Sell With Ease and Charge What You’re Worth with Jessica Riverson

Sales!

Do you love it? Or like most people do you avoid it or even hate it?

What if you could sell with ease and charge what you are worth? How would confident selling impact your business?

Customers buying from us is one of the most central actions of our business. So why is selling the thing business owners like to do the least. Do you believe this because selling is hard? Or are you are afraid of the reaction? Or is it something else? Break through the mystery and emotion surrounding sales and discover an empowered new attitude that will impact the effectiveness of your selling permanently.

Learn how you can:

1. Discover why you dislike sales
2. Reframing selling into something that empowers you
3. Learn what is making you hesitant to sell
4. Become empowered to boost your sales this week.

Join host Steve Kidd and his dynamic guest Jessica Riverson of Permission to Charge™ Headquarters and let them release you into a whole new realm of growth in your company. Make more money; Sell with ease; and FEEL GOOD about it! Steve and Jessica share with you practical tips on how you can turn selling from a chore into exciting potential today on Thriving Entrepreneur

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Show Transcript

Hi this is Steve, welcome to another exciting episode of Thriving Entrepreneur. Today we get to talk about something that’s fun for me and often terrifying for other people that I’m talking to, Sales. Let me ask you do you love it? Do you hate it? Do you avoid it? Are you like a lot of people who even just the word ‘sales’ sets off an emotional tornado with you? It’s really interesting how the fear or even the hatred of Sales is so common amongst Entrepreneurs. Though selling is one of the most central themes that we need in our business, you know I mean we’ve got to get customers in order to be able to have our business. Why is it that selling it so hard and why is it that so many business owners would list selling or sales actions as the number one thing that they dislike the most about their business?

Now some of you know I have been selling literally since I was 5 years old. I went door to door selling cards and napkins as a very, very small child and have been selling ever since then so some of these things I actually had to learn as an adult to identify with you why It was that you had those things and we’ve developed some really great ways to help you be able to reframe sales and I’m joined today by Jessica Riverson, owner of Permission to Charge Headquarters, a place where you can learn how to earn and how to get what you’re worth and how to sell your expertise  with settle.

We’re going to be talking today about the selling and we’re going to hopefully release you from some of the things that’s been holding your business back so that you can learn how to overcome that fear and turn what has been a problem into a possibility in your life. So join me in welcoming Jessica Riverson.

 

Steve: Hi Jessica

Jessica: Hey Steve, thank you for having me.

 

Steve: Oh I’m so glad to have you here with us. So I told my briefly, my little story about starting out selling so young and really always having been in sales and loving sales but tell as the other side of that story. You told me that you didn’t actually start out being a huge fan off sales, tell us about you and how you got to the place where you came to terms with it and now actually enjoy selling.

Jessica: Oh I’d love to, so you definitely have me beat having started selling what we were 5 or 3? But I actually did start selling at the young age so we do have that in common. I think I had a lemonade stand or something when I was like 7 and you know girl scout cookies, one of the top sellers in my Girl Scout troop so as much as Sales has been uncomfortable for me I think I’ve always just been an entrepreneur but with sales it’s an interesting thing about being an entrepreneur because one of the things I always like to talk about is what I call the rude awakening and what happens is we get really excited to start a business. So we do every the like get a business license,, we do our marketing, we do our branding and we get everything ready and then all of a sudden it hits us, oh my God salesperson and it’s such a rude awakening for people because typically when you’re starting out a business I think the kind of clients that I work with and probably people that you attract and work with too is you come up with something you’re passionate about and you’re like okay I want to do this as a business, I want to make money but you’re not necessarily thinking like once you do all of those business, building things and get everything in you’re not going okay great now I’m a Salesperson. But when you start a business that’s exactly what you become, you become the salesperson for your company and I think most people it doesn’t dawn on them at first until they realize oh now I’ve got to make sales. And it’s really hard to overcome that and I remember when I started my 1st business the tutoring franchise one of the things that really stood in my way; not so overtly of that because like I said I had some experience with selling previously but it was more all of the things about sales that come up for example the money stuff right like charging people whatever price I created, is that part was really hard for me so I find there is a lot of things about setting that stand in our way if you have any money mindsets the that you’re projecting onto your client like for me and say and I would kind of surprised is and some people were like okay great where do I sign up? And then other people would get really frustrated and it be like oh my God” and that reading made me retreat and be afraid of selling because he was like what I can what I do? What are they going to think of me? Are they going to think I’m charging too much?

