TRANSCRIPT: 

00:04

Hello, welcome to the sales show. I'm Maree Kirkpatrick, your sales and business strategist. I'm a mom, a wife, and a multi-business owner myself. With over 15 years of experience in sales and business, I have worked with startups all the way through to multimillion-dollar companies. I've seen the good, the bad, and the ugly. I love helping service-based businesses make an income as well as an impact. Let's jump into talking about all things sales and business. 

00:34

Hello, and welcome back to the sales Show. I'm your host, Maree Kirkpatrick. And today, I want to go through three signs that your sales systems need attention, I speak to a lot of business owners, especially women in business that will say okay, I think my messaging is a little bit off, or I'm not 100% sure on how I need to be doing my social media content, or my email marketing, or how to react with my ideal clients. And when we actually dig into their business, what we notice is they've got people coming into their business. 

01:06

So for example, they might have quite a large database, or they may have quite a big following on social media. And when I say quite a big following, it doesn't need to be like Kylie Jenner type followings, right? I'm talking about a big following for your business. So maybe it's like 1000 people, 4000 people, 10,000 people, whatever that looks like for your business. And there's no judgment either way, I've seen people with large followings with great sales. And I've seen people with large followings and very low sales. And the difference, I believe, is having that sales system and that high converting process behind you that looks at what do I need to do to get these people as my followers and as engaging in my content into paying clients. So today, I want to go through what are those couple of signs that happen that make you go, I need to look at what my sales system is doing and what I can do better for it. So the first thing, as I mentioned, is people are saying that they love your content, your offers the way that you do things. Maybe they've watched you on webinars, maybe they've seen you do some lives, maybe they have seen you present in other workshops and things like that, and you will get emails and messages saying, 

02:14

Wow, that was awesome, or that was brilliant, or I love how you spoke about a, b, and c and you go Yeah, awesome, fantastic. And you walk away feeling really good about yourself. But what tends to happen is or what can happen, I should say is that those comments and that engagement doesn't necessarily equal sales into your business, it doesn't represent the cash flow that you're looking for into your business. And so we want to make sure that if people are talking to you about how much they love your offers, your programs, your memberships, your values and beliefs around a certain topic. And the fact that you're an expert in whatever your industry is, we want to make sure that we have a process that converts them, and part of that process is going to be your sales system. So that would be the first sign if you feel like you're getting people engaging with you, but they're not converting, we need to look at your sales system. The second thing is you have followers on your social media. And those followers or those likes and comments and engagement isn't resulting in sales, or even the amount of people on your social media is different to the amount of people on your database.

03:23

 Now, I'm not saying that if you have 4000 followers that you need to have exactly 4000 people on your database. But if you have 4000 people on your social media, and 100 people on your email list or your database, then we need to look at what is going on there that we're not converting those people because and I know I've said this before in other ranty podcasts that your social media is not your asset, it is a part of a marketing tool, but you do not own it. If Zuckerberg or anyone else out in the big tech world decides that they want to close down Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, whatever it is. And that is the only thing that your business has been built on, you no longer own that data. So you don't have those followers and connections that maybe you have been building. So what we want to do is we want to bring them over to an asset that we own, such as our website, our database, our email list, it's not even like this is the thing, right? It's not even a matter of whether Zuckerberg or his mates decide to close things down. I've also heard about people's accounts being hacked on social media, and they've lost years' worth of social media content, building up pages, building up profiles, and all of that and the damage that it can cause to a business to lose.

04:41

 That is huge. The stress of it, you know, just the unknown of what's happening and all of that we want to make sure that you are building assets that you own so that if something ever happens to your social media, yes, it's gonna suck and it's not going to be ideal. However, we're not just building your users on social media are actually building it into an asset that you own. So if you find that you have a whole heap of followers or engagements on your social media, even if it's LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, all of them, we want to make sure that we have a conversion process or a sales system that turns those people from followers into our database as potential leads somewhere where we can nurture them, give them some great information, add value to them, and then potentially look at how can we get them into becoming a paying client where we can work with them and help them move forward. 

05:32

And the third thing is if you have an email list that you have, you know, even if we look at that email list of 4000 people, or 10,000 people, or even 1000 people, and I said to you how many people on your email list have purchased from you, I tend to get two answers. The first answer is, ah, good question. I'm not really sure about that. So they're not even sure what their conversion rates are on their email list, or what their open rates are, and all that sort of stuff. Or they'll say to me, oh, yeah, and this is literally what someone said to me a little while ago, I said, How many people have actually bought from your database? And she was like, Oh, bugger all. And I was like, what it was like, Yeah, hardly any. And I was like, so you're probably spending heaps of time and energy, creating your emails, putting together value, putting together opt-ins, creating documents for people to help them understand the value that you offer. And from that database, not many people are buying and she was like, Yeah, and I was like, Ah, man, that's hard. That is hard work. That is like pushing a boulder up a hill because what you were doing is not converting.

