skillset, it didn't feel right to follow those scripts to a T anymore.

Not surprisingly, I felt that the most when I was on a consult with a potential client. I started to notice that there were some awkward transitions in the conversation when I tried to bring us back to the process outlined in my script. I started to feel like I wasn't listening deeply enough because I was too focused on the steps in the sales process. And more than once, I missed the opportunity to follow up on an interesting thread in the conversation and create a really great experience that would have made my potential client feel seen and heard because I was too worried that it would pull us off script. The more I noticed the things that weren't working, the more motivated I became to try a different approach. And then one random day, as I prepared for an upcoming sales call, I decided it was time. I was going to experiment and go into that call with little else than a legal pad for taking notes and an open mind.

Now, that doesn't mean that I completely threw away the lessons I had learned from my mentors, because their influences were still there. It just meant that I finally gave myself permission to take what I'd learned and create and run a sales call that was utterly and completely me. That first unscripted sales call went phenomenally well and I knew I was onto something, so I kept running with that new approach. These days, when I jump on a sales call, I show up with a loose idea of how the conversation might go. But I also know that I want to let it unfold how it's going to unfold. That means I spend a lot of time getting to know the person on the other end of the line. It means I ask good questions and I practice deep listening. And it means I take time to follow up on those interesting threads in the conversation that I missed out on in the past, because I was so tied to a script.

It's definitely not a formulaic approach and I'm not even sure it's a teachable thing, but the experience of hosting sales calls in this way, feels so much better to me and I know it does for my prospective clients too.

Tara McMullin: Ashley's story is a perfect example of starting with a sales process that you know works and then finding what works for you over time using your values and a genuine desire to want to reduce anxiety. Now, let's hear from Amy Lippmann, who's the founder of Marketing for Health Coaches. Amy has been using the same sales process to fill her program for years, but started to notice that she just wasn't getting the same results she usually got. So she decided to switch things up, listen for how the experience she was creating during her sales process shifted.

Amy Lippmann: One of the offerings that we have that we've had for many years is already the launch cleanse program for coaches to use, to believe and promote their own cleanse or detox or jumpstart program. And we noticed that our results or our launches were not, we have a launch model for this program, and our results were starting to dwindle. We were in the model of doing a webinar for each launch. And in 2020 this year, we switched out our last two launches where instead of doing a webinar, we did a live five day free challenge. And in that challenge, we showed people how to sell out their first or next cleanse program. And it was really fun, really high energy, so much engagement. And what people took from the challenge, which it was designed this way as challenges are, is they could see, they actually were starting to put their plans into place. So they were getting excited. They were seeing themselves take action and they were seeing what was possible and that it didn't have to be so hard.

And so what happened is even before the challenge ended, before the cart even opened, of course, we were talking about the ready to launch cleanse program throughout the challenge, but we had people asking us well, how can I get more information? When is registration going to open? People were saying, "I'm so excited about this." So when we opened the cart on the last day of the challenge, it felt really good I think to us, for sure, and my team and also to our participants in the challenge. Because they were excited to put what they were learning into action and to do it in the easiest way possible, which was with our program. And we didn't do a webinar, we did do a success story bash about four days after the challenge, we did a success story bash with three of our past clients. We were real casual talking about their experiences in the program, people could ask questions, so there was engagement.

And then I did the typical, what you would do when you make an invitation and a webinar. I moved into slides and giving people an overview of everything they would get inside the program. And it worked really well. They built a lot of excitement in the way of launching and selling and I will say our results skyrocketed. So that was fun too.

Tara McMullin: Amy really focused on creating an exciting and engaging customer experience through her sales process, so that people would enter her program excited and engaged. And you know what? Excited and engaged people tend to get better results. So I love how the sales process starts to create the conditions needed to really get value out of the program. Next up is brand strategist and designer, Melanie Richards. Mel is the founder of Modern Traction, a digital agency specializing in helping thought leaders, coaches, and consultants reinvent their brands to create magnetizing websites and communicate their value. Mel has a really high personal value for clear communication. It's what she helps her clients do after all. But it obviously shapes how she approaches her business too. Listen for how Mel prioritized her value for clear communication to rework her sales process and even how it impacted her business model.

Melanie Richards: My sales in process in making the ask. This is something that has evolved over the last couple of years, quite a bit. I started experimenting a lot in my business to see what's really working and what's not. So I thought I'd walk you through how I used to handle sales and how I'm currently doing it now because it's evolved. And I feel like it's definitely getting optimized and streamlined way more. And it's actually made the biggest impact on my business and helped me increase my revenue and profits. Even my conversion rate is pretty healthy, I'd say probably around 70 to 80% with the ideal fit clients. So initially when I'd be doing discovery calls, I'd asked my prospects a bunch of questions, this related around their needs with the website, the features, what's not working for them, we'd even talk about design, stuff like that. So I was a little bit more into the details.

