Ep 114 Million Dollar Sales Tools

“It’s as honorable to sell as it is to buy.” – Dr Darnyelle Jervey Harmon

Episode Summary

This episode is powered by the  Move To Millions Live  

If you want to make millions, you’re going to have to sell millions.  To sell more, you need to understand the sales process and which sales tools are designed to allow you to show up authentically in the sales process. If you have been creating distractions in the sales process because it doesn’t feel natural to sell your products and services, you’re going to love this episode!  Not only do I share the phases of a sales conversation that will make you millions, but I also walk you through my Sales Success Formula.  Grab your pen and paper and listen in to discover:

  • The 7 phases of a sales conversation
  • The 5 most common million-dollar sales tools
  • Three things to consider before you start selling

Important Links:

Powerful Quotes from the Episode

  • “As the CEO, your job is to teach your team a powerful sales framework to increase your sales”
  • “Seek first to understand; the sale is secondary.”
  • “Sales success demands a posture change.”

Want more of Darnyelle?

Social Media Links:

Subscribe to the Incredible Factor Business Podcast:

Listen on iTunes

Listen on Google Play

Listen on Stitcher

Listen on iHeartRadio

Listen on Pandora

Leave us a review

Are you subscribed to my podcast? If you’re not, I want to encourage you to do that today. I don’t want you to miss an episode. I’m adding a bunch of bonus episodes to the mix and if you’re not subscribed there’s a good chance you’ll miss out on those.

Now if you’re feeling extra loving, I would be really grateful if you left me a review over on iTunes, too. Those reviews help other people find my podcast and they’re also fun for me to go in and read. Just click here to review, select “Ratings and Reviews” and “Write a Review” and let me know what your favorite part of the podcast is. Thank you!

 

Million Dollar Sales Tools

This episode is powered by Move to Millions Live. If you are a millions-minded entrepreneur, you need to stop playing and go grab your tickets so that you can learn to make, move and leave millions. Go to MovetoMillionsEvent.com. In this episode, I want to talk to you about what is often the elephant in the room for entrepreneurs. It’s funny that as entrepreneurs, we want to start businesses to make more money, but often we’re afraid to sell.

Can somebody please tell me where that will serve you and give you the energy you need to get your business to the million-dollar mark? Yeah, I thought so. In this episode, I want to talk to you about one of my favorite topics ever. I want to also help you to understand how I got to the point where I could fall in love with sales because, probably, just like you, I was afraid at one point in time to share why people should buy my products and services.

If you’re taking notes right now, I want you to write this down right off the bat. Making a sale or letting people know that you can solve their problem is your responsibility if you have the solution that they have been unsuccessful at finding on their own. You’re being selfish if you don’t take the time to let people know that you can help them. Yes, if you were wondering, you should be paid and paid well, if I might add, when you do so.

Let me back this train up a little bit because I’m starting this conversation with you like we’ve just been sitting here for hours talking about sales and not just any sales, but a sales infrastructure that will make you millions. Here’s what I know. Selling at sales is one of the hottest topics for entrepreneurs. It’s a hot topic because nobody’s business is going anywhere if we don’t figure out how to get people to take advantage of the offers that we make them and give us cold, hard cash. It’s something else I want you to write down in case you’re taking notes.

As an entrepreneur, you solve problems for profits. It means that you’re supposed to be paid every time you solve someone’s problem. I hear all the time when we’re talking to our clients in our programs or even our prospects that are interested in considering our programs, this misnomer around sales and this desire to not be salesy. I’m like, “Where did that come from?” I remember the very first time as an entrepreneur, I went to a conference or a live event and they were talking about the sales process. They put that picture up there of that icky used car sales guy.

The guy that no one ever wants to be so much so that we ruin our ability to make sales because we automatically see ourselves sitting inside that energy. That’s why sales are one of the most misunderstood topics for entrepreneurs as well. Here’s what I need you to know and this is what I’m hoping you gain from spending this time with me in this particular episode, is that every single one of us, you as a salesperson. We have to get comfortable selling.

Being Familiar With Sales Process In The Mary Kay Business

I became familiar with the sales process during my Mary Kay cosmetics days. Now prior to operating my Mary Kay cosmetics business, I was in Corporate America. I was initially a customer service representative and I had to do my fair share of upsells to get people to do a balance transfer. I remember as I continued to progress in my career and moved to credit acquisition, I wasn’t really selling so much as I was trying to get the information to get them to get the best credit card I could possibly offer them.

