Hey and welcome to episode 16 of the Free and Fearless Podcast. If you aren’t releasing any paid offers yet, don’t have the results you want in your business, don’t feel confident selling, or aren’t sure how to go about it, this episode is for you.
Tune in below:
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Show Notes:
- [1:56] How I avoided selling and what changed in 2021
- [4:43] Why I closed the doors to my signature course and decided to rebrand it
- [9:03] How creating your best product ever can make you better at sales
- [10:13] Selling a transformation vs selling product features
- [13:8] How your paid offer must feel so that you can sell with confidence
- [14:46] How to be excited and energetic even if you’re in the middle of a launch
- [16:29] Why you shouldn’t be attached to the end result of the launch
- [18:09] How your money mindset and spending habits might be limiting your earning potential
- [19:40] Negative beliefs about selling vs empowering ones
Mentioned:
Transcript
I’ve always avoided selling, but let’s face it, that’s what makes a business profitable.
Even if you’re freelancing, you’re selling your services. If you’re an influencer, you’re selling yourself. If you’re a blogger, you’re doing affiliate marketing or selling your own products, like I do.
As a product-based business, obviously selling is the main thing happening. As a coach, you’re selling your paid offers hoping to land amazing clients and grow your income.
But there are things you can do to feel comfortable doing it. Once it feels natural, you can boost your confidence in sales and raise your rates, release more products, create multiple income steams, target high-ticket clients, and so much more. Selling is a skill, which means we can all get better at it.
Being in the course creation business for around 2 years myself, I had to do a few things differently if I wanted results.
It feels like yesterday that I felt so uncomfortable selling. I didn’t want to bother my audience with too many emails promoting my courses because I didn’t want to annoy them or turn people off.
I was avoiding selling. That’s why I didn’t have any actual live launches prior to the one from last month when I released my course Fearless Content. Over the course of 7 days, I did nothing else but to show up online and send emails and post on Instagram and enjoy the process. I was at my best, high-vibe and providing value knowing that this product could change people’s lives.
Same goes for the affiliate campaigns I’m promoting these last months. There was one I just finished. It was a bundle of courses and one of my programs, $1K Blogger, was part of it. I was so happy to share it with people.
There were 2 other similar campaigns in the beginning of this year and people were literally thanking me for promoting it. They purchased, earned me a commission, and thanked me because the offers were so good and they wouldn’t know about them if it wasn’t for me.
All this, together with the fact that I’m opening the doors to my signature blogging course, Blog to Biz System, at the end of this month, means I did a lot more selling in 2021 than ever before.
Many other things have changed too. The words I use when I promote something, the copy I write, how I feel when I create any content that will potentially convince people to buy something from me. The graphics I use, the way I start conversations with people, how I get testimonials. How I prepare for a launch or any affiliate campaign, but also how I use intuition during the promo period and just share what I feel called to.
The feedback I get is great. All those people who see the posts and emails but aren’t interested in buying don’t usually mind. Because of this, I feel better about myself and my business, my products and the content I create.
When I felt just the opposite a year or two ago, meaning I was feeling salesy, I brought this negative energy to other aspects of my life. I was also limiting myself by not grabbing opportunities, not creating more products, and not charging what they are worth.
Below, I’m going to share a few things I did that helped me overcome all this, and create a more aligned business. My hope is that you can follow the same steps if you feel like and can see the same result.
1. I took a step back.
Last year, I decided to do something I’ve never done before – to close the doors of my signature course, rebrand it, and release it in a few months.
I did it because I was talking it about it too often but not in a way that felt aligned. I was discussing features, modules and lessons, not the actual transformation the program provides.
It’s also so big that I didn’t know what to share first so I could let anyone in my audience know what they can find inside. It was exhausting. I had already mentioned it many times, sales were only coming every now and then, and I just needed to take a step back.
That was when I got into email marketing, digital products and branding and I used this opportunity to re-evaluate everything. I was hoping to build an online course business and yet I wasn’t launching. I wasn’t working on a new program, and I didn’t feel confident in my main offer even though there’s a ton of value in that course.
So I gave myself permission to close its doors, create a waitlist, and literally not think about that course for half a year.
It was refreshing and liberating. It was called Financial Freedom Through Blogging but now its name is Blog to Biz System. Even though the content inside is the same, I wanted to give it a different vibe as I want to promote it differently from here on.
People contacted me about it and joined the waitlist over the last months but I couldn’t give a clear answer as to when it’s going to be launched again, and that’s fine. I created space in my business and worked on so many other things and even changed as a person during all that time.
I created my most interesting program so far, did beta launching for it and then an official launch. That’s Fearless Content and it showed me how much I’ve grown as a course creator. The design, the topics, how I felt about it, how everything was planned, the testimonials and the sales page, everything was next level for me.
I can’t feel the same way about any older program simply because even the audio quality, the design and how the lessons are organized inside isn’t what I would ideally do if I was creating it for the first time now.
