Grow Your business By Selling In a Way That Feels Aligned Even If Outside of Your Comfort Zone
Most of us in the early childhood space is serving others and often feel a sense of struggle with sales. But really, this is just a struggle with receiving. Often times, we are used to being the care taker, the helper, the healer, the focus on the well-being of others. You may not be used to feeling that you deserve the same level of value when the time comes and you need to talk about charging money for your services.
Receiving is not something we're trained naturally to do. And really trusting yourself in sales can bring up things around, “Am I worth it? Do I get to receive? Do I get to take in money for what I do? And can that be OK for me?” Today we are here to say, “YES!” It is ok and we can grow our business and sell in a way that feels good even when it is outside of our comfort zone and at times feels completely foreign.
So, how do we grow our business and sell in a way that feels good even when it is outside of our comfort zone and at times feels completely foreign?
As Early Childhood owners/managers we see ourselves as natural nurturers, teachers, caregivers, and entrepreneurs versus salespeople, but to continue to grow your business it is imperative to “sell.” You must embrace the idea of “allowing” yourself to embrace the discomfort in selling and pivot your mindset.
If you struggle when it comes time to ask for the sale in the inquiry or tour process, then today’s ECBME podcast episode is for you! We are going to outline the key factors that will help you lose the icky feeling when it comes to talking about money with your prospective families.
When it comes to sales in our Early Childhood businesses we need to:
Develop an aligned sales process and mindset.
Remember the Silent Step.
Boldly make the offer at the end of the inquiry or tour.
Develop an Aligned Sales Process and Mindset
When you are “sharing” vs. “selling” you will overcome the discomfort and have an aligned sales process.
Building an aligned sales process can be developed over time, especially through consistent practicing and a positive mindset. Just something to keep in mind as you allow yourself the opportunity to share/sell. Which, you may find that you already do! You are a salesperson and don’t even realize it.
Having the right sales mindset can open your eyes to what’s possible. You will find success in maintaining motivation, staying positive, and being persistent. That perseverance is what drives success.
You are the first “person” or touchpoint for a prospective family and if their “first impression” is a good one, they will continue on their journey of learning more about your Early Childhood business and see if it is a good fit for their child. Having a great attitude in how you share about your school or play cafe will shine through. The prospective family will see and feel the love.
Patty Lennon a bestselling author who helps women create space for magic in their lives and businesses. She founded The Receiving School to help others open to their own receiving energy, using a blend of common sense brain science and a dash of magic. She reminds us that a successful sales conversation is not about making the sale, it is the conversation where you and the potential family you are speaking to get clear about exactly what they need.
Shifting our mindset from closing the sale, or enrolling the family, or booking the birthday party, to how can I best support this family in this moment? When we do that… we take the salesy out of selling.
And if each time you have a sales conversation, you are able to do that, that is success. It is also the process that will start to unlock the fear and shame you may hold inside yourself around selling. Because every time you show up in a conversation and focus on helping another person, you strengthen within yourself. You remind yourself that you are a good person in that sales process.
The Silent Step
This holds especially true when the end result of the conversation is you possibly telling them you are not the best fit and offering them resources to meet their needs. And, yes, that may be going else where. But if you are aligned with doing what is best for that person in the moment, you know it is the right thing to do.
Patty talks about what she calls the missing step or the silent step in the sales process. It's essentially when you've had a conversation with the prospective family about what they need, where they're going and where they are right now, and then you summarize exactly what they need.
At that moment, you ask yourself, “Am I the right person to help them?” This is where we can feel that ugly knot in your stomach, that feeling that they might think all you want is the money. But let that positive voice inside of you that wants to just be helpful have the power. The message becomes, okay we only get to have the money when we are the right solution. And are we the right solution? Make a decision. And from there, that dictates the rest of the conversation.
Boldly Make the Offer at the end of the Inquiry or Tour
When you are showing up at the end of the sales conversation, this is where you will make the offer. If you are making the offer anywhere earlier in the sales conversation, that doesn't really work because every person that's in the process of buying anything has a trigger in their brain that is trying to get them not to buy, no matter how much they need something. There is a part in everyone's brain that's like… just don't spend money.
So you want to make sure you don't trip that switch when you're in a conversation with someone. And the reason you don’t want to trip that switch is that you want to create a safe space for them to explore their needs and find the right solution for themselves.
Making a bold offer - two things.
One, it does take practice. We each have within us a trigger in our brain, in the amygdala, the fight or flight response where we do not want to be seen as that horrible used car salesperson. You might think that if you make a bold offer, the prospective family is going to think you're a cheesy salesperson, and they're going to reject you. And we don't want to get rejected. And because we believe that rejection is the worst thing that can happen, we often try and avoid it because we're scared of what it would feel like if we get rejected.
The second piece of it is that often times we pull back from a bold offer because we want to take care of the other person and not make them feel bad or awkward if they have to say no. But if you add that missing step, the Silent Step we discussed earlier, where you really do check in with yourself. You decide, is this right for them? Or it is not the right option? When you do, you are spending just as much time, care, and energy on helping them leave the sales conversation to go find a different option. It is that one little step, that Silent Step, that starts to reimagine for you what your role is.
And that role, as an advocate for your business, allows you to step into a more bold offer. The more you spend time in that advocate role when you get to the point where you are making an offer, the money will stop having so much meaning for you because you're going to see that what they are buying and what you're selling is really going to save them time, money, energy, stress. And you want to advocate for their success. You want them to really understand that you are coming from a very pure giving, helpful place.
Resources
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