Are you a tutor or education business owner who wants to grow without feeling salesy? In this episode, I share how to sell through real connection and understand your clients’ true motivations.

I explain why selling the transformation matters more than features and how to simplify your offers to make it easy for clients to say yes.

You will learn practical ways to build trust, improve sales conversations and stand out in the tutoring and education market.

Enjoy :-)

Sumantha

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👋🏽 Hello! I'm Sumantha McMahon and I've supported over 100 tutors and education business owners.

As a teacher 'dropout' turned professional tutor, combined with my 20+ years as a business owner, I'm in it with you!

My training leans on tried-and-tested methods that are completely tailored to our niche.

There's no generic business advice here!

Work with me to breathe life into YOUR definition of success:

#1 Bespoke 1:1 Mentoring

Goal-driven wrap-around support, with 1:1 strategy calls, WhatsApp support and free access to The Tutors' Mastermind.

#2 The Tutors' Mastermind

The leading membership for edupreneurs that combines tailored training (live and recorded), a community of like-minded business owners and exclusive discounts to resources in The Training Jukebox.

#3 The Group Class Course

Get lifetime access to this self-paced course designed to help you launch, grow and refine your group classes. Includes teaching ideas too.

This podcast is recorded using Riverside. Sign up for your account here (free plan available)

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Sometimes, I share links to resources and apps that I recommend. They are all based on my experience - if I don't love them, I don't recommend them. In some cases, I earn a small commission for my recommendation, at no cost to you.

© 2024 Sumantha McMahon

In this episode, we are going deep into sales in a way where we really connect with people. I think we often assume that if you pay for ads or you do things that just don't feel quite as grounded as speaking to people as part of your sales process, then you have to be salesy. You have to be pushy. I'm here to tell you that doesn't have to be true.

If you do this one thing that I'm delving into in this episode, your sales will transform while still being driven by connection instead of being driven by being pushy. I really can't wait to share it with you because whenever I teach this to my clients, my favourite moment is when I see that expression on their face where they suddenly get it.

They suddenly realise that they can relax into sales, and they can actually sell in a way where they're doing what they do best, which is building relationships and connecting with people. Enjoy. You may have heard the expression that you don't sell a drill, you sell the hole that it makes. It's a very common kind of copywriting principle.

Or you don't talk about how a pencil is hexagonal in shape when you're trying to sell it. You talk about how it is designed specifically so it doesn't roll off the table. The point with these examples is that when we sell, we really want to make sure that we are selling the transformation and the benefits that our clients actually care about.

Not the features that we might care about, because we designed that thing, and that's where I'm going to start with this episode, how to really tap into what your clients actually care about. We've all seen the common and generic advice about selling the benefits and not the features. We've seen it everywhere.

But on its own, that advice doesn't stand much strength because it only actually works if you are talking about the benefits that matter to your ideal client. And this means getting to know your clients really, really well, or getting to know your target audience really well. Either way to sell successfully, you have to be able to speak a language that's palatable to your ideal customer.

A really great way to do this is to repeat their words back to them, but just going beyond that, you also need to understand what they care about and why they care about it. Most situations we are in is just a trigger point. So if someone invests in business coaching with me, let's say, it's not because they're just looking as far as the business coaching and the result they might get.

They're looking, they're being driven by the why. They're thinking about the opportunities it will unlock. They're thinking about their future. They're thinking about how, what they're learning and how they can rinse and repeat that. So it's not just about the thing that you are buying. Just taking another example.

Let's say I'm speaking to a parent whose child is studying for GCSEs. The exams you take when you're around 16 now. For if you're not in the UK, these are national exams that normally 16 year olds take. Now when a parent hires me, their desire isn't solely going to be driven by the fact that they just want their child to do well in these exams.

Or by the fact that maybe their child is disengaged at the moment or they have specific concerns. Yes, that might be the kind of catalyst, but it's not their why. That's what made them book the call perhaps. But the impact they want goes much further. When I speak to that parent, I need to understand why this matters to them.

Why they want to take action now, not later. I need to understand why it's a priority, so I need to understand their why, and it's really important because their child isn't very engaged or isn't very academic, or maybe they need a certain grade in my subject for the next step, like going to college.

So I need to understand, is that their focus or is it because that parent knows that their child is on this trajectory that's going to lead them to amazing opportunities to do A levels to go to university or whatever it might be. Maybe they're heading towards a particular career. The point is that we are part of someone's journey.

When we are talking about the whole and not the drill or about the sizzle and not the sausage, the point is when we go back to that drill example where we sell the hole and not the drill, or when you're selling sausages you sell the sizzle. When we think about what we are selling, we are going beyond the immediate benefits.

We're going beyond the obvious benefits as well of using a service and product. People know what they're buying. Generally, you don't need to tell them about it as such, we need to connect with their why. So if I was a pencil seller, I could talk about how smoothly it writes and how easy it is to sharpen.

But does that make it any different from any other pencil? Not really. Most of them are quite smooth and they're easy to sharpen because that's kind of a fundamental purpose and function of a pencil. So if I was talking about my tuition services, I could talk about the benefits of group classes and the benefits of one-to-one classes.

I could talk about how my students increase in confidence and I could talk about how they get good grades. I could talk about all of that and it's all fine. And all of that might also be true, and it might be something that people care a little bit about, but it's very surface level. What they really care about, what they care more about.