Once I moved into management, my need to sell diminished greatly. When I went into Mary Kay selling lipstick, skincare, cosmetics and all of that good stuff, I was reminded by Mary Kay Ash of one of my favorite quotes from her, “Nothing happens until somebody sells something.” It’s because you don’t even have a business and there’s no way we’re going to get your business to the million-dollar mark if you are not equipped with the skill to sell.

Entrepreneurs solve problems for profits.

Did you catch what I said? That means that you, an incredible one, can learn how to position yourself in a way that the next natural progression is for them to make an enrollment decision and decide to hire you to solve their problem. I think it’s important to note that a lot of people believe that sales are service and I don’t disagree with that. I do think that there is an element of sale of service associated with sales, but I do want to be clear that I don’t want people to mistake service and think that when they’re serving, there doesn’t need to be money supplied to them at the end of it

This is often one of the places where I see a lot of people get tripped up. This episode is for you. If you are tired of feeling inauthentic when it’s time for you to sell. If you’re one of those people who has to create a diversion in order to now “switch.” The part of the conversation where you’re going to ask people to give you their money, this is for you.

If you’ve been struggling to figure out how to remain confident throughout the entire interaction, we’re going to get into that too. If you want to figure out the best way to show up fully and operate in an energy of service where people reward you financially for your ability to be able to solve their problems, I’m excited for you because the million-dollar sales start to happen when you realize that you deserve to earn at the million-dollar level.

Several years ago, I created a framework that I still use when it comes to sales. That’s what I call the ROCK the Sales Success Formula. I’m going to break that down for you in this episode because it has served me and my clients extremely well over the years. I like being able to take the framework around sales, especially because so many people struggle with it and break it down into bite-size pieces.

ROCK

ROCK is the acronym that we’re going to utilize inside of breaking down this framework to help you understand what you need to do to have success without ever feeling salesy. The R stands for Realize that it is as honorable to sell as it is to buy. Life is a transaction and every single day, all day, we are selling. If you have a spouse or significant other and want to go to this restaurant for dinner and you end up at the restaurant you wanted to go to, guess what happened? You sold them into why they should go to the restaurant that you chose.

It says, “Honorable to sell as it is to buy.” You cannot have a sale without someone wanting to invest in themselves through it. Once you realize that, it should give you a level of confidence and comfort that the only way that this happens is if the two parties have agreed that there’s a problem to be solved and a solution to be gained. The only way to access that solution is through making a purchase or making an investment.

Let me sidebar there for a second and talk about the difference between using the words purchase and investment. If you focus on getting people to purchase, then they may not see the value. If you talk about investing, they will actually understand the ROI or Return on Investment. The word investment also helps them to avoid the COI, the Cost of Inaction. You open up an entirely different paradigm to help them to understand that you’ve got the solution to their problem. When you first realize that as honorable to sell as it is to buy, you make it your business to give them access to something worth investing in.

The O in the system stands for Outline the cost of their problem. I want you to write down this. As an entrepreneur, you solve problems for profit. If there is no problem to be solved, no profit will be earned. If there is no problem to be solved, there is no sale to be made. It’s going to be important for you to take the time in your sales conversation to actually help them to discover the cost of their problem. Everything costs us something and it’s not always just the cost of inaction. It could be the cost of doing it wrong. It could be the cost of not having the right solution.

There are many costs associated with taking the step that doesn’t lead them to the outcome or result they want. That gives them an opportunity when they see you showing up and consistently talking about their problem to make a different decision and enroll to get access to that solution. The C stands for Create your sales management system. Systems make success predictable. As with anything, your ability to sell and to sell consistently is going to be tied to how you manage the sales process.

The K stands for Kicking your competition to the curb by rising above the noise and standing out. Marketing and sales go hand in hand. We talked in an episode about your message and how to have a message that will make you millions. In this particular episode, as we break down the sales process and you realize that it is as honorable to sell as it is to buy, everything begins to change.