So sometimes I think it’s our relationship with money that can be systems that we have about sales like if you were a kid and your dad came home and was like “oh that’s an easy car salesman work a deal of over and as a kid you’re going to grow up with this belief system about what you heard about salespeople just like Lawyers get a bad rap. Right so it’s like whatever you grew up with your belief system about money, your belief system people will that’s what can make us not like Sales.

Steve: Yeah that makes a lot of sense. I think there’s a whole emotional element that surrounds the whole concept of sales and there’s so many different aspects to it. We talked a couple of weeks ago in one of the shows about people who get tricked into a selling situation where back in the old days of network marketing and network marketer wouldn’t say I’m selling this product, I’d like to talk to you about it. They’d like invite you to a baseball game and then a guy would be a football field with a whiteboard you know giving a presentation on some and then of course there’s the door to door sales people that have come to your door and you’re right in the middle of dinner and send them know and they keep trying to push their way into the and so we end up having those bad experiences but it’s not even sold the experiences as it is that emotional element. It’s what we emotionally tied to, what people are going to think about us if we actually you know say ‘hey I’d like to sell you something’ and so can you talk a little bit more about the emotions that people feel when they’re even just approaching a concept of beginning to start selling?

Jessica: Absolutely I think, I mean I have a great example of like you said there’s so many emotions I think that it really does come down to that believes this did that gave is perfect because if you had that experience you have a really negative emotion related to that particular experience and so I was actually listening to Derek help her the other day and he made this point of you know if you’ve ever heard the saying  “he or she could sell ice to Eskimos” and is one of the things where if you can sell ice to Eskimos well they don’t need ice, right? The habits in abundance and so it really speaks to that manipulative type of sale that you were talking about where you might be a really good salesperson able to kind of tap into someone’s vulnerability and in essence convince them in a way of what it is that you’re selling even if they don’t need it and so I think we’re afraid of being in that category of being the type of salesperson that is somehow being manipulative and it’s with any industry right, like I mentioned lawyers.

Sometimes lawyers have a bad rap because people say certain things about them, people say certain things about salespeople and so if you’re really good at sales a lot of times people don’t necessarily say nice things about you it’s like oh yeah he could sell ice to Eskimos and that’s not really a compliment because you want to be known as someone who was in sales who actually cares about people and offers things that benefit them. So Derek great example what if it’s about understanding what an Eskimo might, right like their cold so runs really cold and you can show them how you have this jacket that can be the really warm then you’re doing them a real service you’re not manipulating them. So I think the emotion behind selling for some people is like well I don’t want to be that person that’s Monday automatically take the word selling or steel and can dictate with some type of manipulation bold but if you manipulate there’s a positive definition and then there’s a negative definition and the positive one is just still skillfully like influent and that’s something that if you have a good intention and you’ve understood what their problem is and you have a great solution the is actually a noble thing. But I talked to my clients about the unknowable pursuit and for most people at 1st glance there like no there’s nothing noble about sales but, you’re clear on your value and you’re clear on the problem that you solve. In fact if you don’t tell them about your warm jacket you’re doing them a disservice.