Then if we felt like we were a good fit, they would ask me to send them a proposal, which I did, but this actually took quite a bit of time, even though I was working from a template. But when I started to get more leads, I definitely started to see a bottleneck in my sales process. So I realized I really needed to optimize. And over the last year I've done so quite a bit. So a little while ago, I started asking different questions on my sales calls, which were higher level and more business oriented. So as I got more curious about my clients and I was actually asking them boulder questions, like how much do you charge for your highest package? How much would you like to be charging? What's your revenue and what are your goals in terms of growing your revenue? So these kinds of questions felt pretty nosy to me, but then I started to get the hang of how to ask them so it didn't feel like I was being nosy, but it was more like business owner to business owner.

And me just trying to understand what were their real objectives and what were the real challenges and hurdles in their way that they were trying to overcome so they can actually achieve that. Over time, I started to see a bit of a pattern and that the actual problem they needed solved was not that they needed a new website, they actually needed to reinvent their brand. So the problem they were looking to solve is actually a bigger one if they wanted to get more traction in their business. So this actually led me to completely redesign my services so I could actually offer them more value. This was scary initially because I took the leap to start offering more services. So I was adding complication to what I was already doing, which was already pretty complicated. And I'll admit there was some maybe meltdowns along the way, but it really helped me get clearer on what my clients really valued and who my ideal class were.

So essentially, I was able to productize my services and I created new packages so I could finally ditch doing proposals, even though things got a little bit more hectic. I just focused on making the sales because I knew I'd figure things out as I go, and simply, it just felt way more aligned. Plus my clients really reflected how much value they were getting from it, so I knew I was on the right track. And all of this actually really transformed how I approach my discovery calls now. So the questions are very different now and they help me really assess where they're at and if my solution is going to be a good fit for them. So for a good fit, I'll ask them if they'd like me to go over my packages. And this is essentially me asking for permission to sell. And that lowers their guard in any case, if it is up.

So then I'll ask them if there's a package they feel would be a better fit for them. So in the end, I'm never trying to convince them of anything. I'm simply leading them and helping them understand their problem better, what my solution is and the different ways I can support them. Then I'll straight up ask them if they'd like to move forward. And this usually goes either of two ways, if it's a yes, then I'll give them a virtual high five and I'll ask if they want to pay a hundred percent upfront or do installments. So I know that asking for upfront payment may come off as pretty bold. And I definitely felt like a big ask initially, especially after raising my rates, but I make it worthwhile for them by providing a bonus service that's really high value to them, like a full year hosting and website aftercare, but it's really easy for us to deliver.

And to my surprise, I see that more than half of my clients are paying upfront and that's been a total game changer simply because it's increased my cashflow. So I'm able to invest in my business sooner, hire people, invest in resources and it's just helped me get more traction and grow faster essentially. So for the ones who have not yet decided I'll follow up and I'll actually send them a link to the webpage, which has all the details of the package, I'll include a link to our recorded Zoom calls so they can refer back to it if they need. And in some cases, I've even recorded a personal lieu video, just to recap on some of the key elements that might be more specific to their situation. So it actually feels quite personal, even though it's not a custom proposal.

So in the end, for me, finding ways to offer more value to my clients and then presenting in a way that just makes so much sense and showcases the benefit to them, has helped me differentiate myself and get out of the commodity zone. And creating those clear packages has actually sped up my sales process quite a bit and has made it so much easier for prospects to say yes, because the value is so clear. I feel so much more confident about what I'm offering and it's totally smooth a sales conversation. So making the ask has just become way easier and the time I'm now saving, I'm able to spend working on my business and I'm actually seeing profits increase.

Tara McMullin: Mel's values, certainly helped to shape her sales process, but they also helped her streamline her business model, which in turn made her sales process even more effective. Now, finally, let's hear from Lydia Lee. Lydia is a work reinvention coach, small business strategist, and the founder of Screw the Cubicle. Lydia took a fresh look at her approach to sales this year so that she could stick to her values and build stronger long lasting relationships with prospects.

