Have you ever asked yourself, even aloud: “Why the heck is nobody buying my stuff? And what can I do about it instead?”
I love this question because it comes up so often with my clients because they are usually asking themselves something like: “What the heck do I do? Do I suck or is my offer horrible? What is going on?”
I know that if one person has asked me, then a million have thought it, so this is the perfect place to tackle it once and for all. Let me first preface where I’m going with this.
It doesn’t matter whether you are a product business, a service business, an online business, brick and mortar, or a local business, all of you have probably experienced at some point where you put something out into the world and crickets happened.
What typically happens for most people is that they immediately try to pull it back, or try to erase it from the public’s eye and pretend it didn’t happen because we automatically think we did something horribly wrong.
Like we just totally misread the market.
Our natural instinct is to shrink into ourselves and pull back the awesomeness that we JUST thought was so amazing because it didn’t go the way we expected the first time or tenth time and we didn’t have the result that we really wanted to have.
So automatically, it’s horrible.
Does that pattern sound familiar?
First, let me make a promise to you: I promise that the two things we THINK are happening with our business are not actually happening, and what the real problems are instead.
The first thing that we usually think, and I’ve already mentioned it on here, but we usually think that what we’ve put out there is just horrible.
It’s wrong. It was the wrong idea. It was the wrong thing.
So we automatically kind of start with that.
The second place we usually go if we have the guts to stand behind our offer is to say to ourselves: “I know it’s good. I know it’s perfect for my people but something else is off.”
So then we usually go to our price. And we think I just need to totally rethink this price.
Usually, we’re trying to lower the price to something we think the market will support. It’s never the price!
And can I just normalize those two thoughts first? I just launched the Marketing Magic Academy again for the third time this year over Black Friday and even though I know the statistics of when launches purchases come in, I was STILL freaking out when the middle of the launch was crickets. AND I KNOW THIS STUFF!
Do you want to know what’s actually happening when something flops the first or tenth time around?
The first problem I notice when something doesn’t perform as expected, or hoped, when I look at my own behaviors and get the opportunity with my Mastermind and Academy members to peel back their business and look at their calendar and what they’re focusing their time and energy on is:
We are 1,000% never focusing on the right things.
We’re never focusing enough on sales and marketing.
Remember, those are like my fun stepsisters who actually like each other.
Sales and Marketing go together in tandem. They always go side by side, but the majority of us kind of shrink away from both of them.
So many women paying attention right now would give me an amen if they’re afraid of either sales and/or marketing, but do just really, really hope if they put something killer out there into the world that people would just automatically buy it. That’s what we really often hope a lot of times.
And so when you’re 1,000%, not focusing on sales and marketing (which are the two things that are going to actually help you make the money and bring in the revenue), then that’s when we default back to we just we’re just horrible at it.
Instead, we’re just afraid to take the steps that are actually going to grow the business.
So look at what you need to change regarding your sales and marketing first. If someone’s not buying your offer, we’re going to say it’s not your offer right now, we’re gonna say it’s not your price.
Instead, I want to give you some things to look at for how you’re presenting it to the world that may help immediately without you having to create anything new or change anything up really, it’s just a habit thing, and some different tasks to focus on instead.
So here are five better habits to create around sales and marketing that will help you sell more:
1. Stop trying to sell everything on social media and actually be social.
Now don’t get me wrong, I DO want you to promote your stuff on social and try to sell it. It’s almost impossible to just put something onto the internet and then overnight, you’re going to make six figures, yet this is a popular idea that if you put it out there, the money will immediately come.
I think it’s slowly dying out, but it still has its grip on us where we just hope and pray that something magical we’re just missing that silver bullet. We think we’re just missing that really amazing thing that’s going to just take off and go. And so if we just you know, shout about on social media a little bit more because that’s where everybody seems to be making millions. They’re like all over social right? Then that’s the thing we need to do as well.
But instead, I want you to take a step back and really first evaluate.
How are you showing up on social media or whatever platform or platforms that you like to be present on?