Is how it's going to impact their child on the journey that they're on. They want to know how I can help that child on their journey. And so that's what I need to tap into. That's what I need to connect with, whether I'm having a conversation, providing a testimonial, writing a social media post.

Whatever my form of communication and messaging is, it becomes a lot more powerful. That kind of content leads to sales when you go beyond the generic benefits and when you go beyond the obvious transformations. It's when you tell stories about journeys because that's what's going to connect, that's what's going to resonate with someone reading it.

So when you are selling what you offer, think about how you can blend stories that your clients really care about into your content, into your website, into your sales calls. They have to be things that are meaningful to your clients. Yes, people do need to know features. They need to know what time my lessons are.

They need to know the price. They need to know that stuff because it forms part of their decision. But that comes later. It comes much later because first we need to connect in order to get them to the point where that part feels like a real investment. We have to tap into the journey that they're on and the transformation that they specifically need.

Now when you do this, when you wrap this into your sales, it creates real connection with people even if you've never met them. And it's also something that you should be bringing into your sales call. I'm going to call them sales calls. They could be called consultations, discovery calls, whatever.

Having these conversations, you need to understand the purpose. It's not necessarily to sell, it's to get people ready to buy. A really crucial part of that process is to understand what's driving them. It's not just to understand what grade their child's on or what they're struggling with. That's important.

We want to know where people are right now and where they want to be, and we want to know whether they can make that Wednesday lesson at 4:00 PM. But to get to that point, to make sure that you are making that sale in a way that feels good, that feels connected, you want to make sure that you're also finding out their why.

Why does this matter to them? What hopes and dreams do they have? How are you going to facilitate some of that? Another thing that I want to share that has really transformed sales for my clients is to remove Plan Bs. Here's what I mean. Let's say you offer a couple of payment options.

There's one payment option, which is full payment, and the other one is where they get to spread that cost. Maybe they get to pay in instalments. Now your preference is probably that that person makes full payment because you're taking less liability. There are less risks and less admin headaches.

But the mistake that most people make is when they're on these calls, they offer both of these options. In that situation, you want to remove that plan B, the instalments. You want to only offer the full payment if that is your preference, and you only want to offer the instalment option if someone really needs that.

One of the reasons is because we don't want the focus being on whether or not they want to part with their money. We want to be helpful. So if someone says, that's going to be really hard for me to pay the full amount because of cash flow in that situation, you can then say, well, would it help if I offered an instalment plan to you?

Would that be better? What that means is that you have almost a layer between the, I can't afford or I don't want to part with that money, you have a layer between that objection and the result because you've added a backup. Another reason is because we want to make decisions easy for people.

The more options we give them, actually the more friction we are adding to that decision making process. Because now they have to not only decide if they're going to go for it, they then have to decide which option to go for, and they need to weigh up the pros and cons. It just adds delays.

It adds friction. It makes decision making difficult. So whenever we can, we want to really streamline the number of options we present people, even if there are other options, you don't have to make them visible. There are things that you can only make visible when and if you need them.

So you can implement this in many different ways. How many offers you present on your website and so on. But the point is, if you always have a fallback plan that covers you in case someone hesitates or in case they say no, then it will translate and transfer into the energy you bring when you are selling.

You will come across as being afraid. You'll be afraid of saying, this is how much I charge, what do you think? And then just pausing. You're going to want to fill that gap. So it's really worth bringing that confidence to the table and presenting one option. Even if it feels scary, it's still worth it.

Because it makes it so much easier for your client to make a decision. It also makes it easier for you to offer them something else if that's what they need. It's like you're going through this route. It's like a flow chart. You are going through this route where it forks at certain points.

But if you just remove all the lines from the flow chart and just have all the boxes together, it gets quite overwhelming. So we want to take kind of a logical journey when we're selling based on what that person needs at every single stage. So if you want to give this a go, and I promise it's really worth trying.

Here is something to try. What I want you to do is just choose one thing that you're selling right now. Be as specific as possible. So we don't want something like tuition, that's what I'm selling. It might be a one-to-one offer, it might be to a specific group of people, a particular cohort.

Now, I want you to imagine that that's the only thing you sell, your bills, your livelihood is totally reliant on making a certain number of sales for that one thing. You don't have a backup plan. You don't have money coming in anywhere else. Now go and sell it using all of the methods that you currently use.

You'll notice such a shift in your energy because now you have focus, now you've got skin in the game, so to speak, and you have a target of how many sales you want to make, and you have the motivation to make them because you don't have a plan B. Just thinking along those lines really trains you.

It doesn't change how you communicate. This doesn't change your personality. It doesn't even change how you sell as such. What it does is it brings a different energy to your process. It brings a different level of focus, and it means that things are more streamlined and actually easier for your clients.

It's a win-win situation, and it's effective because if you are enthusiastic and if you are confident, and if you are focused, the person who is in front of you will mirror that. Whether it's in a sales call, whether it's through your marketing, they will also feel excitement behind the thing that you are offering.

They will feel confident that what you're offering is something that can really help them, and they won't have an ounce of confusion about what you offer and what the next steps are. They won't wonder, hang on, what do I do next? How do I need to message them? Do I press a button? Where's the link?

None of that, because you've been really streamlined. As business owners in the education space, connection and relationships are arguably more important than many other industries because what we offer, whether it's a product or a service, it affects another human being in a very emotive way.

It affects their feelings, it affects their feelings of feeling safe. There's a lot of things in it. It's high stakes. Thank you for listening to this episode. Please remember to subscribe or leave a review.