Lydia Lee: Authentic selling and human first marketing strategies are the very things that has not only helped me to build a profitable business in the last seven years, is also makes me feel good about the way I do business. In the last few months, as everyone in the planet has been navigating uncertainty and changes in the time of COVID-19, I've thought really deeply about how to sell authentically during this time without sacrificing my own values in the process. So I've been investing more time in creating a safe space for my customers to share their needs with me and how we can work together to create a comfortable process, to support them in investing in themselves during this time. That means using conversations to sell, like picking up the phone, to call potential customers rather than relying on automated emails. Or sending a personal loom message to every single inquiry that comes into my inbox versus just a canned response. And honestly, people love it when they hear me say their name and can see my face in a personalized video right in their inbox, it's one of my favorite things to do.

And it's made a world of difference where my clients have said that this has created more intimacy and trust for them to move forward in hiring me. Now, I haven't lowered my prices, but what I have done to make the sale with a mindfulness of my client's financial circumstances at this time is by tailoring the offer to help them say yes. What has worked has been to offer longer payment plans or tailoring a bespoke program to support my clients budgets without this discounting my prices. These conversations I've had with my clients in the last few months have given me great ideas to also be offering a different entry point to my signature one-to-one program, by creating a more accessible option that leverages the signature framework I've already created and facilitating it in a community learning environment. By having real human conversations with my clients, especially in working with them to sell with their needs in mind, has been tremendous in not only making the sale, but using their feedback to reinvent the way I offer what I do in creative ways.

Another thing about selling, I've really been embracing the notion of being open every day and not launching like a mad woman like I used to. This agreement to myself allow me to reposition my offer in a way that doesn't have that dreaded ticking countdown timer to join my program and really allow people to be educated on what they need to be ready to be a student. Every single email I send weekly is a seed I plant to move them from contemplation to commitment. And this is really all I can control, I can't control when they have the money to join or when they're so-called stars will line for them to say, yes, what I can control is planting those seeds to helping them create movement in their beliefs and trust themselves so that they can join when they're ready. And because my offer is evergreen, I don't lose out on students when they are ready to join beyond an enrollment date because well, I'm open every day. They don't have to wait until I open doors again, to join. They can join right now.

And this may be after the 18th time, they see an email from me and that email resonated so powerfully that it was their perfect time to say that confidence yes, please, to my offer. So to me, selling is really a commitment to planting the seeds, not just at a launch, but every time I have the privilege to land in their inbox. And it's a much more fun process to make selling less sleazy when I can humanize the way I do it through real conversations with real people.

Tara McMullin: Selling is a commitment to planting the seeds. I love it. We tend to think of a sale as something that either happens or it doesn't. But the process of making a choice to buy is one that often happens over time even if it feels or looks impulsive in the moment. By choosing to plant the seeds for each sale, Lydia is honoring her personal values and building stronger relationships. So now it's your turn. The next time you're ready to ask for the sale, consider how you can prioritize your values, design an experience you're proud of, reduce anxiety for everyone involved and give your potential customer real agency in the decision making process. When you do, you'll have designed a sales system that really works for you. Now, before you go, it's time for me to make an ask, we've just opened the doors to the What Works Network and I would love for you to join me there.

The What Works Network is a community of practice where experienced small business owners make a habit of building more effective, sustainable, and profitable businesses one day at a time. We focus on the small acts of business building that can help you build a stronger business over time. Next month, we'll be working on speaking up and showing up and how you can make a name for yourself or your business little by little. Each month inside the What Works Network, we break down a single component of business building, just like we do here on the podcast. We help you craft a plan to experiment with for the month, and then we give you checkpoints so you can make steady progress. All along the way, we support you with live sessions and our go at your own pace on demand community platform. With new habits and a commitment to steadily working on your business, you can stop spinning your wheels and start getting ahead.

Find out more about the What Works Network and join us by going to explorewhatworks.com/network. Huge thanks to Ashley Gartland, Lydia Lee, Amy Lippmann, and Mel Richards for contributing to this episode. What Works is produced by Yellow House Media. Our production coordinator is Sean McMullan. This episode was edited by Marty Seefeldt. Our production assistants are Kristen Runvik and Lou Blazer, and a special thanks to Shannon Paris for production help on this episode too. Now What Works is recorded in what is now known as Lititz Pennsylvania, which is on the homeland of the Susko Hanok people. The Yellow House is located in Northwestern, Montana on the homeland of the [inaudible 00:30:05] nation. Next week, we're celebrating our 300th episode of What Works with a live podcast recording and a panel of podcasting rockstars. Emily Thompson from Being Boss, Elsie Escobar from the Feed and She Podcasts and Jessica Kupferman from She Podcasts. To attend the episode recording live, go to crowdcast.io/whatworks that's crowdcast.io/whatworks.