Steve: yeah, I mean I think of all of the different people that I’ve heard over the years and the example that comes to my mind is the good the guitar many many years ago was taught him how to be really genuine at the salesperson and he said actually it’s my wife and by that time Zig Ziglar was real estate sales professional in I want to say it was the Dallas or one of the Texas market. A very, very large market for real estate and they went to because they had that kind of money at that point and they sat down and agreed on what they were going to do for their budget and what they could look on, what price range of hoses and then she says to him when what if we find something that we really really love, how much more could we spend? And he was like and they talked a little bit more about places that they could cut back and things they could do if they really follow the perfect house and then she is going out and looking while he was working and she finds his great house and she goes before I tell you how much this house is you’ve got to look at it and she takes him around to see the house, tells them all the great things points out all the features as shown in how this is where his easy chair can be and this is the back patio areas and there’s the built-in grill so they can grill and just goes through all these great benefits of the house and everything. And then she goes there’s just one little thing you remember that top number we agreed on? Well it’s a little bit more and you know he brought up the point that when it’s something that you really truly want people buying things when you need food in your house you’re not angry with the grocery store for having food on the shelves and selling them to you in fact are grateful that you don’t go to the grocery store and find a bunch of empty shells. And the same thing is true with others and so with that thought in mind, with the thought of framing our emotions in a different direction we’re going to take a little break here and when we come back we’re going to start talking about that can really truly empower you to turn some sales into something that you don’t know is the that you actually love we will be back in just a couple of minutes.

Steve: We are talking about turning your fear or hatred or dislike of sales into something that you love. We’re talking in the last segment about the emotions that surround how you feel about sales before you ever even get into it and we’re going to jump back more into that but we have something exciting that happened here. I have a gentleman named Joe that’s actually on the line with course. He actually called in and he’d like to share a perspective from his point of view of something you could do to empower yourself with selling. Hi Joe.

 

Joe: Hey, you have to pick the topic having to do with entrepreneur’s salespeople?

Steve: Well the show does mostly goes towards entrepreneurs but I do have a lot of salespeople that I’ve worked with over the years so either is fine.

 

Joe: Okay what I meant was this particular topic was it about transforming the entrepreneurs for fear of selling or was it about the normal Salesman?

Steve: The entrepreneurs’ fear of selling.

 

Joe: All the entrepreneurs, okay well then I’ll give you the advice that I would give my salesman. I would tell them pick up a book, I would tell them look at the YouTube videos, I would tell them look at videos that are prescribed by people with good reputation for statesmanship and then practice. If you’re going to talk about salespeople that’s something I’m more familiar with but if but entrepreneurs now then I’ll give you that one that particular thing because it’s the same as the whale when you neophyte how do you become good at sales. You have to practice and the emotions which is something which you had talked about just a few minutes ago.

The reason why entrepreneurs I present and the reason why salespeople when they start out have this loading of sales is because they get rejected very, very often and they don’t have good training. So unfortunately the entrepreneur doesn’t have somebody to train him unless he’s already hired a sales force then he can talk to the director of marketing for the sales manager and maybe take private lessons after work or something like that.

Jessica: That’s a great point actually because entrepreneurs they don’t have their sales director, going to go to? If you have a Business Coach great but if you don’t where would you get that training from? That’s a brilliant point.

 

Steve: There are a lot of good books out there. We talked about Zig Ziglar earlier an older salesperson but there’s even people like Tony Robbins and stuff and stuff like that that have books that though they don’t specifically talk about sales techniques they will help you with the motivation and stuff like that.

Joe: That’s why I wouldn’t recommend Ziglar although he does have a course on sales I wouldn’t recommend Ziglar or know or Tony Robbins because they are about motivation. I would recommend books about sales principles and I would tell the entrepreneur if he was coming to me believing what you’re selling if you know that what you’ve got is a very good product you the very best sales best salesman out there because you might have involved the formulation of that product, you might know all about that particular product that is in the salespeople cause most people nowadays don’t know how to use people right anyway.

