Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 28:56 — 39.8MB)

Subscribe: Google Podcasts | RSS

Sales considerations to make in your online business.

If you’re here for the business side of things, then go ahead and join my free on demand workshop, Your Biz | Your Way – 3 steps to build a profitable online health and fitness biz

And while you’re on the site, snag all the free resources – you’ll find goodies for trainees and coaches or entrepreneurs alike. Much love.

---

If you are building a brand and or running a business, you will need to take part in selling a product or service.

Sales were something that I did not enjoy and certainly did not come naturally to me when I started a business.

I’ve mentioned this before, but at first, I skipped the entire module in B school on marketing. It was outdated at the time but also, I wasn’t ready or I didn’t even feel ready to sell anything. I had nothing to truly launch.

It also didn’t speak to the specifics of online health and fitness. And some might argue that sales is sales. While there is truth in that, I think it certainly can be helpful to see and hear examples of sales strategies and approaches used within our field.

So today I hope to share with you considerations to make when you approach or build your sales strategy. Which can be a mixture of copywriting, webinars or videos, sales calls, email marketing. Etc.

First step

Trust is the basis of sales

We buy things because we trust that we are going to get the desired outcome and or what we are paying for matches the value of the product or service. When I buy a double insulated glass coffee mug, I trust that it’s going to work and it’s going to make me feel fancy.

When someone purchases Built by Annie, their investment shows that they trust *enough* that they are going to have a program that allows them to be more consistent and enjoy their time in the gym while gaining education about their body and lifting weights.

So in every piece of content, in every email you send, within your sales page, your application, or your sales calls, keep “trust” in the forefront of your mind.

You’re building trust with everything your brand produces. And trust leads to sales or the potential for sales.

>>

Also, I have a little tangent that I’ve mentioned in my FitsPRO Foundations course as well as the training I did for FRE skin care and my Instagram 101 course. 

And that is to create and or sell from the mind of a consumer. So think about your experience and your thought process and maybe even your subconscious when you are looking to, or decide to make a purchase.

What makes you trust a company? What leads to you finally purchasing from a brand? These are just questions to help you understand the consumer experience in sales. What’s a no go for you, or a red flag? What makes you feel safe in a sales process?

That leads into a lovely segue of consideration number two.

You’re on the same team

Meaning, you don’t want people to purchase from you who will not be a good fit, do not align with your philosophy, or will not get results from your program or service for whatever reason.

You are on the same team as a consumer – meaning, you want to get your audience and those interested in purchasing from you, to make an empowered yes or no decision.

We want our consumers to feel like we are on their team.

This is where the power of referral comes in. Say someone is not a good fit and that they need a different type of program or maybe to be referred to a specialist. That person heightens their trust in you when you refer them to a different type of program or a specialist. 

This shows that you still have their best interest in mind and that you don’t just want to make money off of them.

I’m sure you’ve seen it before on a sales page or in a sales process, where someone makes clear who a program is for and who the program is not for.

You know, if you’re feeling these things, or have had these experiences, this program is for you. And on the other end, maybe if you’re expecting “X“ or you’ve had this set of experiences this program is not for you.

Clarity and Communication are another huge part of sales in addition to building trust.

And we can better show that we are on the same team as our consumer through communication and having clarity about what our program is and who it serves.

So let’s say that someone is a no. Either you have told them that your program is not a good fit for them or they have made an empowered “no.”

Meaning, they are a whole ass adult, and for whatever reason they have decided that now is not the time to invest with you. And that’s 500% OK. That brings us to our next point.

A no isn’t a no forever

I don’t track this, so I can’t actually tell you how many times this is happened. But it’s happened enough times to note, that it happens. And I’ve also had this happen to my business clients.

When someone was a no and then they come back months later and sign up for said program. Or they said no to one program but enrolled in a different program of yours.

A no on an investment, does not equate to the person completely exiling themselves from your community, email list, following, or anywhere else that your brand shows up.

More often than not, this person will remain in your community, taking in your content, and learning from you. Remember that trust is the basis of sales. When someone says no or doesn’t sign up, we circle back to building trust.

And maybe they truly weren’t a good fit for your program. That’s OK too. I just don’t want you to fall into the trap that a no is a no forever. Because we just don’t know that.

Next step might seem obvious, but I truly believe people do not do this enough. Or they underestimate how often they should be doing this.

Sell sell sell – 

whether automated or not. You need to sell if you want to make money

If you have not built and filled your one on one roster, you should be pitching in someway shape or form at least three times a week. Maybe more.

The next point will get into how you can do this without feeling like you’re a used car salesman or like you’re repeating yourself all the time.

But I have to ask what your expectation is if you were say, selling in your Instagram stories once per week. So you pitched four times in one month. What percentage of your audience likely saw one if not all four of those?

