How To Sell Authentically and Have Fun With Your Marketing
You feel uncomfortable selling, and yet, the difference between a hobby and a business is sales.
In case we haven’t met yet - I’m Em and I am a marketing and sales expert. My passion is supporting, educating, and inspiring biz owners to feel more at ease with their online sales experience. PSA: Sales gets to feel good!. I’ve worked with hundreds of business owners to help them make friends with marketing, sales, and promotion so they can make an impact and an income - all in a way that feels fucking good.
MAKE IT HUMAN
For you to start enjoying your sales process, you need to make it more human. The reason most of us hate sales is because at some point we’ve been sold to in a sleazy way, and somewhere along the line we’ve decided all selling is bad.
Selling often feels gross because it’s coming from a cookie-cutter strategy and therefore feels sleazy and inauthentic. Have you ever thought of selling and suddenly had a vision of Danny Devito as a sleazy car salesperson in Matilda? You’re not alone.
The good news is that you can change up the way you sell so you start enjoying it way more, and the world of online business is changing. Gone are the days when you have to convince people to buy from you. Selling is much more enjoyable when you put people before profit.
Here’s how you can enjoy selling more, and start having some fun!
FOCUS ON THE VALUE NOT THE INCOME
It’s easy when you’re selling to focus on the numbers - the targets, the money, the number of sales…. But what happens when you do that is you lose sight of WHY you started your business in the first place. I encourage my clients to go back to their ‘why’ - why did they start a business, what value are they giving to their audience? Focus on sharing that instead of becoming fixated on where the next sale is coming from and your selling will feel much more soulful.
STOP SELLING TO PAINPOINTS
The term ‘pain points’ has become a buzzword in online sales, with online sales gurus encouraging you to identify people's pain points and use those to drive sales. Ie. selling to someone focusing solely on the things that they are worried about. This can mean you are preying on peoples vulnerabilities and they can be left with a sense that without your product they have no hope. Not a cool place to sell from. Whereas if you focus on selling to peoples goals. Ie. the things they want to accomplish and their desires they tend to feel much more empowered and excited. Meaning they’re more likely to make a buying decision that’s right for them, not because they feel bad, but because they feel inspired.
MAKE YOUR CUSTOMERS FEEL SEEN AND HEARD
At the end of the day, people just want to feel understood. This is why it’s crucial to get to know your customers really fucking well. Ask them questions. Speak to your target market regularly. Understand their struggles, their goals, their fears. Get specific on who they are as a person and what drives them. When you’re selling to someone, unless you know exactly what they need from you, it makes it really hard to know what to say and what to sell. People want to feel seen and know that you actually care about them, not that you’re just out to make a quick buck. An example of this would be if you sell on IG, only posting content that screams “buy this thing from me” won’t make people feel seen. Whereas if your content helps them in some way - either educating, inspiring, motivating, or reassuring them, they will feel much more understood and therefore are way more likely to buy from you.
YOU CAN MAKE AN INCOME AND AN IMPACT
Your mindset is key when it comes to selling and most importantly, enjoying selling. Remind yourself every time you’re about to do a big launch, or sell to your audience that you are worthy of both making an impact within your industry AND making an income. The two are not mutually exclusive. You deserve to make money. You deserve to build a successful business. You deserve to have all of your needs met. And as soon as you teach yourself that it’s safe to sell, it’s safe to be seen, it;s safe to make money - your sales process becomes a heck of a lot more fun!
