Sales Mindset for Entrepreneurial Sales Success with Viv Joy | Ep247

Ready to conquer your fear of sales and transform your business mindset? Join us as we uncover the secrets to mastering the art of selling without the anxiety. Viv and I dive deep into why many entrepreneurs shy away from sales and how you can shift your perspective to see it as an integral part of your business journey. We break down the difference between marketing and selling, illustrating how effective marketing can build strong relationships with potential clients, making the sales process less daunting. Using an engaging courtship analogy, Viv explains how creating interest and trust before the sales pitch can significantly reduce the fear of rejection.

But that’s not all—we also explore the unique concept of categorizing sales prospects as 'cats' or 'dogs' and how this understanding can revolutionize your approach. Discover how to read your prospects better and tailor your strategies to meet their needs effectively. We highlight the importance of self-belief, confidence, and genuine interactions in the sales process, emphasizing that believing in your product or service is crucial for success. Tune in to learn practical strategies for setting realistic expectations, building trust, and connecting authentically with your audience. This episode is packed with actionable insights to help you overcome the fear of sales and thrive in your entrepreneurial journey.

Join me and other podcast hosts as we get candid about the realities of podcasting - Join Here

www.donnaeade.com

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:40

You're listening to the Mindset in Action podcast the place to be to grow and streamline your business. I'm your host, donna Eade. Let's jump into the show. Welcome back to the podcast, everybody, for another mini Mindset Monday with Viv. We are going to be talking about sales today. Welcome back to the podcast, viv. How are you doing? I'm doing fabulously thank you, darling.

Speaker 2: 1:13

Sales are great, great pictures. I know what I'm doing, I know what I want to sell and I know the impact it makes on people. So there's your little highlight, the show reel, if you like, of this podcast. Really funny thing to talk about regarding fear of sales.

Speaker 1: 1:26

Yeah, yeah, and it is. It's one that, as you know, and whenever I think about the topics that we're going to cover, it's always things that people have said to me, and I know I told you before that my guests get to do a mini mindset episode with me where they tell me their biggest block. Um, and that's what happens every other week when we're not talking, and oftentimes it's those that prompt me to go oh gosh, yeah, that's something that a lot of people deal with, and I think fear of sales is such a funny one, because it's like we're in business to make money, so we don't have to do a day job, so that we can make a bigger impact in the world, but we need to live, and yet we have this fear of selling what we do. So talk to us about sales, viv. How can we get past this block?

Speaker 2: 2:13

You just hit the nail on the head there, donna, because you say we're in business to make sales. We have started our own business to make sales. No, most people haven't done that. Most people have started their own business for freedom. That's the number one reason. If you look at any charts, any polls, any research that's done, the number one business is the perception of running your own business is freedom. Those of us who have got our own business laugh at that incessantly.

Speaker 2: 2:37

I actually worked half the hours, I reckon, when I was employed, which was about 22 years ago now, than I've ever done a self-employed, because your brain never switches off, does it? Your brain never switches off when you're self-employed. So, yeah, there's the biggest myth. The biggest myth is freedom, and also then to actually have our own earning capacity. So that's the next one. So, yes, to earn lots of money.

Speaker 2: 2:57

What some people don't really work out is that earning lots of money when you're self-employed means you're doing the selling. I think they don't realize they have to do all the elements of the business. They don't then realize, yeah, I can sell. Well, yes, if you've been in sales and you've worked for a company, that's what I get as well. They've offered you the leads. You've just got to follow those up when you're in your own business. You've got to make the opportunities, you've got to make the leads needs. So it's not just a fear of sales, it's actually the whole shebang the having to do it all, having to work out what your marketing messaging is, having to work out your marketing strategy, having to then reel people in to make sure they're really interested. There's a lot goes on before you get to the part where you're selling a lot. And what people don't understand is they mistake marketing for selling. So they sell, sell, sell on their social medias in their marketing.

Speaker 2: 3:46

I'm not saying you shouldn't do some of that. You absolutely need to offer people things. But actually marketing is about creating those moments, that connection, that imagery, that thought, that feeling in their ideal client, so that they go oh, that's somebody I need to do. Oh, she does that, oh, I need that, oh, I get that. So you're creating a beautiful relationship. It's a bit like a courtship. So if that bit goes well, the selling part's really easy.