One of the big reasons that I have seen over the past years in working with entrepreneurs and small business owners, specifically around sales in the sales process, is that they’re often allowing fear to run their sales department. It’s because it’s possible that the reason why you’re struggling to sell is because fear is running your sales department. If you’ve ever said, “I don’t want to pick up the phone because I don’t want to be rejected or I don’t want to feel like I’m bothering people.” That means fear is the sales manager and that’s a real problem.

The imposter syndrome, which most people realize and ascribe to, is whether or not you feel worthy enough to invite a prospect and get the transformation they have been asking for through investing in yourself in your solution. I want you to even notice the words that I’m using as we talk about sales because whenever you’re sitting in that energy of you are bothering people, you’re denying your ability to sit in the energy that you could be transforming those very same people.

What would happen if you had the cure for any disease or if you could cure an athlete’s foot? If you had the cure to cancer, would you sit on it? Would you keep it to yourself? Absolutely not. You’d be out in the world letting everyone know that you did it. You did something that the American Cancer Society has never been able to do. You’ve done something that the pharmaceutical industry has not been able to do. You found the cure.

If you look up the word cancer in the dictionary, the definition says the word disease. If you separate the word dis from ease, anytime something is not easy and not moving with the flow and with grace, it is a form of cancer, in its simplest form. I’m not trying to be disrespectful to anyone in your family who may have been plagued by this disease and either survived or lost their journey through it, their battle with it.

At the end of the day, the word itself means disease. I think that we could go so far as to say every single one of us solves a form of disease. If you solve a form of disease, why would you want to keep it to yourself? I believe that your ability to be successful in sales is going to demand a posture change. That means that you’re going to have to give yourself permission to authentically share how you can help others get results. The way this happens is by thinking like a million-dollar CEO and not just an entrepreneur.

When you sit in the energy of how a CEO would be conducting their business, it is very hard to allow yourself to stay placated in that energy of entrepreneurship, which is often wishy-washy or built on moments of hustle and grind. You’ve heard me share on numerous occasions. It’s not necessary for you to hustle or grind to enroll enough people into your programs to hit the milestone you have for yourself.

Sales management is about ensuring that every part of the process happens consistently without gaps.

When it comes to really breaking this down, it’s going to be important for you to take the time to outline the cost of their problem. That’s the second step in this formula. You have to seek first to understand. I believe that the sale is secondary. If you’re leading with sales energy, it might be the reason why you feel like a used car salesperson. The key to discovering the cost of the problem is to make it tangible for them. If you can make it tangible for them, then you can offer them a solution to solve the tangibility of that problem.

When you understand the tangibility of the problem, it allows you to be unapologetic because you do, after all, have the cure for their disease. Now, oftentimes I feel like people get caught up in the sales energy because they are attached to whether or not the person buys. It’s never will be my recommendation that you perform a sales conversation when you are in a space where there’s something that you need to have to happen. For instance, your mortgage is due. Don’t hold a sales conversation when your mortgage is due and here’s why. That energy that you think you can hide is going to show up all over that sales conversation. You’re going to be operating from the energy of desperation, which will impact your ability to sell.

To Be Successful In Sales: Detach From Outcome

The only way to be successful in sales is to detach from the outcome. When I’m having a conversation with someone who’s been interested in working with me in some capacity, I literally have this sign that detaches from the outcome and I actually say it to them. I say something like, “If, for whatever reason, at whichever point in time throughout this process, you decide that you’re no longer interested in working together, it’s entirely okay with me. I want you to keep in mind that I’m already a millionaire running a multi-million dollar business.”

I really enjoy working with those who are ready to make a decision to go to their next level and that allows me to detach from any outcome. It allows me to not sit in any energy. That means that I have to show up contrary to the authenticity of who I am at any particular point in time. I am personally of the belief that I’m not convincing anyone to let me change their life because I know that if we work together, their life will, in fact, change.

That is the energy and confidence that comes with knowing that you have a million-dollar solution that you can offer into the lives of those you’ve been called to serve. The third step in the system is to make sure that you create your sales management system. Sales management is about ensuring that every part of the process happens consistently so that there are no gaps and we don’t leave any money or follow up on the table.

Your sales management system could be like this. First, you generate a lead and you know every lead is not qualified. Then you go through the process of qualifying or prospecting that lead. Once you’ve qualified that lead, then you present them with an opportunity typically through nurture and convert the sequence to take you up on your sales tool to solve the problem that they have where you will ultimately make them an offer and then you will deliver that offer to them. That’s a sales management system.