Steve: Yeah, I appreciate your opinion and thanks for calling in. I want to actually jump in on what Joe was talking there because I think that’s right where we were at and also has a good perspective on that. The way to overcome the emotion that you have of selling is still click the switch is it were and learn for your mindset what that means to be a salesperson because he brought up a really great point Jessica. He said “there’s probably nobody especially if you, that really truly know what your product like you do. I often use this example to get that cure you wouldn’t be holding back that cure for cancer you just retelling of it but you’ve got cancer I can cure it for you and if they were the price is the price would be very secondary because what you want to do is you’d want to share with those people what you have because you know that is that important to their life we have many of us that are actually removing cancer from people’s lives, we are helping them with weight loss, with their emotions, with their accounting all those different kind of things and so if we turn that selling into sharing we can actually find the power within ourselves. What kind of things have you found empower you when it comes to selling Jessica?

Jessica: That’s a great question so for me with my background as a money coach I’m always going to come from that standpoint because I just have so much experience with that and that was one of the things that really stumped me is working through my relationship with money was something that at least took a chunk of the fear away because a lot of times if you haven’t worked through your money stuff then you’re going to often come from a place that a lot of my clients do  initially of ‘I don’t want to ask people for money’ and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard people say that like I don’t want to ask people for money or I don’t want to take their money and it is interesting because the people that make these comments are usually the sweetest kindest most giving people and they give so much they almost give to a fault and there’s so giving that they actually lack the ability to receive and we see this in women especially. And so the idea that even if you’re providing this amazing service, an amazing product that exactly meets the needs of your client there’s kind of two things that I think get in the way there and to answer your question of breaking through these two things can empower you.

 

So the one is any form of projection about your own financial situation. Let’s say, I’ll give you a perfect example, one of the reasons why I used to discount my services and feel bad “feel bad about what I was charging what I was charging and in essentially asking for a sale” In my 1st business the tutoring franchise at that time in my life I was 25, a single mom. I couldn’t afford private tutoring for my kid and so I was projecting my money mindset on to my clients. So that’s one thing so if you’re selling something maybe that’s a premium or a larger price and you’re not comfortable with, that’s something that would actually get in your way of selling and then the other piece is if you don’t fully understand the value of that. So if you haven’t completely wrapped your brain around and your heart into what is the value you provide that can also stand in your way and essentially make you feel like you don’t believe in what you’re selling which is what Joe said. Like you have to believing it and you have to believe in it 100%, to the point where it doesn’t matter what it is that it cost.

So again I’m always coming from that perspective of a lot of there’s a lot of the money stuff that can get in the way with our selling and so 2 things is to one clear out your money stuff; like work on your relationship with money, discover what it is you might be projecting on to your clients and then secondly get way more clear on the value that you’re offering. Again, I’m going to go back to that warm jacket to someone who is cold because I think it’s such a perfect example. How can you feel bad about that like when you get really clear on the fact that these jackets will make you warm your freezing cold you can feel really good about selling something like that.

So I find that that it’s interesting especially among business women who their livelihood often relies on their ability to earn money for what they’re worth is this idea of you know, I don’t want to ask them for money and it’s like no there’s a value exchange and I think something that has helped me is just to stay clear on the fact that there’s a value exchange. I’m not asking anyone for money, I’m not taking anyone’s money, I’m exchanging value with them, I’m providing a service and they’re paying me for that and it’s interesting because it’s so simple but sometimes like you said the emotions that we have our limiting beliefs that we grew up with about sales and about money those things get in the way and cloud us from just staying in the present moment of there’s a value exchange here.

Steve: Absolutely, I think it’s so easy to have had a bad experience and we’ve all had them whether it’s with salespeople or without. But to have a bad experience where you are the customer and a sales perspective and to transform the emotion that you’re having in that experience into the assumption that you expect everybody going to have when you’re presenting them with something. And the truth of the matter is well that’s not true. I mean on the one hand we’ve all been in the retail situation where the particular salesperson at the store was not having a good day or the they just weren’t a good person, I don’t know, I don’t know them so who knows but we’ve actually walked out of the store because we just weren’t treated well, we’ve all had that experience but the reality is that’s the smallest part of our buying experiences people. We go to the grocery store every day, every week, every month you know, we buy clothing, we buy things for kids, for school.