I always like to say you need to humanize yourself and humanize your brand, right? People can’t connect with just a brand, they connect with the person behind the brand and the story behind the brand. So if you are projecting yourself as this cold, sterile brand, where I have this amazing offer all the time, people don’t see you and they can’t connect with you.
And so what happens is: scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll.
So that’s the first step is like, evaluate yourself on social and figure out how do you engage people with your offer in a way that humanizes your brand really well?
2. Obviously tell people how to buy, sign up and register.
This one is really, really common. When I do strategy sessions and I do my homework before I hop on the call with you and I kind of go through and stock your stuff and take notes and things., I almost always write every single time: “You don’t talk about how to work with you or how to buy from you anywhere.”
This is one huge tweak you could make. It’s just a simple wording and just teaching yourself to get into the habit is to actually tell people how to take that next step with you and what that next step what that next step might be.
So for example, if you’re promoting something that’s going to start with an opt in, you need to talk about the opt-in like crazy, you need to talk about it all over the place, you need to tell people, click this link here, or you go to this website right here, or you click the button that’s right above me right here. And that’s going to let you opt-in. You just type in your name and your email…
You can be really, really explicit in your instructions because people need to know every micro-step to take. We like to think we’re really complicated and complex people, but we’re so basic! We need so much hand-holding and instruction happening.
So take a look at are you even telling people how they can work with you what you do. What The next step is how do they get started? Where would you recommend? Because again, we all like to kind of have the guide and the expert leading us along whatever it is we’re doing.
If you’re not the one that’s telling them what to do and where to go, then they’re just going to think you’re cool person, but they’re never going to see you as an authority and expert in whatever field you’re doing.
This applies if you have a brick and mortar too. You don’t have to be a coach or anything, people want to look up to you and do the thing that you recommend. Right? We like to get recommendations. That’s why we like text, our friends, we’re buying weird Amazon things like do you think this is a good idea? Or has anybody ever done this? Or have you tried this recipe?
We like to be told what to do by others; it affirms that we’re making good decisions.
Okay. So help the people in your community know they’re making a good decision by telling them Yes, it’s really easy. All you have to do is do this, and do this and do this. Or if you want a strategy with me, you’re just going to click this link. We’re going to schedule right here and then we’re going to hop on a 90-minute call you tell them the basic steps.
There’s a whole framework kind of around this building that interests your website copy if you ever fall story brand by Donald Miller. It’s that Popular, it’s like it’s so much a thing. So just make sure you’re telling people how to work with you.
If you have an in person conversation and you’re like, hey, there’s this, you know, I know you want to buy socks, there are some socks right there. But you never say like, here’s I can ring you out at the end. Like that could be a missed sale. It’s that simple. So it’s just getting familiar and using the language to tell people, what’s the next thing to do.
3. Follow up like it’s your job because seriously, it is your job. Have you ever heard the phrase the fortune is in the follow up?
It is so is in the follow-up. So much so, that I have spent the last two weeks working on a 365 day follow up system for a big client because they know how much the fortune is in the follow-up and they need a systematic way to make sure they’re getting all the touchpoints in until they close that deal.
So if that puts it in perspective, I’ve been spending weeks for one client on building automations, creating videos, creating crazy graphics for stuff, scripts for things all because they know the fortunes in the follow-up.
When you think about your own follow-up, what is something that you can do?
What is something that you can actually follow?
Do you follow up more than one time? Most of us follow up once, maybe twice, and then we’re like, oh, they didn’t really want to talk to us anymore.
That’s so not the case!
If you think about yourself, like me, I actually really appreciate all the follow up, even if I keep forgetting to do the thing you keep telling me to do, because I just keep forgetting to the thing you’re telling me to do right?
Back to we’re really basic people. And so we just need to be reminded over and over again, and don’t take it personally, if someone does not immediately respond.
That’s why they’re saying you need to have up to 50 touch points with people before they actually connect with you as a brand, which is mind-boggling. So make a plan just to follow up with people. Some people just take a lot longer for you to nurture them and that’s okay.
But if you’re not following up, you’re probably missing out on 80% of your sales. Not even joking, that’s a legit statistic, especially in the sales world if you hear from the huge sales gurus, 80% of your stuff’s going to come after about the seventh follow up and beyond.