We call this the business success formula at Incredible Factor University. It starts with the ideal client and goes all the way through the onboarding process. It is essential to have clarity around it. If you want to make millions of dollars. It’s going to be essential that you know every phase of the system and what needs to occur in order to go to the next system. Wherever possible, you want to use a tool to automate as many functions as you can because the more things you have to do manually, the more likely there is that something is going to fall through the cracks.

I always love to talk about making sure that follow-up is a part of your sales management system as well because it is true. The fortune is in the follow-up. Do you know that only 10% or less of people actually follow up with a prospect more than once, but more than 80% of sales are closed between the 5th and the 12th contact? Did you know that? Now that you know that, how will you look at the sales process differently? How will you make sure that you have a sales management system that takes into consideration your follow-up because that is truly where the fortune is?

I have a few different clients that I love to tell the story of my follow-up game because it is strong. Yours needs to be strong, too, if you want to get your business to the million-dollar mark. When I say yours, I’m talking about your company as a collective. There’s a point in time where you’re the person who is doing all of the steps in the sales process, but there also comes a time when you are hiring a team and your team is fulfilling the sales process.

I have this one client with that we are actually working together again. I had a sales conversation with this client. Her name is Tish Times. She wasn’t ready when we had that conversation. I told her I would follow up with her. I called her the next month, but she didn’t answer. I called her the month after that she answered, but she said she wasn’t ready. I kept calling her, eleven phone calls.

I said a moment ago that 80% of sales are closed between the 5th and the 12th contact. I kept following up, so Tish was eventually able to say yes to herself and enroll in my program and become a six-figure business within 60 days. That would have never happened if I didn’t continue to follow up. I think sometimes we feel salesy around follow-up, but I believe that if you’re not going to follow up, you shouldn’t bother having a sales conversation, period, point-blank. It’s what needs to happen.

Sales Tools

I want to talk a little bit, I’m going to the sidebar again for a moment and I want to talk about the various types of sales tools that exist since we’re talking about the sales management system. I want to talk about what’s going to be required for you to have a million-dollar sales success. Let’s talk sales tools first. There are several. There are probably 5, 6, maybe 7, even sales tools that I highly recommend and talk about all the time with my clients.

Number one, webinars. Believe it or not, you could enroll people who had every price point from a webinar. What’s included in your webinar needs to marry the sales conversation. Just because you’re doing it in a video format, it doesn’t mean you can skip the important phases of the sales conversation. Number two is having traditional sales teams. They do still exist where there are inside sales reps to handle the leads that come into the company and outside sales reps that go out and find opportunities for the company and account executives or closers who actually close the deals.

There are also opened and closed cart launches, which could also be a video series or a challenge. Any of those things that happen periodically, the cart is open for a short time. During that time that the cart is open. You’re trying to get the information about your offer in front of most people so that they can enroll. Another one and one of my favorites are enrollment events and making an offer from the stage. It’s another great way to sell.

What I love about enrollment events and making an offer from the stage is that tons of your ideal clients are in the room and you make your offer from the stage. You watch tons of those very same people go to the back of the room and enroll in your program. It is one of the fastest ways to truly shift the trajectory of your business is through enrolling in a live event or from a speaking engagement on the stage.

We also have proposals and engagement letters, which we kind of reserved specifically for people who work business to business/corporation or business the nonprofit agency. Typically in those cases, you’re going to have a needs discovery meeting first. From that needs discovery meeting, you’re going to write them an engagement letter. You want to avoid a proposal at all costs. If you can, the proposal sits on desks, engagement letters get signed and deposits get made.

A CEO’s job is to provide the team with a clear, conversational framework to keep sales coming.

As much as possible, you want to get people to get to the point where you’re writing them an engagement letter. You also have the DMS. This is a new thing where we can use direct messages without actually having to get on the phone with a person. We can either do voice memos, DMs, or text inside the DMS and enroll people in our programs following the sales conversation, which I think is amazing that we can do that.

I’m blown away by what we’ve been able to do with technology and then also sales pages. You can enroll people just from a page of copy, perhaps with a video, perhaps not. People are reading through everything that you’ve shared and making a decision at the end to enroll in your offer. All of those are the various types of sales tools.