06:40

And in business, our goal is to create really beautiful relationships, and really great cash flow that supports us to keep doing what it is that we want to be doing. So we want to make sure that your database is high converting, we want to make sure that you have great sales assets that convert people into paying clients. It's not just about having a great big number on your email list. It's about having those people on your email list as well as being paid clients. And moving forward. If you feel like you have some challenges with your sales systems or some of these things have made you go holy cow, Marie, and that's me being politically correct. Holy cow, Marie, some of these things are so true for me like you're literally looking inside my window. It's okay. It is absolutely okay, right, because now that you know what we've spoken about. And you can identify these things, it means that you can pinpoint exactly what you need to do differently to make sure you are high converting. So we need to look at your sales system, we need to look at the activities that you're doing and optimizing for high converting, we need to look at your messaging and make sure that the people that are coming into your business and connecting with you are the right people for you. And when I say the right people, for you, not everyone is going to be your ideal client. And I remember when I first started in business, I used to say to people, I can help everyone sales is relevant for every single business, whether or not for profit, whether you sell products, whether you sell services, every single person needs to be able to sell, which was great, right? However, what I found was I didn't want to work with everyone. I didn't want to go into every single person's business and be like, Yes, this is exactly what you need to do. 

08:22

Because some of them I knew I wasn't passionate about we weren't value aligned. We had different beliefs. Like even for example, I've seen people that are so focused on making the money in their business, that they forget that the people are dealing with humans, and they've lost that sense of connection and relationship focus. They're not my people, I want to find people that I ended up becoming mates with and I love watching their businesses grow. And I see their business as something that I want out in the world to create better experiences to create a better world for not just me, but for my kids, grandkids and all the people that will go after me right? And so I want you to be attracting those ideal clients that you love working with the ones that you say I would love another 100 of them or 1000 of them and then from that how do we find those people, bring them into our community, bring them into our world, whether that's on social media, but ideally into our database and then from our database, how do we get them to become paying clients and create that professional relationship moving forward with them? 

09:30

The other thing that I find when it comes to sales and conversion is that a lot of people are amazing at what they do and especially women I see them as absolutely powerhouses once they get people through their doors. And when I say through their doors, that doesn't mean through their doors on like the social media or like the database aspect. I mean, behind the doors like they're in their business, their purchase from them, they get to experience how their business really works and And when I see these amazing women, and they say to me all Marie, I'm really struggling with sales, or I can't get this event off the ground, or my membership numbers aren't where they want to be, or I've just had another launch that isn't anywhere near where I need it to be. I feel sad for them, I say, ah, do you know what I know that if you learn to sell what it is that you do if you learn to understand how you can show the value to your ideal clients, and how you can really help them move forward, then I know that it would make such a huge impact not just on their business, but on the clients that they're choosing to work with.

10:35

 And so for you if you find that, yes, I know that I'm really freaking good at what I do. But I'm just struggling to get people through the door that I highly suggest that you look at your sales systems and your conversion, we do have an amazing event coming up kicking off on the 11th of March, that is a four day sales sprint, it is an a free event where I will be taking you through over the four days, we will look at messaging for your ideal clients, we will look at content that converts. So what are you doing on your social media that is talking about your products, your services, your expertise? And how do we get that high converting for you will then on day three, look at your pricing for profitability? Now pricing isn't one of those things that you just kind of guess and go yep, 

11:18

I think it should be about this, or I'd like to be charging this much money. Or I've seen other people in my industry have a nine at the end of their pricing or seven at the end of their pricing or a five at the end of their pricing. And they're like, well, that's obviously what I need to do. No, we want to have profitable pricing specifically for your business specifically for your offers and your memberships or whatever it else is that you are selling. So day three, we will go through some different pricing strategies and what potentially would work within your business and the best way to execute that for your clients. And then Day Four is one of my favorite topics. 

11:51

We will go through smart sales strategies and how you can implement a beautiful sales strategy into your business so that your marketing is aligned so that your sales are aligned and so that the people that you are drawing into your business are aligned with your business are your ideal clients and are the people that you want to work with. So that is all from me today. I hope you've enjoyed today's episode until the next episode of the sales show. I will see you soon have an amazing day and sell from a connected and relationship-focused space. 

12:23

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the sales show. Please share it on social media for your friends to see and make sure you tag me at Maree Kirkpatrick, so I can personally say if you would like to show me some love, leave me a review on Apple podcast. I'd love to hear from you email me at [email protected]. And if you'd like to work with me further or see any of the free resources mentioned on today's show, they can be found at MareeKirkpatrick.com I truly hope this podcast provides useful information and so much value to you. So you can build a business with impact and Income