Ep. 138 – Six-Figure Holiday Sales Plan

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“You don’t have to discount your services to make BIG money during Black Friday & Cyber Monday.” – Darnyelle Jervey Harmon

Episode Summary

This episode is powered by the God Girls Making Millions, The Mastermind

Happy Quarter 4! We are now in what I like to call the most profitable quarter ALL YEAR! Unfortunately, so many business owners fall into the holiday sales trap and end up selling their value-based programs for pennies on the dollar. In this online business landscape, you see a lot of people sell their valuable offers at a massive discount during Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, and Cyber Monday. What if I told you that you could create a plan that would help you make more during the holiday corridor than you made all year? Well, it’s true. In this episode, I will share how you can stop massively discounting your value and walk away with more sales and clients than ever before. It’s time for you to have a Six Figure Holiday Sale so grab your pen and paper and listen in now to discover:

#1 Thing you need to shift in order to make more this holiday
Why discounting your products and services is actually cannibalising your offers
How to create your holiday sales plan
And so much more

Important Links:

Powerful Quotes from the Episode

It’s so easy to sell during the holidays without discounting your products
Your pinnacle client isn’t in it for the deal; they are in it for the transformation
The 4^th quarter is the most profitable quarter in any business, any year!
You’re not in retail; you’re in services
You’ll resent your clients when you discount your products and services
The sale itself is honorable so it doesn’t have to be discounted

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Six-Figure Holiday Sales Plan

This episode is powered by God Girls Making Millions. If you’ve been looking for a safe space where you can finally have those up-level conversations that your next level demands, look no further apply at GodGirlsMakingMillions.com and I’ll see you in Miami.

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Before we jump into this episode, I need you to do me a favor. If you have yet to leave me a rating and review on Apple Podcast, would you please take 3 to 5 minutes and rate this episode that I know is going to change your life? Thank you in advance for helping us to get into more countries around the world. We are coming into the fourth quarter of the year and I got a treat for you.

No Need To Sell Short

I personally believe that the fourth quarter is the most profitable quarter in any business any year. I’m going to talk to you about some of the strategies that we share with our clients and we use ourselves to help us maximize holiday selling, but I’m going to give you a little interesting twist. I want to show, share, and have a conversation with you about selling during the holidays without discounting.

Everywhere you look as we come into the fourth quarter, you see discounted this and that. You see everyone waiting for Black Friday because they know that they can get something for cheap. Here’s the thing. You’re not in retail. You’re in services and we don’t discount our services. Discounting your services taints the experience of the client because they’re not going to get the full transformation and you’re going to become resentful because they didn’t pay you what you should have made in order to provide them the transformation that you provide.

Discounting your services taints the client’s experience because they’re not going to get the full transformation.

A lot of times, we take the holidays to sell our passive products, the products that don’t require us to show up for people to begin their journey of transformation. Even then, I’m going to suggest and submit to you that it is not required that you discount it. This is contrary and other people are going to tell and encourage you to deeply discount your products and services during this time, but you don’t have to do that. I had a Black Friday where I made six figures from not discounting my services.

We haven’t done it in a while, but I remember a few years ago, we offered VIP Days on Black Friday. My VIP Day at that time was around $7,500 or $10,000, or maybe it was more than that because I sold maybe 5 or 6 of them and we made shy of seven figures. Probably, they were $12,500 by the time we did it because the year I’m thinking of is 2019. We sold six and did $75,000.

The reason why this is important and I wanted to do this episode as we come into the period is because most of us know that we should be selling something and maximizing that corridor on Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, and Cyber Monday. I want you to be generating awareness and revenue during that weekend, but I don’t necessarily want you to be selling the thing for stupid cheap because that client is probably not your ideal client.

One of the decisions you always have to make in your business is where you want to have the biggest impact because you can have customers. Customers are those people who purchase things from you but don’t build a relationship with you. They know who you are, grab the t-shirt, buy the digital course and maybe do it or don’t. They’re your customer, but to truly impact and make sure that transformation is coming into the lives of those you serve, they need to be your client. I could be wrong and you could disagree and that is totally okay. For me, when it comes down to holiday selling, these are the things that I think about.

When To Start Prepping For The Holidays

Here’s what we’re going to talk about. First and foremost, I want you to know that October is the time to begin preparing for holiday sales. That’s why this particular episode is strategically placed so that if you hadn’t been thinking about it, you can start to think about it because you’ve got to have everything in place at the top of the fourth quarter so that if you are going for Black Friday, Small Business, Saturday and Cyber Monday, you can maximize the time being spent there.