Speaker 2: 4:09

So, donna, you know when you and I started our relationship I didn't come at you going Donna, come and buy my stuff, come and have coaching with me, join my coffee cake and coaching, buy my book, buy my retreats. I didn't come at you with that stuff. I just talked about the other things in my world and how I help people, and then I possibly mentioned there was other things going on, because my job as a marketer is to draw you in, and the reason I'm talking about marketing with sales is because you can't have one without the other, unless, of course, somebody is providing you leads. But even then, we need those leads to be warm, we need to have a nice environment, because the biggest reason that people are scared of sales is it's really horrible and spammy and salesy to just say, oh hello, mr Client, could you buy my stuff please? Because nobody, they're going to say no, I'm all right, thanks, no, I can't afford it. Thanks, oh, no, no, I don't need that at the moment.

Speaker 2: 4:59

And our biggest fear in the world, apart from death most people is rejection. So, consequently, if we're not certain that someone's interested in us, it's a bit like being in a nightclub and fancying someone across the across the bar and having no signs or signals they're interested in you, and just going up and going hi there, do you fancy going on a date. Should we go to bed together? In fact, why don't you just come to bed with me? Because unless you've had those buying signals or those flirt signals, it's the same concept. We don't know if it's okay to proceed, so we're not quite sure. It's a bit like knowing you've got to cross the road, not looking both ways. You could get killed. It's the same concept. It feels very unsafe.

Speaker 2: 5:37

So the marketing part is to make the sales easier. Most people can't be asked for the marketing because it's hard work, it's hard graft. Yes, social media is free, takes you 52 hours a day, it's not easy, right? And also because it's free, the whole world is doing the same. They're all shouting really loudly they've got the best thing, the thing that's going to change everybody's life. It's the cheapest thing for the best value. Like it's so noisy out there that actually you can't be bothered with that either, because actually you'd just rather just have a nice holiday and you know you cap the money into your bank. But sadly they all go together.

Speaker 2: 6:09

So the fear of sales is really the fear of rejection. It's also the fear of not being as good as the other people that are saying they're amazing. Because of course, if you're new to business especially, you don't know that you're amazing. You know you might have an inkling, you might have done even the job when you were employed, but actually as a business owner, you don't feel amazing. So, even as somebody who helps people with their podcast honor, you might think you're great at helping people with podcasts, but your brain says yeah, but you're not very good at running a business. I'm not saying that's the case for you, but that's the way it goes. And this. Come back to the last episode.

Speaker 2: 6:39

We talked about identities identity of who you are when you do. What you do is different to the identity of business owner, marketer, salesperson. So you know, we talked about identity last time. If we talk about the identity of your salesperson, your internal salesperson, have a think about who they are. Who is your internal salesperson? Are they quite seductive? Are they a bit flirty? Are they a bit? Come on, here it is let's go, let's negotiate, because we're all very different in our personality types.

Speaker 2: 7:06

Um, I know we were talking about cats earlier. I do a training it's free on my website about cats and dogs and determining who somebody is based on whether they're a cat or a dog, and it's quite a fun piece of work rather than have to do massive psychometric tests. And if you think about a cat or a dog, they're very, very different. So a cat, you can't read them. They're very still, they're very steady, they want what they want and they want it. Now you can't make a cat do anything, as you know, donna, because you've got a few um and you're a cat lover. So a cat will eat when it wants. You have to leave the food down. We get a flick of the tail and we don't know if that's good or bad actually sometimes, because that same flick could mean I'm happy or I'm sad, and we really can't read a cat and a cat, you have to draw to you and so sales is very much the same as that.

Speaker 2: 7:51

But the trouble is, if people are a dog and dogs are very different they're very waggy, very demonstrative. They'll do anything to please you. They're there saying go please. What happens next? Yeah, feed me whenever you like. I'll still be here when you come home. I'm just gonna wait there. You know their heads bob along side to side. You know. We know they're waggy tails and they've got several different wags. I know because I've got four of them. Obviously my wife is a behaviorist, so I know all about dog behavior. So they're very, very different.

Speaker 2: 8:17

And so when we're selling to someone, are we selling to a cat or a dog? And the trouble is, if we're a cat or a dog and we're selling to the opposite, opposites don't attract and opposites don't match when we're talking about sales. So if you're a cat, you're very much. Let's talk about it, let's negotiate, let's get on with it, very simple terms. And you're trying to sell to a dog, a dog wants to know how it feels. If a dog wants to know what's going to happen, are we going to go and play? Is it fun? What's the experience? So we've got a mismatch and of course it can work the other way around, so we've got. So we need to think about who we're selling to. Number one we need to think who we are as a salesperson. Number two and actually then we have to make sure we know what we're selling. And that's number three, not doing seven today, but yeah, the third one is what are we selling and do we really believe in it? Because if we don't believe in it, no one else is going to believe in it either. So if we, and when we're starting out it's really tricky.