There are so many buying experiences that we have every day that we don’t even think about we have no emotion about and we even have positive experiences. Often people will come back and they’ll say “you know that clerk at the store was just really nice and we had this really nice conversation” and you internalize that and say hey you know I could be that person that is the light in somebody’s day. How many times have we been having a rough day where after rushed through the store and you get to the checkout and the person is just really nice and it brightens up your entire day because of that nice, that good encounter that you had with somebody. I think that we have to start there from the emotions, we have to be real with and lastly you talked about money Jessica, I couldn’t agree more. We almost always can afford almost anything that we want. There are some things that we shouldn’t buy that it’s not so much a matter of whether we do or don’t have the amount to pay the payment for it it’s just not smart financially to have done. But the truth of the matter is I don’t know if I’ve ever found that when the fat that they wanted that they didn’t find a way to or find a solution that they found that problem for them to hear, I want you to come up with men to leave about 5 that have been good situations you had when the product. It could be a new pair of shoes; it could be groceries from the grocery store, prescriptions from the Pharmacy’s. Think of about 5 positive situations that you’ve had as a buyer and then we’re going to use that as a jumping off point when we come back after the break.

 

In the last segment we were talking about the motions that you have and that surrounds your ability to sail and we wanted to have the relief created into positive thoughts, positive experiences with money. Jessica brought up great things to get a good positive relationship around money and also begin to realize that what you have to offer the world needs. I’m always telling you guys you are uniquely brilliant and created for a purpose. You’re not just an accident that happened here on the planet, you actually are here on purpose and what you have to share the world needs, your put here to be you and to fulfill that space and so when it comes a time that you need to ask people for the sale. When you need to say hey this is going to cost such and such and I’d really like to work with you on that, that you can going to that with grace and ease they cut that what you’re offering the people is you fulfilling your best destiny and is good for them. Like Jessica said “It’s like selling a jacket to a freezing cold Eskimo”.

So we want to really give you permission and Jessica if you’d talk a little bit more about that, the whole concept of the fact that there is a spiritual, an internal kind of component that comes along with it that is really truly part of selling. It’s that understanding that you’re fulfilling your true identity when you allow people the opportunity to have your product. Can you talk in detail about that a little bit?

Jessica: Absolutely, I remember I was giving a talk to a group of entrepreneurs and a woman came up after me and she kind of leaned in and she said “I always used to think that if it has to do with the money it can’t be spiritual” and so in my business working with so many coaches and especially women I know you guys work with women a lot in your Thrive Academy and there’s so much of that is this not spiritual. If I really want to help people then it shouldn’t involve money and if I’m a spiritual person then it shouldn’t involve money and so I love to reframe that and like you just said like we are here for a purpose and if you believe in your product or service and you’re very clear on why and how it solves their problem which I think if the pull this even back for farther understanding your target market and being really clear on what your problems are and coming up with a solution that they automatically recognize that’s another piece that has to be in play here and if those pieces are in place then you can feel really good about the fact that you are helping people by providing a service that they need and sometimes people will say to me ‘well I don’t really need a lot of money’ and I’m like okay great. You don’t need a lot of money but you know what? All those people that you want to help and the nonprofit that you want to create and the charities that you want to donate to they need a lot of money and so under a disguise of like I want to be really spiritual and I just want to help people and I don’t want to focus on money because I don’t need that much money great but not everyone is motivated by money, not everyone feels they need a lot of money or they feel the need or desire a lot of material things.
So from that standpoint they’re thinking well I don’t need a lot of money to be happy, great but the people that they want to help they do need money and so the thing is if we come at it from the idea that you know if I generate lots of money I will actually be able to help more people and I love giving the example of the church my husband and I go to. I help them locate the space that they’re in and so I know exactly how much the rent is because I was there for the signing of the lease and everything and it’s about $1200 a month. It’s a really small place but I know that sometimes the Pastor has to pay that by himself like literally out of his pocket. And so if you think about wanting to be spiritual and actually invest in things that have a spiritual resonance for you it’s definitely something that is a noble pursuit to actually go out in the world, provide a great service or product that helps a lot of people and collect your payment for that and then in turn you can do more of the things that matter to you. You can actually end up helping more people, right so I think that is a huge mindset shift is recognizing that being broke isn’t going to help you help more people.