I want to remind you one more time that you do not have to sell lower ticket items during the holiday season to be relevant or to make big money. That’s what you’ve been led to believe, but again, I want to remind you that you are not in retail. You are a service-based business and I’m talking to you if you’re a service-based business. If your business is retail, rock on. Follow the strategy that works best for you. Although we could work with those types of clients, that’s not who we choose to work with here at Incredible One Enterprises through our Incredible Factor University Programs.

You do not have to sell lower ticket items during the holiday season to be relevant or to make big money.

You have to keep in mind that consumers aren’t looking for deals. They’re looking for transformation. If they are to be transformed, it’s a deal. They’re willing to invest in the deal because it is going to produce transformation for them. I also want you to keep in mind that during the fourth quarter, people are uber-sensitive to taxes and being able to save money on their taxes.

This is regardless of whether or not they are an entrepreneur or an employee. Employees know that personal development is a tax write-off as well as entrepreneurs. They’re looking for things to invest in for those of us who are service-based businesses. They’re looking for us and ways to spend money that reduces that overall tax liability at the end of the year.

That is why you need to make sure that your presence is felt during the fourth quarter. I’m a big advocate for spending time with family and balancing the holidays, knowing how to show up for your business by also being present for every cookie baking session, tree-trimming, shopping for the turkey, and all the things. I’m also a big advocate for making sure that you automate as much of your marketing during the holiday season as possible so that even when you are having chestnuts roast by an open fire, your people are seeing you and making a decision, clicking, and taking that call to action to take the next step.

Selling Quality

Here are some of my favorite things that I want you to do as you think about holiday selling. We’re going to get into a couple of them. First and foremost, you have to change your come from when it comes to selling. The sale itself is honorable and it does not need to be discounted. Don’t show up during this time of the year saying, “I’m going to discount and get as many sales as I possibly can.” Instead, make the decision that you are going to sell quality transformational experiences to those that you serve during this time.

The question I’m hearing in my mind is, “Darnyelle, that sounds good, but if I’m trying to scale my business to the million-dollar mark, how can I sell those quality transformational experiences during this period of time?” You should already have a leveraged offer and some type of a group program or hybrid program that includes a course and coaching that comes along with that course. That’s what you put out into the marketplace.

Instead of discounting the price, I recommend that you offer a bonus during Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, and Cyber Monday that will vanish over the course of the weekend or put three bonuses in place. The first one expires if you don’t invest in it on Black Friday. The second one expires if you don’t invest in it on Small Business Saturday, and the third one expires on Monday if you don’t invest. You can easily do something like that without having to take money off.

Every time you take money off, you are dipping into your profitability. Your profitability is what allows you to continue to grow your company and have cash reserves as you hire new team members, introduce new strategies or bring on consultants to help you to take your business to the next level. Every time you dip a discount, you dip into your profit. I don’t think it’s worth it because I’m very clear that it does not have to happen. Holidays are not for sales. You are not in retail. You are a service-based business. Keep that in mind.

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There’s an opportunity for you to maximize the fourth quarter of your business and prepare to take it to the next level. I’m all about that last cash injection before we get to the end of the year. That brings me so much joy and that is what I want you to maximize during this holiday selling season. I started to talk to you about some of the things you need to shift in your come from in order to maximize this holiday selling time without feeling like you got to give everything away because every time you discount you dip into your profit.

Here’s a case study. I love to use Apple as an example. I don’t know if you are as avid of an Apple person as I am. I don’t want to say too much because they’re not sponsoring this episode, but Apple barely gives a discount on Black Friday. I think they give you $100 off and what is $100? You can’t even get AirPods for $100. For Labor Day, I saw so many people having Labor Day sales, and people were doing Independence Day sales, but Apple never discounts.

You’ve got to ask yourself, “Are you Walmart with the constant rollback? Are you Apple who believes in the product that you have developed and have developed it to be superior to what else exists in the marketplace that you can show up on a holiday where everybody else is discounting their products and services, and command your regular rates and still clean up? That’s what I want you to think about. It’s going to require strategy and you got to start planning now in order to maximize it. I talk about planning all the time because planning has to happen before you make the move. Apple doesn’t discount. Why are you?

Understand The Problem And Sell Solutions

People spend real money all year long on items that they need and items that solve a problem. You’ve heard me talk before about spice problems. Whatever you want to present as a part of that Black Friday corridor needs to solve a spice problem. It needs to be specific, substantive, pervasive, persistent, immediate, insurmountable, clear, conscious, contrarian, expensive, and expansive.

That problem that whatever you are presenting is going to solve can command top dollar no matter what’s happening or what your “alleged competitors” are doing. It doesn’t matter. It only matters the value that you hold and your confidence in the product or service that you’re putting into the marketplace. You’ve got to be crystal clear and truly understand the problem that your ideal clients have, who are looking for you around Black Friday. You’ve got to start communicating with them about what’s coming on Black Friday in advance.

