Podcast Episode

Transcript:  

Hello and welcome to the sales Show. I'm Maree Kirkpatrick, your sales and business strategist. I'm a mum, a wife, and a multi-business owner myself. With over 15 years experience in sales and business, I have worked with startups all the way through to multimillion dollar. I have 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. Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the Sales Show. My name's Maree Kirkpatrick, and I'm so glad that you're joining me. 

A little bit about myself, I have been in sales for over 17 years, and I have worked with startups all the way through to multimillion dollar companies. I have been in corporate myself, where I have rolled out launch plans, sales, targets and projects and strategies and things like that as well. So, being in many different industries has given me a really wide knowledge on sales overall.

Looking at the foundations, looking at different strategies that work, looking at different techniques and what people can implement to really get the results that they're wanting.  Now a little bit  of a backstory I learned to sell many, many years ago when I first started out in the fitness industry.

And the way that, we were recruited for the job was you had to go to what they called a sales bootcamp. They taught you a whole heap of skills and then, towards the end of it, you needed to be able to prove or show that you have learnt and you can articulate those skills effectively and efficient.

And when we were taught to sell, it was very much, do whatever it takes to get that sale. And anyone that came through the door was a ideal client and we wanted to work with them. Now, as I have grown and become a lot more self-aware of myself, I'm really clear on what makes me feel good and what makes me feel drained. 

So being in sales, it can be a really, really rewarding career and a rewarding role. Or it can be really demotivating and really freaking hard. And so one of the companies that I worked for, they were very big on training. We trained every single month. Someone externally would come in. You had all the tools, the scripts, the training.

Tracking all of it. Everything that you needed to succeed in sales was there. I was like, yes, great. This is fantastic. I am excellent at sales. Then I got headhunted by another company that didn't have all the same tools and techniques and frameworks and things like that that I was used to.

I had to go back to the basics of my skillset. Like what did I learn? What worked, what didn't work? What can I tweak? What can I change up? What other new techniques can I use to, not just helping my sales career, but also helping the companies that I ended up working for. So I went into corporate for a fair few years, and I worked for some big well-known brands, and you would think that those well-known brands had a lot of their stuff together, right?

Like you would think that they had their sales sorted and that they would be training and all that sort of stuff. When actually the companies that I worked for didn't, they assumed that you had the sales skills, so you were to hit the ground running, and that's the way that it worked. But what I found was, the skills that I had learnt were so specific to the industry that I had learnt them in that it was really hard to kind of swap them over.

I had to go back and do a whole heap of retraining and sitting down and getting really clear on what I enjoyed about sales, the way I enjoyed doing sales, and it came back to really being focused on people and building those relationships.

Now, the way that I actually got into business was I fell pregnant with my first son, and I remember the day that I found out.

I didn't want be that person that needs to go in and ask for permission to go to sports carnivals or swimming carnivals or tuck shop, or concerts or whatever else was going on. I was just so clear that that's not what I wanted. I wanted to be a really present mum, but I also loved a career, and I love that drive and excitement to succeed at certain things.

I'd been procrastinating for years about starting a business, and so I thought, all right. This is the time. I went on maternity leave, with my son and my goal was to build the business and hopefully have the business up and running and paying me enough money that I didn't have to go on maternity leave.

Let's be honest, I know that this is a story that a lot of women go through. However, my story was a little bit different because I had a whole heap of fear around losing money. I didn't want to invest money into a business and then lose it, so I had to kind of get a little bit creative. So I built my first business while I was on maternity leave, it was a e-commerce online store that sold vitamins and supplements for women. My goal was obviously to get sales through the door, and I knew how to sell face-to-face. So it was more about how do I take those skills from Service-based, face-to-face sales into online, what does that look like?

How do I get the message across and things like that. So I  tweaked and changed things and  learnt,  a whole heap of skills along the way as, my business grew. Then one day I was chatting to one of my old vitamins and supplements companies, and he was telling me about,  that he had a trainer come in and train his team on sales, and it cost him over $7,000 and it just didn't hit the mark.

I sat there and I was shocked. I thought... He should have got me to do it. Then I walked out the door and thought, wow,  that would be something I would be really excited to give a go, training people on how to sell from a really beautiful, connected, helping relationship focused space rather than the pain point type stuff.

It took me a couple of days and I thought, that's it. I'm going to call him back. He answered! One of the first things he said to me was "Hey Maree, I've been thinking about you. I want know if you want to come in and train my team and do some sales training with us. YES! I would love to do that.

And that is how my consulting business started. Once I did that first training, look, don't get me wrong, I lost a lot of sleepover in the two weeks between the time that we agreed to do it and me actually getting up and training his team. All the self-doubt came in, right?

The thoughts going through my head were am I right for this? Am I good enough for this? Will they like me? Is it gonna be engaging? Will they learn anything? All that sort of stuff kicked in for me. Long story short the training happened. They loved it. They got a lot out of it. I loved it! Training is something I really, really enjoy.

How do I do this as a career, how do I get more clients and how do I actually start this as a business, as well as the e-commerce business on the side? Going back to my core was in business, you need to make sales. I didn't have a logo, I didn't have a website, I didn't have a Facebook page. I didn't have any of that.

My goal was how do I connect with and find clients? It always came back to developing those relationships, reaching out, finding the connection, the rapport. What are the problems and challenges that a people are having? Then how do I go on to solve that problem that they're having, and how do I get paid to do that?

That is what the past nearly 10 years has been about. It's been so rewarding to see some of the first businesses that I worked with still growing and succeeding and using what we have implemented, what I've taught them over the years, still using those tools and techniques 5, 6, 7 years later.

They've doubled, tripled, quadrupled their income. It is so satisfying because you see a business that is under $100,00 when you first start working with them. to then as they start to implement the sales processes and strategies that I teach them, then they are generating a really great income and having a really big impact on the clients. 

My overall my purpose for this podcast is to be able to share some of those tips, advice, and lessons that I've learned over the past 10 years in business and the things that I use,  to help my clients grow their businesses.

It also reinforces why I've developed a sales implementation program because it got to a stage where I wanted to help more people, and I needed to be able put it all together so that every business that came through could use the information and frameworks. It was just about them implementing it and tailoring. Specifically for their company. I want to be able to show you how you can make more impact and income in your business, and this podcast is a beautiful way for me to connect with you and to connect with more people to help them succeed and to grow their business.

I am absolutely looking forward to sharing more about sales and business throughout this podcast journey and on the sales show. If you've got any questions or you'd love to reach out, please contact me, [email protected]. 

Please share it on social media for your friends to see and make sure you tag me @ MareeKirkpatrick so I can personally say thank you. If you would like to show me some love, leave me a review on Apple Podcast.

If you would like to work with me further or see any of the free resources mentioned on today's show, they can be found at www.mareekirkpatrick.com. I truly hope this podcast provides useful information and so much value to you so that you can build a business with impact and income.