But that’s normal. A year or two from now I will have learned so much more about creating courses, I will have a new program or a few, and I will have excelled in creating and selling digital products. So when I look back to the ones I have now, I will still see a lot of room for improvement, but that’s how it goes.
The point is that closing the doors of Blog to Biz System gave me the creative freedom I needed to grow my brand, build my presence on Instagram all over again, cover new topics, and do business in a whole new way. As well as take many courses and learn more about running a course creation business as opposed to a blogging one.
Now that I feel more confident, I don’t need to have a big launch for Blog to Biz System. It’s my most comprehensive program, for sure. I believe in what I teach inside and it covers literally any important thing I’ve learned about blogging and have done on my blog over the years. It’s a whole academy with nearly 100 lessons. But I’m going to do sort of an internal launch.
First, I will open the doors and email those on the waitlist list. As promised, I will offer them the biggest discount possible.
Then, I’ll let my audience know, that means I’ll share it with my email list and on Instagram. But it won’t be the 7-day launch where I show up daily and have all kinds of promo material prepared, share testimonials, and send many emails.
No. This is an evergreen course, which like any other program I have, will be sold automatically on the back end through sales funnels. I plan to add webinars to my business and not launch existing courses again. I’ll only have live launches for new programs that I’m excited for, because my own excitement plays a big role in all this.
2. I created my best product ever.
That’s Fearless Content and once I believed in it so much, it was much easier to announce it and promote it. My point here is that even if you already have programs and they are super valuable, like I did with my blogging courses, that doesn’t mean you’re confident in them.
If you don’t love everything about your own product, if it’s not something you yourself would invest in, I don’t think you can truly describe to others why they might need it too.
You need to embody the transformation the course provides and show that to others. That means having absolutely no doubt that this product is worth it, that anyone who invests in it will have amazing results, and that it’s worth the price.
Because if you’re not sure about any of these, people will feel it. And of course we don’t want to buy from someone who doesn’t believe in their own work.
It’s okay if you aren’t there yet. That means you need to keep learning and experimenting. Maybe you will upgrade and relaunch one of your existing paid offers. Maybe you want to start from scratch and create your best product ever. Then you will feel so good promoting it that anyone you attract as a client or student will be the fest fit for it.
3. I started talking about the transformation, not the features.
This is a big one. I heard all my mentors talk about it but I never really understood this until last year.
Your offer needs to be irresistible. People aren’t here to buy features or even courses. They are here to invest in a potential transformation and your program can provide that. Also, they are here to invest in you and your energy and that applies both to a coaching business and a course business.
So, have you sat down to think about and describe what people’s life will be like after going through your program?
Can you give examples? Can you say WHO they will become once they follow the steps outlined in your roadmap? And by the way, a good course usually has a framework, a roadmap, a journey you’re taking people on.
You should be able to clearly describe point A, which is their current reality, and point B, which is where you are taking them and how things will be different there.
Once you have this defined, you can also create the sales page, write the best copy, and do the promo around the course with ease.
The program exists to help the customer achieve a desired transformation. Anything you do to promote it is to allow them to understand and imagine this transformation.
All this is a whole new skill to build and it’s a big part of sales. Most probably, you’ve been focusing on features till now so you will need to replace that mindset. You will need to watch out so that you don’t talk about anything else that much other than the transformation.
I finally started doing it last year but it was after I realized that I myself was investing in courses for that very reason. With any new course, such as Fearless Content in my case, I first get the idea, outline it, and define the WHY behind the transformation, which is what people will achieve once they go through the program.
Usually, it’s something I’ve already accomplished and worked on so I’m living that reality. That makes it easier to share how things were before, which is often where people currently are.
That’s why the sales page speaks to them. Because I know the challenges of not knowing what content to create, for example, of not having an actual brand, letting perfectionism get in the way of creating any content. I know what it’s like to publish generic content, to create products that aren’t aligned with your vision, to want to delete something shortly after posting it, to be on too many platforms and not get any real results on any of them.
So I created Fearless Content for the person who wants to stop second guessing everything they do online, who wants to be bolder in the way they express themselves, who wants to spend less time creating content and yet produce their best work ever.
4. I did what feels good.
If it feels off, you’re coming from the wrong energy and something needs to change. You don’t want to release any paid offer from a lack mindset. You don’t want to wonder if it’s good enough, if it will earn you money, if people will like it, if it’s worth the price.
When you’re working on the right thing, it feels good and easy. You’re on the right path, you’re staying true to yourself, you’re being authentic and you sell with confidence and integrity.
It might take you some time to get there. By the way, that’s one of the things I help you with inside Fearless Content as that relates to personal energetics, not just content marketing and branding. I combined all that in the program to help you act in alignment with your purpose, get into the right energy, take soul-aligned business decisions and create from a place of abundance.
5. I kept providing value while promoting something.
That’s actually part of the formula for soulful marketing that I teach in the last module of Fearless Content. It’s something I’m having so much fun with and which comes naturally to me now, but it definitely wasn’t the way I promoted things before.
What I mean is this: You can’t just tell people to buy every day during your launch period, or until you fill the spots for your program.