It’s gonna be harder for you to help more people when you are in a lack mentality, when you’re wondering how to pay your bills especially if you provide a service like any type of coaching or anything in the healing type of field. If you’re coming from a place  of wondering how you’re gonna pay your bill or whatnot it’s gonna be really hard to be of service, like talk about in the personal services type of; any one to one service doesn’t matter what it is. You’ve got to be financially fulfilled and spiritually fulfilled to be able to then go and help other people. So I think that’s the biggest thing with people that are in businesses where they started the business because they want to help people. Love that I’m the same person. Both my businesses help other people and so we have to recognize that by your being broke aren’t helping anyone.

Steve: Absolutely, I mean to put on my 3rd generation Minister hat you know it says it at the beginning of everyone of the show so it’s not like I’m hiding it from anybody. The feeding of the 5, 000 regardless of where you’re coming from in your own particular religious viewpoint in the Bible it talks about the feeding of the 5000, there’s an interesting line in there that doesn’t get talked about very much. The disciples come to Jesus and they say “All of these people, it’s getting late they need to eat” and Jesus looks at them and says ‘Well feed them’ and they’re like “but master that would cost at a year’s wages” they don’t say we don’t have the money, we can’t afford that, we don’t have any food they just simply are saying to Jesus this is how much it would cost just out of the budget and Jesus says “well go do it then”. We tend to from the spiritual standpoint feel like it makes us better people if we are giving and are broke for doing it, if you can really tell if a pastor is a good pastor because his kids are wearing hand-me-downs kind of a mentality you know.

Jessica: There is so much of that judgment that goes on especially in the church like oh well he shouldn’t be driving that car or they shouldn’t have this or that and it’s like really? They’re not allowed to thrive financially?

Steve: Yea, I mean really those should be the people that should be the thriving example of thriving lifestyle is the man or woman, the family that has dedicated their lives, to the advancement of other people’s lives. Let’s face it nobody wants to go to a Doctor that’s the broke guy, nobody wants their Doctor to be the guy that just barely graduated medical school. You want to have your surgeon be the top in his class from Cornell or Harvard or someplace like that.

 

Jessica: Well it’s a wounded healer thing right, it’s like the wounded healer. If you’re out; I’ve seen this a lot in coaches it’s like you want to help people with success and you’ve got to make sure that you’ve got your foundation set up and I started that way was really struggling; fortunately I already had another business so I had something successful going on but a lot of times when you’re starting out with a business like that you got to get your own financial ducks in a row first so that you actually have a well that you can draw from about well that you can draw from and you’re not just showing up empty.

Dave: Yeah, absolutely, it’s very important that you get your thoughts on money right, that you give yourself permission to share what you have with others and to really frame it in your mind I’m sharing what I’ve got with other people who are in need. Find a need and meet it. I mean that’s ultimately what we do as entrepreneurs you find a need and you find a way to meet that need and then charge what you’re worth. I’ve said it before, I’m gonna say it again until you guys get sick of hearing it and then I’m gonna probably say it again; that’s what my kids will tell you, is the true definition of humility is not somebody that’s self evasive, that’s self- loathing, true humility is a person who has a right perspective themselves and I’m here to tell you, you are awesome. You need to own that, own the fact. You need to look yourself in the mirror, you need to stand up there in the commercial break and you need to should at the top of your voice ‘I am awesome’ let the world know it and then give the world an opportunity to share in your sharing of your awesomeness. Now we do need to go to another break here I wish we didn’t but we’ll be back in just a couple of minutes.