The fear of missing out is real. If you see the opportunity to join your program during that corridor, which is the perfect corridor because so many people during that time are gearing up for the program that they’re going to submerse themselves in, in January. It’s a perfect time. They can enroll in your program, take their time doing their pre-work, and get started in January and you will have made money in the current year helps to increase the profitability and standing of your company this year. Again, you don’t have to discount your services in order to make big money around holiday sales.

Let’s jump into some of the other things that you’re going to need to do in order to make sure that this goes off without a hitch. You’re going to have to plan and create a strategy around it. You’re going to have to set a goal. I’m big into backing into the number. For the ease and simplicity of this process, let’s talk about making $100,000 over the Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, and Cyber Monday window.

What’s it going to take to make this $100,000? What are you going to offer? Which of your current products and services that you already have that are ready to go that can be marketed that are leveraged can you put out? Meaning you work them one to many, not one to one, and then begin to think about strategy and messaging specifically about the end of the year going into the new year.

Let’s say the product that you choose is a $5,000 product. It’s an online course. Maybe it comes with some level of interaction with you and your team, but that’s what it is. It’s a course and some Q&A time in there, and it’s got a few other things, but not too much because a course by itself could be sellable for $5,000. If it’s $5,000 and we want to make $100,000, we need to sell 20 during Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, and Cyber Monday.

Build Your Client List By Creating The Need

The next question you want to ask yourself is, “How big is your list? How many people are on your marketing list?” I’m not talking about who’s in your Facebook group. Your Facebook group is great and you’re going to present this to your Facebook group as well, but you don’t control those people. They don’t belong to you. You don’t own the real estate, so to speak, on them. They belong to Facebook.

If you haven’t done something already to get all of the people in your Facebook group onto your list, this is part of your planning process between now, and when you’re going to launch this and you’re going to start talking about your Black Friday “deal.” This is going to be a deal for transformation, not a deal for savings. You want to start thinking about what you’re going to do and say in order to get them to experience the fear of missing out. Therefore, find a sense of urgency to invest in this $5,000 course over those three days.

You might say something like, “I’m going to be launching something special in time for Black Friday, and the only way to hear about it is to be on my email list,” or something like that. You might also decide that on Black Friday, Cyber Monday, or even Small Business Saturday that you’re going to hold a webinar. During that webinar, your goal is to get 500 people to register for that webinar to make sure that you walk away with your 20 sales and then make your $100,000.

How responsive is my list? Across the board in the industry, open rates are going down. You want to take that into consideration. Do I have cell phone numbers? If I created a text campaign, would that increase the likelihood that I would get people to open my messages and therefore take my call-to-action? These are questions you want to be asking yourself in preparation to launch this.

Setting Up For Success

Next question, if I were to launch a webinar in order to enroll 20 people in my $5,000 course or program, what do I feel is the biggest ticking time bomb right now for my ideal clients? That’s going to be what your webinar is about. You’re going to position that webinar on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving or Friday morning. You could decide when in that corridor you’re going to hold your webinar. That is what opens the cart and it’s a weekend cart for people to be able to get this $5,000 thing.

Are you seeing what’s happening? Are you seeing how easily you can endeavor right now to make six figures over Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, and Cyber Monday? Here’s what I want you to do, if you decide to take me up on this and implement this strategy in your business, I want you to do me a favor. Once you’ve done and completed it, I want you to make sure you send me a message. Slide in my DMs on Instagram or on Facebook so that I know what happened. Leave a comment, rating, and review. If I make you six figures over Black Friday, you better make sure you leave a review on this show.

I want you to realize how easy it is for you to sell during the holidays without discounting your products and services. That’s what we’ve been taught, but we’ve got to start to think a new thought because the right client, ideal client, pinnacle client, or higher-end client isn’t in it for the deal or the financial savings. They’re in it for the transformation. That’s what’s going to make the biggest difference for you.

You’re identifying how much you want to make, what your offer is going to be, how big your list is, and how responsive your list is because that’s going to determine what you need to include in your campaign. If your email list is very responsive then you could get away with an email sequence. If your email list is not as responsive as it used to be and you have cell phone numbers then I would highly recommend that you include text messages in there.

If your email list isn’t as responsive, you don’t have that many phone numbers, but you are connected to people on social media, then you might want to do a strategy to begin a conversation with them now in the DMs so that by the time you get to this holiday corridor sale weekend, it’s not spammy. You’ve been getting to know them and finding out what their challenges are so that you could present them with an opportunity.