When we look at numbers we can see things a bit more clearly and objectively in my opinion.

So if we are using either email marketing or Instagram or Facebook to pitch our services, it’s ideal that we’re not just pitching and then not tracking how many link clicks we had, how many views our application page has, or our sales page has, and then how many applications are being submitted?

Sell, sell, sell. Also, this is very specific to filling up your one on one online roster. So keep that in mind.

So how do we do this while not annoying our audience or our email list?

Fair question.

Provide value then sell.

We can do this using things like but not limited to:

(Mini trainings, webinar, challenge, content etc)

And those can be delivered on social media, video, or to an email list.

The main take away here is to provide value that benefits the 95% of your audience that is not yet ready to purchase from you.

Then make the ask for the application or sale – keep it concise.

You can sandwich with more value afterwards, or just end it there.

I have received plenty of emails that have done this, I’ve sent emails that have done this, I’ve been in Facebook groups that do this and if you follow me on Instagram you will see me do this in my Instagram stories at least 1 to 2 times per week.

This is also where you will feel lost if you don’t understand your target market and your offer like the back of your hand.

Again you can check out my free workshop your biz., your way, three steps to build a profitable online health and fitness business. If you’re not ready for that, you can download my free ideal client avatar creator to get a clearer picture of who it is that you are connecting with and selling to online.

Mmmmk. Now we have an additional three part consideration.

3 things to Consider:

Your clarity on what you do and who your service is for

Your own money mindset or view of “sales”

Personality types and experiences

All sales tactics don’t work on all people

So I just mentioned knowing your ideal client and your offer. Your mini trainings or webinars, or email marketing that you use will typically be snippets of your philosophy, examples of your methods, your approach, your process, something along these lines.

If you aren’t clear on that or haven’t identified those things, I encourage you to do that. Because it helps you communicate better to your potential customers and it helps those potential customers have a better understanding of what it is that you offer.

This is of course some thing that we spend an entire module on inside Fits Pro Foundations. And if you do my free workshop there is an upsell to FitsPRO, it’s the best deal with the best bonuses. You are not required to join but if you are interested in that, the workshop is free.

Your own money mindset or view of “sales”

I am not an expert on this. But just from my own experience and conversations that I have had with other colleagues in the field, I know that your own beliefs around money Kim certainly affect your approach to sales, and even your pricing.

We let our scarcity mindset, or the fact that we wouldn’t pay this much for our service, get in the way of what makes sense for our potential clients, their experiences, and the fact that we are running a business.

Remember that you are on the same team as your customer. You are not responsible for their finances or their financial decisions. Know your part in the sales process. Your part is to clearly communicate who the program is for what the processes in the value of sad program. You’re part in there.

We are not here to convince people who are not good for our program or are not ready to make the investment that they need to make the investment now.

I do think that we can challenge people with narratives like are you ever going to be ready? And get in front of some of the common objections that come up. But at the end of the day we want people to feel good about their yes or their no.

So I kind of went off track there, but just note and keep an eye out for your own money mindset beliefs in your sales process or experiences.

Last consideration!

Personality types and experiences

All sales tactics don’t work on all people.

I’ve mentioned this before when I talk about launching or using copywriting to sell and create content for launches. But essentially, you want to make sure that you’re covering all of the possible reasons that someone would purchase from you. 

Some people need that emotional peace. They need to really feel like you understand where they’re at currently in the past experiences that this person has had.

Another person might be results driven. So they need to understand the promise in the result of the program that’s the driving force that’s their deciding factor. So we want to make sure that that is clear where maybe the more emotionally driven or compelled person cares less about that result.

And then we have the person who kind of dismisses the result and needs to understand the process. Cool you’re promising me “ask“ how are you going to make that happen? They need to see and understand the process by which the promise happens.

I have no idea if this is a legit thing or not. But maybe it lives in a sales book somewhere that I don’t know about. As always let me know.

Regardless, this has been my personal anecdotal experience with launching. And while I can’t indefinitely measure that this is successful in comparison to not addressing these different types of buyers, I hope you can see where having clarity in each of these sections would increase the likelihood for someone to feel informed about saying yes or no to your offer.

That’s it!

• 

• 

If you find value here, on The FitsPRO Podcast, then pretty please head over to iTunes, subscribe, rate and review the show. It means the world to me when you spread my message to more humans.

Want more podcasts? Click here to skim the archives.

P.S. Save this value packed episode for later over on Pinterest!

---

ALL THE LINKS YOU NEED:

Free On Demand Workshop: 3 Steps To Build a Profitable Online Health and Fitness Business

Free Resources

Supplements: Legion Athletics Code ANNIE for 20% off

Skincare: Fré Skincare Code FDBA for at least 15% off

Bags: Vooray Code ANNIE for 20% off