Get To The Million Dollar Mark Fast

Let me tell you my favorite to get you to the million-dollar mark as quickly as possible. Number one, hands down, live enrollment events. You guys all know my story. I crossed the million-dollar mark for the very first time for my live event from making an offer to a roomful of hundreds of people and having enough of those people to enroll that it took me over the million-dollar mark in one fell swoop. That’s my absolute favorite.

Second to that would be enrollment webinars. With enrollment webinars, they can be paired with a video series or a challenge. They can even be paired with referrals or they can stand alone all by themselves. What I love about using webinars is that you can make them evergreen so they don’t require you to have a sales conversation with a person in order to get them to enroll.

My third favorite way to enroll people is in the DMs. If you had asked me two years ago would I send a few text messages, voices or words to people and have them pay me $30,000, I would have been like, “There’s no way,” but now, there is a way. All of these hinges upon your ability to be able to walk them through the sales conversation. There is a way that your conversation has to go in order for it to produce a yes at the end of the conversation.

No matter which of these sales tools you’re using, your goal is to get them to say yes. Before you get to the point where you actually are having the sales conversation with someone, a few things should have taken place. Number one, you should have developed your offer. You need to know what you’re offering them to solve their problem. Number two, you need to have your messages so that you can put that message out there and get people’s attention.

Number three, you need to have a way to generate leads. Number four, you need to have a way to pre-qualify your most ideal prospects. Number five, you need to have key performance indicators in a way to track them. Number six, you need to have complete mastery over the sales conversation. Number seven, you need to hold a sales conversation. Now, again, the conversation doesn’t have to be with a person on the phone or on Zoom.

It could be a webinar. It could be a sales page. It could be time spent in the DMs. It could be a live event, but you need to know how to hold that sales conversation. You also need a follow-up mechanism and system so that those who express interest but don’t decide to enroll in the first conversation actually get called back or followed up with to make that decision. Their problem doesn’t go away just because they can’t decide in the first interaction.

If you never follow up with them, you’re going to leave millions on the table. That is not what I desire for you. The best way to get over that is to get to the point where you understand and you master the sales conversation. Here’s a little sales truth for you. You are the CEO of the company and you have dreams and aspirations to become the million-dollar CEO. That means that eventually, your job is going to be to provide your team with a very clear, conversational framework that will keep sales coming into your business.

It may take you time to determine and perfect that conversational infrastructure, but that is your ultimate goal that you understand the phases of a sales conversation and leverage the phases of the sales conversation consistently to get people to say yes to their next level, completely through you. I say that it is as honorable to sell as it is to buy, and making this decision to make it possible for your most ideal prospects to solve their problem with your help is how you change the world. It’s how you change the game. It’s absolutely how you get yourself to the million-dollar mark.

When you understand the significance of realizing that it’s as honorable to sell as it is to buy. When you outline the cost of their problem, when you create your sales management system and you make sure that you are messaging consistently focuses on that problem, you will put yourself in the position to truly rock the sale and open up an opportunity to do millions in sales through your business.

I want you to make sure that you go back and read the episode that we did on messaging because that is such an important part of the sales process. I believe that if you are not closing new clients, it is something that you are saying or not saying. I want to make sure that you were saying the right things in that conversation to get them to take the steps you want them to take. One of the questions I get all of the time and I’m certainly not going to leave this episode without quickly sharing the phases of the sales conversation with you because I want to make sure that you understand them.

Again, regardless of which of the ways that you are interacting with clients, regardless of which one of those you’re using, each of these phases still needs to exist. Phase one is all about setting expectations. You want to set expectations. Phase two is about discovering the cost of the problem. Phase three is all about transitioning from problem to possibility. Phase four is all about asking if they would like your help. Phase five is offering them your solution. Phase six is overcoming objections and advancing the sale. Phase seven is celebrating your new client. Here’s what I know. If you can master these seven phases, then you can put your business on the trajectory to making millions in sales. I’ll see you next time. Take care.

Important Links

[Read More]

Shop the

Store

GET

social

Copyright ©, Dr. Darnyelle Jervey Harmon | Privacy & Earnings | Made with love by BT

Facebook Twitter Youtube Linkedin-in Instagram