Is it possible to screw up everything, say all the wrong things when you pitch your business and still close tons of sales?
Yes, you can do everything wrong and yet still have people reaching out to you wanting to become a customer and teammate since this just what happened to my girlfriend last week, who is a complete newbie in her home business.
Let me explain.
I had what most would call a controversial conversation with one of my friends. You see, when I started my own business years ago, it proved to be quite a drastic shock to most of my friends and family…
…when I told them I was going to be leaving my Air Force job (which I loved and was incredibly good at) and instead of searching for another government job…
I was going to build a business from home and replace my military salary.
I definitely was going against the grain of what was normal and comfortable to most, which I’m sure you’ve probably felt too. I don’t know about you, but I didn’t expect so many conversations with my friends that started with…
“So what’s that thing you’re doing? Honestly, I just don’t get it.”
“Making any money yet with that side project you’re doing?”
“So when are you going to start looking for a job again?”
“Do you really think what you’re doing can actually be a sustainable income forever?”
If you’re getting these questions right now, keep moving forward with what you believe in because…
A funny thing happens once you keep your head down, focus on your goals, take consistent focused action on your business and then start to see success.
Especially after I not only replaced my military salary… but tripled it in under 12 months…
Oddly enough, I started to have more of my friends reach out to me asking for advice because they were now starting up their own businesses from home.
Some were even the naysayers way back when.
Wouldn’t it be fun, once you start seeing more success in your business to have family members and friends reaching out to you for business advice when you no longer need them as customers or teammates?
For me, that’s when I felt like I could be the biggest impact. I’d already screwed up so many sales pitches, done so many things wrong and so many things right…
That I could save my friends oodles of time messing up like I did, which is pretty cool. :)
So back to sales pitches, closing sales and how you can screw everything up and still make a profit…
My friend reached out to me last week and asked if I’d hop on the phone with her so she could run through her “phone pitch” of her business for the list she made of family members and friends who could be potential teammates and customers.
Now even though I’ve chosen a different strategy to build my business completely online, I said yes.
We hopped on the phone, I listened, smiled with a strange feeling of deja vu (I’ll explain in the video below) and was in shock with what she shared at the end of the conversation…
On what she did to close sales in her first weeks of being in business.
I break down the 5 tweaks I gave her to close more sales from her pitch here:
How Your Business Benefits From This Controversial Coaching Call
As a person who’s primarily built my business online, a lot of this conversation I had with my friend was controversial for me. You see, I typically give advice to business owners who have already burnt through their warm market list and are looking for another way to keep their business afloat and leverage their time.
Like I said in the video, I commend her for taking action to reach out to her family members and friends to close those initial sales. However, at some point I know from experience, in order to keep your business profitable…
You need to have another plan of action, which I’ll explain more later on in this post…
And oddly enough…
She was already effectively making money from this formula I’ll explain later without even realizing it. But let’s cover the tweaks I shared with her so you can close more sales in case you’re running into the same issues she was.
Tweak #1: Set expectations for your time together
This initial call to share your business should only be a 5 minute conversation. This is not the call to get all caught up on each other’s life changes.
A great way to set expectations for the call is to be up front about the amount of time that you have to talk. This let’s them know that the conversation is going to be short and sweet and by setting the expectations up front for the call, you’ll also avoid the dreadful “Oh shoot, what they trying to sell me?” thoughts that run through their mind.
Tweak #2: Revolve Your Story Around Them
Storytelling is one of the most powerful skill sets you can develop for marketing your business, however, too often once you start telling your story it becomes all about you. For this initial call, the best way to utilize your story is through this format:
- Here’s what I’ve been up to (keep your story brief here)
- Here’s what I was introduced to so I can (in my friend’s case, stay home with her kids)
- Here’s what it’s doing for me and others
- I thought of you
- Are you be open to hearing more about what I’m doing to make some extra money from home and how I’m ________ (speak of a benefit you’re getting from your product)?
Tweak #3: Sell More Stuff By Doing Less Work
In my friends initial pitch, she told me everything possible about her company. Instead of feeling like you have to be the expert in your company’s products, compensation plans, monthly memberships and everything under the sun…
Instead utilize tools anytime you can. This allows you to use tools that are already created to do the selling for you like:
- Sales pages
- Free giveaways
- Opportunity videos
- Team webinar trainings
Remember, if you’re looking to bring in teammates, they have to believe they can build the business too. If they feel like they have to have a PhD in skin care products before they can be profitable… they’ll avoid the opportunity to join you. Keep it simple.
Tweak #4: Your First Call Shouldn’t Make You Money
Sounds crazy right? But if you take out this expectation, you’ll actually profit more in the long run. For every call you make whether it’s to your family members, friends or leads you get online, your initial call is to qualify them to see if they’d like to know more, point them a tool to educate them and schedule your next call.
On average it takes 5-7 exposures of a product or service before someone makes a buying decision, so the more follow up connections you make with that prospect…. The better.
The faster you can take out the expectation of closing sales immediately on your initial calls, will help you out in the long run.
Tweak #5: Be Prepared
No matter who you’re speaking with (especially if it’s family members and friend initially), be prepared that you’re going to get way more “No’s” and “are you sure you really want to build a business like this?” responses.
Believe it or not, not everyone is your ideal customer or teammate. Start focusing on taking consistent effective action without getting addicted to the outcome. Which brings me too…
How To Get More Teammates And Customers By Screwing Up Your Pitch
So yes, my friends initial sales pitch wasn’t great, in fact, it sounded exactly like mine when I first started out. However, she still made more autopilot sales, brought in more customers and had people reaching out to her to build the business with her.
How did this happen?
It was from one simple post on social media. She actually attracted people she hadn’t even spoken to about her business yet reach out to her, buy her products and join her team because…
They already knew, liked and trusted her.
In fact, they had already been pitched the same business opportunity and products by other people in the past, but from this one social media post…
She closed those sales effortlessly without the perfect pitch, without being pushy or without any high pressure sales tactics.
They asked… she offered out valuable information… they signed up.
What’s cool is…
This is how I’ve learned to build my whole business with having perfect strangers reach out to me, raise their hands and ask me how they could get what I was selling and you can do the same…
Before you go…
Comment below to let me know what you thought of this post and if it helped you. I’d love to know your thoughts.
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Make It Happen
Randall Jenkins