You might even want to survey your listing of your community online to say something like, “I’m thinking about putting something together or offering a program over the holiday weekend. If you wanted to have an opportunity to work with me and my team as you end this year and get ready for the new year, what is the problem you’d want to work with us to solve?” You then have that data and validate that the program that you’ve already created is going to meet those gaps that exist for people. You then know that you have people who will be interested in it.

You also need to create your follow-up plan. That follow-up plan is also going to be part of the email, text messages, and phone calls. You might even have to do ringless voicemails or automated phone calls during that weekend to stay on top of them because the weekend is going to close, and everybody in their grandfather is also doing a Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, and Cyber Monday sale. If you want to be the one that gets it, you’re going to have to be fully present and stay in front of them. You’re going to have to be there like a broken record, constantly in their minds in order for them to choose to follow through with accepting your call to action. It doesn’t have to be hard. It’s just those few short steps.

If you want to be the one that gets the sale, you have to be fully present and stay in front of the clients.

You then get the emails written and it may already be copy that you have for the program if it’s something that you’ve presented to your community in the past. You might need to tweak them to make more about the end of the year and starting the new year strong, finally solving this problem, and those types of things that incite emotion and demonstrate urgency. It doesn’t have to be hard for you to make six figures over the holiday.

Offer Bonus Not Discounts

I want this for you. I want you to make six figures in a short period of time and leverage that in order to set your business on a trajectory to even make your 2023 much better. This is what I know is possible for you. I’m going to be holding the space for you to have a holiday sale that generates six figures and do it without discounting your services or presenting something with the seven on the end. You all know how I feel about the sevens, right? Most people don’t even understand why they’re using the sevens. They’re going along to get along, but you have to know sales psychology and pricing psychology to understand why the seven is present. The people who shop and look for sevens are the people who are looking for a discount. They might not be your ideal client.

The people you often want to work with are affluent. They want a nice round zero on the end of your product. When I say $5,000, I mean $5,000, not $4,997 or $4,998 because your ideal client isn’t looking for a financial deal. They’re looking for a transformational deal. As long as you keep remembering and ingraining that into your psyche and making that a core part of who you are, you’ll begin to shift how you show up. Not just during the holiday season, but all year long in your business because at any point in time, you can make sales and erect a special opportunity for people to enroll in your program and to work with you.

Instead of discounting it, you might offer some vanishing bonuses. Your homework assignment in addition to getting this whole thing together is to figure out what your bonuses might be. What’s the bonus that’s going to expire if they don’t purchase by 11:59 PM in your time zone on Black Friday? What’s the bonus that might expire if they don’t purchase by 11:59 in your time zone on Small Business Saturday? What is the bonus that might expire if they don’t purchase by 11:59 in your time zone on Cyber Monday?

I just created a six-figure strategy for you. You’re welcome. You can thank me by implementing this in your business and then making sure that you tell me all about it. We’re going into the most profitable quarter of every year, the fourth quarter. For those of you who don’t work business-to-consumer and work business-to-business, keep in mind that this is the perfect time to go back to your corporate and nonprofit clients and find out what they still need.

You can get them to invest in something this year that they don’t get redeemed or delivered until the new year. Depending upon the organization and how their budgeting works or the fiscal year runs, they may have money that’s going to run out at the end of the fourth quarter. When I was a vice president running my own department if I didn’t spend my budget when we did the budget for the next year, some of that money might have been taken away. I never wanted to lose my budget.

If I put money in for personal development, team building, or whatever I might have put money in my budget for, for my team and department, I wanted to spend that. For those of you who are executive coaches, speakers, and trainers in corporations, the people that you know likely have money left over in their budget that they haven’t appropriated yet, that if they don’t appropriate, they might miss it.

Roll all of that into your holiday sales corridor. Create an environment for you to be able to pick up some wins that way. I don’t want you to think that if you aren’t working directly with consumers or entrepreneurs you cannot benefit from how to holiday selling. Holiday selling is for everyone. Everyone is looking for transformation to solve their biggest problems or the problems they’ve been unsuccessful in solving on their own all the time.

You have a distinct opportunity to leverage the power of the holiday and the fourth quarter to make 6 or 7 figures this quarter. We always do a launch in the fourth quarter and it is always a multiple 6, if not a 7-figure launch. Two years ago, we did $1,250,000 in the fourth quarter of the year. You can make great amounts of money because money is an energy that’s available to you whenever you decide you want it. If you decide that this holiday needs to be a six-figure holiday for you, rock on, sister and brother. Let’s make this thing happen. I will be right there holding the space and cheering you on for your amazing holiday sales. I’ll see you, guys, next time. Take care.

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