So look at your follow up system because no one buys because they just weren’t followed up with enough.
4. Ask for the sale.
This kind of ties back into number two, but you actually have to ask people for the sale.
This one can feel really, really scary if like at the beginning when I talked about sales and marketing are really terrifying. Because if you’re not comfortable with sales, you’re also probably not comfortable with actually asking for the sale because there’s going to be a weird energy between how you exchange your gifts and services and products for what you do for their money. And it’s gonna feel like an off thing.
So what I want you to do instead is think about how can you ask them?
If you don’t ask, they can’t say yes, so I want you to brainstorm ways to get really comfortable with asking for the sale.
An example could be: Do you have enough information to make a decision?
Someone who is amazing at asking really, really great follow up questions is Renee Hribar, she’s my coach. She’s amazing as all things sales. If you suck at sales or terrified of sales, or you have no idea where to start, I’m going to tell you to go follow her right this second. Look at the show notes and click to find her.
But it all starts with asking for the sale. The whole gist of this is really you can’t be passive about promoting your business. Which leads me to the fifth one.
5. Promote, promote, promote, promote, promote, like crazy.
Again, like it’s your job because it is, but it’s really, really easy to shy away from promoting because we kind of feel like weird and like we’re putting ourselves out there and then we annoy ourselves.
So much so that we forget to tell the world about how awesome and all the great things that we’re doing because we just like oh, I talked about that yesterday like that feels we’re doing it again today.
Can I just give you a few stats really quick to kind of help you fill it in here? Okay, first: If you’re on social and you’re trying to post stuff, the shelf life will call the shelf life of how fast people are going through things.
For Facebook and Instagram, posts are getting seen between three hours or less. So if you post something, three hours later, nobody’s seen it. Nobody! because nobody’s going to be scrolling back to look at it again. That’s how fast things are moving on those platforms.
LinkedIn is moving way slower. I mean, honestly, you could post something and like four days later, it’s still there, which is amazing. That’s why people are jumping over to LinkedIn, for that for that world.
But that’s how fast it’s moving. So if you think about that, in terms of how often you’re promoting yourself, if you’re putting something out there one time a day, you’re getting three hours worth of visibility, and that’s it on that thing. And then you’re like, well, that did a great job put it out there today.
So I’m not telling you to like over exhaust yourself, but I’m just telling you, you cannot over-promote yourself enough. The person who wins the game and this marketing visibility world is the person who gets seen the most. Honestly, it’s not even the person is the best product, the lowest price, the highest price. The best referrals is the person who gets seen the most, which can be a little bit sobering.
So when you think back on, okay, that last thing you put out there and you’re like, ah, nobody’s buying from me, the reason they’re not buying from you, right? It’s not because your stuff sucks, it’s actually probably pretty amazing.
Just not enough people know about it, right?
You’re invisible, your offer is invisible. You just need to talk about it more, follow up, ask for the sale, be super social.
These are all things that are really easy to do that take just a little bit of a habit and a mindset change, you’re gonna have to think about it differently. But now that you’re aware of it, I promise you the next thing that you launch or sell or promote is going to be amazing. It really is.
If you even just work on one of these things to start, you’re going to see a dramatic result in your sales, your promotion, whatever the thing is your opt in, you’re trying to get in to grow your email list. It doesn’t have to be sales. That’s just what I gravitate towards. Because if you don’t have sales, you don’t have a business. But I digress.
These five things we just talked about today, I am assigning them to you for homework. Yes! I’m assigning you something so you can figure out what can you do differently in your own business.
Pick the one that feels like the easiest to change right now because success loves speed.
So go do it. Go take some massive action to one of these tiny tweaks and I promise you’re going to see a huge result.
About Marketing Magic:
The Marketing Magic podcast is where women entrepreneurs trying to do all the things come to get inspiration, business strategy, and on-air coaching on how to get their business noticed and growing. If you have a business that people need to know about in order for it to grow, you’re in the right place. This is the place to uncomplicate your marketing. Be sure to listen, subscribe, and leave a review! Join the conversation of other unapologetically successful women in her Facebook community, The #girlboss Club.