We’ve had some really great things that have come up today. I wish we could go on for about 4 or 5 hours I always say this but we are getting close to the end. Jessica before we do anything else I know there’s some people who you’ve sparked some things in them and would like an opportunity to have a further discussion with you and maybe work with you so let me give you an opportunity to sell. Tell us how people could work with you.

 

Jessica: Great, thanks Steve so I’ll give you 2 options; love to give options. So number 1 is to go to my website which is jessicariverson.com and right on the top of the page if you look closely there’s a space for you to put your name and email and when you put your name and email there you will receive my permission to charge quiz and this quiz will give you a snapshot of where you’re at in your business in regards to owning your worth, in regards to packaging and pricing your expertise and then in regards to your sales consultation or your enrollment process. So that would be a great quiz for you to take and give yourself a snapshot on where you need to focus and then when you get that you also get another training call which is which is 3 secrets for even smart entrepreneurs to own their worth, packaged their expertise and learn to sell with soul. And that’s going to give you some more specific tips on how to create premium programs and convert more consultations so please get those two free gifts and if you really want to talk to me you can go to permissiontocharge.com and then fill out your name and email and then you’ll get a longer form to give me some more information about you and then we’ll get on the phone from there. So 2 ways to interact with me.

 

Dave: jessicariverson.com and to permissiontocharge.com I hope a bunch of you will check that out. I think there’s some really great things that Jessica can share into your life. I think now is the time we want to leave you with some really good tips on how to be able to start right now into embracing selling and boost your sales and I’m gonna actually Joe gave us a really great tip and I want to repeat it ‘practice, drill, rehearse’. It’s amazing how much impact saying something out loud even if it’s in a mirror but even better yet to your spouse or a friend or something just doing the pitch. Doing it over and over and over again  until you can really say it comfortably how empowering that can be in the emotional element that you have in ‘well, what if I say something dumb feeling’, you know . So Jessica what about what’s a couple of tips that we can leave the folks with that they could do even this week to even embrace their selling and boosted their sales?

Jessica: Okay’s great yeah I do want to emphasize your point as one of the things that did help me the most is being coached and reading books and practicing so I don’t think you can master sales in a vacuum right so you actually have to read the book, take the training. One of the things I do with my clients is I talk to them before and after their consultation so it’s like I said this, they said this, okay here is what you need to do differently next time so always investing in yourself in working with someone like Steve or myself is really important but so I would say that’s like number 1 thing that you can do is get that training so thanks to Joe for bringing that up.

But another important tip that I always like to share is get out of ego. So one of the things which I know my clients are always afraid of is they don’t want to be inauthentic that’s one of their biggest fear is that ‘oh my gosh I’m just selling and people think I only want money and they have all that fear running so the best thing you can do is check that at the door and recognize that if you’re thinking that, if you’re feeling fear you’re definitely not being authentic, you’re in ego, your ego is talking, your ego is leading the way and that’s the very thing that you don’t want to be so actually your fear is a really great trigger for you or cue; that’s a better word it’s a cue for you to know like oh I’m feeling fear and anxiety that means I’m in ego  so let me say thank ego but no thanks I don’t need you right now. I actually want to be present, listen to my client and by listening I will be able to present a solution that will work for them such as a warm jacket helping someone who is really freezing cold right. It’s that simple you’re helping them and so it’s using the fear as a clue or a cue for you to know that you are in your ego space right now and people can smell that a mile away.

If you’re thinking oh my gosh I need to make this next sale, they’re going to pick up on that energy and so it’s pretty great that the fear that the fear is letting you know that you’re not being authentic. Can I share another tip, that’s my first one?