You can do that and provide value at the same time so that those who see all your posts and emails aren’t annoyed but still keep following you and checking out what you have to share.
6. During a launch or campaign, I focus on excitement.
A year or two ago, I focused on worrying that things won’t go well. I was applying the different sales and marketing strategies I had learned then.
I didn’t feel good when sending emails and I definitely wasn’t writing the best copy then. But I did it anyway and I didn’t make almost any sales. People were turned off and that was costing me my relationship with them.
I didn’t know what else to do. I was really thinking that’s the only way to sell. It felt unpleasant and after that I also didn’t feel good. But now, all this is replaced with excitement, the desire to serve, an inner knowing that I’m doing my best work and it will reach the people it can help the most.
A launch or any campaign you promote needs to go with excitement. You should be loving the process, you should be looking forward to it.
You can plan some things of course, and follow through, but during the promo period, you should be energetic day after day, showing up online because you want to. Posting anything because you believe in it. Promoting only products you’re absolutely sure can transform the lives of your people.
You should wake up excited wondering how you can serve your people today, even though you’re in the middle of a launch. You should remember it’s all about them, not you.
Your job when doing marketing and sales is to show up as your most vibrant self. This is the energy that magnetizes people. This is what brings engagement to your posts, what inspires people to share feedback and provide testimonials, and what inspires you to amaze them with your content even when selling something.
7. I stopped being attached to the end result.
That’s an energetic trick I’ve been hearing from all my mentors and which I finally tested.
I think it was James Wedmore who said in one of his latest podcast episodes that detachment is required for success. That we shouldn’t be attached to the end result of the launch.
Most business owners don’t follow that rule and wouldn’t take the time to understand it. I was one of them till recently. But here’s what it means.
It does’t mean forget about the numbers. Of course you’re tracking conversions, traffic, clicks or anything else. Of course you have some goals in mind and will analyze how the launch went at the end.
But during the launch, you can’t be focused only on that. Because it limits you energetically, it takes you away from the present moment, which is the only place where you can attract more customers.
This is also related to one of the principles of manifestation – that you need to let go of the how and leave that to the universe.
You can’t control every aspect of a launch and that’s okay. But also you can come up with amazing ideas during it or you can keep the cart open for a day or a few at the end and double your sales during that time with a special bonus or something.
You might have your best launch ever and it might exceed your expectations but only if you let go of the how, are coming from a place of abundance, and trust the process.
The next step I took to become more confident in selling is related to money mindset.
8. I started investing more.
Fear of investing and spending is equal to fear of selling. Coming from that energy usually repels abundance.
I noticed how much I use the words spend and expensive, so I removed expensive from my vocabulary and replaced spending with investing. Anything I spend money on is actually an investment of some sort. Whether it’s to provide me with the lifestyle I love so much, or it’s something related to my personal, spiritual or business growth.
A great example is the fact that I’m investing in my biggest program ever next month, it will be between $2K-$3K and I’m excited about that. It’s by James Wedmore and it’s called Business by Design.
I also made my first hire some time ago so a percentage of my monthly income is now going for that, which is a whole new feeling and experience for me.
I also invest in other courses all the time, in better design, software and any tools related to the main aspects of my business. I only use the best of the best now, instead of trying to save a couple hundred dollars here and there. But I also only use what I need.
Being more comfortable with all this makes me a better client, a better business owner, and a better seller.
Look at your money mindset and spending habits and notice what might be coming from a lack mentality and the wrong kind of energy.
9. I changed my beliefs about selling.
I was seeing it as something unpleasant, something I just had to do if I wanted to scale. Something that everyone was doing better so I had to push myself to improve.
I believed that people don’t like it when I sell to them and that I’m not good at it, it just doesn’t come naturally to me.
I also believed that how a sale goes defines me as a business owner.
I believed that it takes the right strategy to make sales. That I shouldn’t charge much. That I can’t send too many emails. And I didn’t believe in the product or myself.
After taking all the other steps above, working on my mindset, doing a lot of inner work, learning all I could from entrepreneurs I look up to, I changed my beliefs.
Selling can be easy. It’s a skill and we can all get better at it.
People love to buy and if they see the right offer at the right time, they’ll grab it.
It’s my job to let them know when I have an amazing offer for them. Repetition is key because 2 emails and 2 social media posts simply aren’t enough. Not everyone who actually wants this product will have the chance to even learn about it.
I realized that it’s okay to create my own strategies and do what’s right for me and my audience, instead of following the exact steps of others.
I realized that how a launch goes doesn’t define me and I can do better any next time. In fact, if it didn’t go well, this is my key to analyzing what went wrong and doing something to change it.
I realized I can charge anything I want, based on the value of a product which in this case is the transformation a course provides. This is one of the best ways to make sure I attract the right students.
Let me know which of the 9 steps I mentioned is your favorite and why. Tag me on Instagram @letsreachsuccess and share this article with anyone who struggles with sales. Oftentimes, it’s all about the inner game. And luckily, we do the work and completely change the way we see and do selling online.