Speaker 2: 9:10

I know back in the day when I started my recruitment business, my first ever client, even though I'd done recruitment for other companies it was very different for me. Like that person was going to pay me and me alone. I remember thinking shit, what if I can't do it? What if I don't find them, the member of the staff, and they're going to pay me all this money? What if that member of staff leaves? I have to give it back to them. I had a whole load of doubt that was being moved on to the sales process. My own fears and my own inhibitions were being completely played out energetically, emotionally, physically. Like I remember sitting looking at the phone thinking, yeah, you've just got to ring them. Just pick up the phone and ring the people on the list, the list that you've created. Just ring them, you've just got to. I mean, I'm back in the day now. It's a long time ago we don't do that.

Speaker 2: 9:51

In fact, no one rings anyone, do they? And if anybody rings us, we're like who the hell is that? No, thanks. So yeah it, what's going to happen? So we're just terrified. We're terrified of appearing salesy even though we want to sell. It is crazy, because the craziest thing is that everybody out there wants likes buying.

Speaker 2: 10:11

I don't know about you, I bloody love shopping. It's my thing like. I'm like tiktok shop. I'm all over it wherever there's something to buy. You know, Facebook ads work beautifully on me. I'm, before I know it, I'm looking at Ted Baker's latest, you know, spring line. Whatever it is, I'm really easy to sell to.

Speaker 2: 10:26

So, but of course, if that, if Ted Baker was scared to sell to me, I would never buy Ted Baker, would I? So this is a real challenge, and so you're going to ask me so what do we do about it? What do we do about it is we power up our own belief in what we do and ourself, because once we do that, that radiates across all of our marketing, it radiates into our sales process, it radiates into our products and our pricing. Self-belief, self-confidence is at the core of being able to sell, because if you haven't got that, you can't believe in yourself, you can't sell Quite straightforward someone and not promising the earth when you can just give them, you know, a county. Let's make sure that what we're promising is absolutely what we can give, because then the people will come for what we can give. But most business owners think they have to serve everybody with everything, they have to be like a big company, they have to be ted baker and sell everything, whereas actually if I want a specific shoe, I'm going to go to somebody who sells specific shoes. So we need to be the expert, we need to believe we're the expert, we need to prove we're the expert so that by the time someone comes into our sales field, into our process whether that's by you know, messenger or phone or email or however we're doing it Facebook groups, whatever your bag is that actually?

Speaker 2: 11:41

That sales is just a conversation. It's not a please buy my stuff. And in fact, if you're doing your job right, that person is asking you the questions and you're just simply providing information. So when you and I would have first met Donna and I know this because I don't ever sell realistically your conversation would have been so how much is it? What time is it? What's going to happen? Who comes? You would have been asking me lots of information. Therefore, I'm not selling, I'm just giving information, and once we get into that place, it's not scary at all. We are just basically helping that person understand some stuff. So it's about framing sales as more about information giving, serving notifications, because that's essentially what selling really is.

Speaker 2: 12:20

If you're doing it right so if you've got somebody on the sales call or you're in the dms trying to have to convince someone, that person is probably not warm enough, they're not your person or you're doing it right. So if you've got somebody on a sales call or you're in the DMs trying to have to convince someone, that person is probably not warm enough, they're not your person or you're desperate, and actually desperation does not sell. Desperation stinks. No one wants to buy from a desperate person, and we've all been there, by the way, especially at the beginning, when we literally just need the money to pay the rent.

Speaker 2: 12:42

Well, I literally have, you know, coached a dog. Quite frankly, back in the day when I first started, I was like, oh, you want me to help you do this? Yeah, fine, um, you know, and at the beginning it was, you know, training, certifying coach, a lot of coaches, as you know, um, and it's okay to do that at the beginning. It's okay to do that at the beginning of your business because you just don't know. You might, you know, stumble across something that is the thing you want to sell to people, it's the thing you want to do, and it might not be the thing you start out with. So, yeah, that's fear of sales in a nutshell brilliant brilliant.

Speaker 1: 13:11

There we go. There we go, guys. So if you want more information on fear of selling and you want to work with Viv to overcome that, then head over to our website. She has everything over there. Come and join us for her monthly networking that she does totally free, offers training and you get to chat to some fantastic ladies over there. So I'll leave all those links in the show notes, don't forget. You can ask Viv anything within reason at the link in the description below and we will see you in a couple of weeks. Bye for now.