 

Dave: Oh yeah absolutely, let me just say one thing real quick you said that fear is something that pops up you really need to understand that that ego is something that you want to overcome and you want to be thankful that you had that chance to be fearful so that you can then step out and step into a new and better place in your life where you’re more empowered. Please yeah give us another tip.

Jessica: Okay so another one of my favorite things is you probably hear this too Steve is like one of people’s biggest hurdles is like when a client says well I can’t afford it and you know as you develop your sales skills you can overcome this the majority of the time but you know sometimes people have certain circumstances that you’re dealing with. However, my favorite question to ask is when someone says I can’t afford it I say ‘How can you afford it?’ And I’ll give you a great example I was talking to a woman who was interested in my money breakthrough home study program; it was a group program that I did about 2 years ago and we just spent like 25 minutes on how her money relationship was affecting her life and what it was costing her to not solve this problem and we discovered that it was costing her probably half $1,000,000 across her lifetime because if you have a relationship with money that’s not working for you and you’re not charging your worth and you multiply that by you’ve been in the workforce for 20 or 30 years now you’re gonna probably come up with half $1,000,000 and so we just discovered that this was a very expensive problem and then the course was super affordable but it came down to I don’t have the money, I can’t afford it and I just said well how can you afford it? And then I was quiet. I didn’t say anything you know it could feel like an awkward silence but that’s great cause that means that your client is thinking about it and after a moment she came back and said well I do get paid on the 25th, I could pay you know a part of it then and then a week later I could pay the rest and I’m like perfect; let’s get you registered.
So just asking that question is very empowering to your client because if you accept the ‘I can’t afford it’ question then you’re buying their story and you’re agreeing with them that you’re right. You know what you can’t afford it, you don’t have the resources, you’re probably not smart enough to figure out how to get the resources so okay it’s usually a conversation stopper. Someone says they can’t afford it a lot of entrepreneurs are gonna go okay well let me know when you can and the thing is in my experience they often won’t back months later and go I have the money now especially because I’m helping people with money, right. It’s the whole reason why they need to figure out how to get the money and get going is because I’m gonna help them with that and so if you just asked that question you are empowering them. You’re empowering them to become a causing agent in their life someone  who actually has the internal resources to figure it out and then when they do figure out how to come up the money to invest in their business or themselves they feel really good and it actually gets their money mojo going cause they just figured out how to come up with the money from the program or what you’re doing with the investment and from there that give them more confidence and if they can do that surely they can build their business and become more profitable in their business.

They can figure out how to come up with the money for a coach or some kind of program that just gets them on that role of confidence. So it’s a really good question to ask to empower someone like don’t buy their story, you’re just buying into the story they’ve been running the whole time which hasn’t empowered them at all; that’s why they’re on the phone with you probably. They probably wouldn’t be on the phone with you if they had all the money in the world and we’re just totally rocking their life in every area.

Dave: It’s so important as my final tip to listen both listening to that ego talking to you but more importantly to listen to your potential customer. There’s an old saying ‘God gave us two ears and one mouth so that we’d listen twice as much as we talk and often one of our negative experiences we’ve had with salespeople is that they won’t shut up. It’s really the truth of it. It’ll even frustrate my wife because I will just let a person go on and on and on and on and talk she’s like why didn’t you just interject in there? And I’m like well because they told me everything that I need to know in order to be able to sell it to them.

So you know we’ve ran out of time. I’d love to just do a whole another shoe here now on how to overcome objections because that is so much fun I’d be glad to work with any of you one-on-one if you had an objection that keeps coming up. In fact I challenge you to contact me Steve at We help you Thrive and see if you can come up with an objection that I can’t help you come up with a response for’ that would actually be fun for me and do contact Jessica, jessicariverson.com please, please know that you are uniquely brilliant, created for a purpose that the world needs you.

 

Jessica, thank you so much for spending the time with us today and thank you for pouring yourself into the lives of our listeners today to help them be a thriving entrepreneur. I hope everybody have a great day.

 

Jessica: Bye Steve