RichardTalks

Goals based on an outcome or result can really cause harm. https://richardtalks.co/yearinreview For the last few months I’ve been trying to grow a new product. In the beginning, the prospects were great and I felt, as any business person does in the beginning, I felt positive. I set a goal of 100 new clients by December. I even had a breakdown of the time I had remaining and the effort I thought was involved. This is what I think of as an outcome goal. Something you don’t have any control over. I did not anticipate or give enough time to user readiness. Current competitive landscape. Messaging. Customer profile or any other really important aspect. I simply took feedback from my coaching interactions as ‘enough’ evidence of a need and built out from that. Now my reason for moving so quickly is simple. I have a lot of technical experience so building out a product isn’t a lot of work for me but taking that idea to a new market is always more work than I expect. Today, I can honestly say that in comparison to the goal I’ve set, I’ve come way further than I had expected. Only, I haven’t signed a single customer. Not 1 https://richardtalks.co/yearinreview

You have an important message to share, you just don't know it yet. The more I've recorded and shared messages the more I've been able to find my voice. Maybe my voice found me but the result is that I have gratitude for the people that write to me to tell me how I've impacted them positively.

I've had the same happen to me when someone posted something, and I was able to use their message in my own life.

In this episode, I want you to find something you've always wanted to say and then hit record. When you are done...

Push Publish. Your message could save someone's life.

It saved mine.

I talk openly and honestly about the journey of sales and how it is NOT some slick sales presentation

Sales is not some gift of the gab, smooth-talking, Wolf of Wall Street, closing all the deals thing.

It's a journey of finding the people that need a solution to a problem that you solve.

I also announce my coaching program for one-one-one sales training to help you develop your very own selling system

https://richardtalks.co/selling-system-download-early-bird/?mtm_campaign=PodCast&mtm_kwd=Ep06 This coaching program is a one on one 3 month program to develop your very own selling system that you can use to create consistent, predictable monthly revenue

So last week I chatted a bit about how I got into sales. This week I share how I developed our Sales System that helped us really grow the business.

We all start somewhere. I never thought of myself as a born salesperson and I still don't.

I also never thought about entrepreneurship but rather just tried to build a business out of necessity.

I thought I'd share this story with you in case you wondering how to get started.

This is episode 1 of 2.

What is a Sales Funnel?

Now, if you’ve never heard of a sales funnel before, let me just share very briefly what that is. A sales funnel is when you have a product or a service. You have a solution for a group of people. You might have an idea of where they are, so you go out to that place and you talk to a lot of people. As many people as possible and say “I have this thing. I think it’s awesome. I hope you think that too. Do you want to buy it?”

Now, if there are 1000 people at that place where you go to talk about your product and service to see if they are interested, maybe only 500 of them say “Yeah, I have a similar situation that that product or service sounds interesting to me. I’d like to know more”.

Now instead of 1000 people, now you have 500 and as you go through these different stages of talking to people, where you initially started with 1000 people, you might only sell to 10 people. Yeah, I know those numbers sound weird, but in essence, that’s a sales funnel.

It just means that through your conversation and through your messaging, you may start off with lots of people at the top of your funnel at your initial engagement, and then at the end, when you actually make the sale, it’s far fewer people than what you had started with, making the V shape, the shape of a funnel, and that’s what it’s referred to.

How does a Sales Funnel work? Listen for more information or visit my website

https://richardtalks.co/why-your-small-business-needs-a-sales-funnel/?mtm_campaign=Podcast&mtm_kwd=sales-funnel

Today I want to review cold calling and why you should invest the time in working through a cold call plan. Now I know a lot of you might be thinking, it’s 2023 cold calling is dead, but let me explain to you why cold calling Is not dead and why you should at least work through the plan of building out a cold call now.

Despite many people thinking that it is outdated, cold calling could Sky-Rocket your sales. Cold calling is a valuable way to learn about your product and your business, as well as to gain direct feedback from potential customers. By practising and refining your pitch, you can better understand your customer’s needs and the journey you want to take them on. While cold calling should not replace other sales methods, it is a valuable tool for anyone starting out in sales.

Now, talking about yourself or your product, if you’re anything like me, may have you feeling cringe. You feel like “Oh, no, I’m being too something, too much about me. It’s not supposed to be about me. It’s supposed to be about my customer“.

The winning formula for creating content

That is exactly the winning formula. If you think “your content is for your customer“, because you believe in your product and service so much that it helps people and it changes their lives for the better, then, of course, you want to talk about it.

What to talk about

What you want to talk about is not the product. Nobody wants to talk about a phone. Everyone wants to talk about what the phone does for them. The convenience that it creates for them. Nobody wants to talk about a nappy cream, but everyone wants to talk about how the baby is free of nappy rash. Nobody wants to talk about moody teenagers, but everybody wants to talk about how your teenager is much happier than they were before they started a programme that you provide.

If you want to Download my Sales System or watch the video then you can do so at this link

What is a Customer Avatar?

I want to talk a little bit about the customer and why it’s important for you to know how to define your ideal customer

For example, if you read a lot of literature out there, they’ll talk about the demographics of a customer. Their hair colour, whether they’re Gen Z or not. While those things are important, I don’t think that they really are that important.

When you are getting going in your sales journey, things that I think are way more important when thinking about your customer is, what’s the problem that you are solving with your product or service. What problem is that addressing for these kinds of people?

You can download my Sales System or Watch the Video here

When you're thinking about your business and when you look back about the kind of investments that you've made in sales over the last five years over the last year, if that number is close to zero, then maybe it is time for you to consider investing in a sales system, or at least some sort of training for sales. 

It doesn't have to be with me. I am not saying that I have the best sales system. I feel that I can help people. I genuinely feel I can help people get started with putting together a sales system. 

Understanding who your customer is and learning prospecting, doing outbound call calling yes, then creating an inbound strategy with e-mail sequencing all of those things. Those are all things that you do need if you believe in your product and you believe that it's going to make a difference. 

You do, but getting started is the hardest. 

I want to encourage you to take that first step and write down the number that you've invested in your business in yourself and the people that you are trying to help write down that number and if that number is close to 0, then I want to help you. 

OK. I hope that this creates some inspiration for your Sunday, Saturday, Friday, Monday evening, whenever you are watching this and I hope that it will inspire you to think about making a change.