You can be incredibly busy in your business and still avoid selling.

You can be creating content, updating your website, working on your messaging, serving clients, tweaking your prices, taking another course and telling yourself you’re doing all the right things. But when did you last do something that could directly lead to somebody buying from you?

In this episode of the Good Girl Rebellion Podcast, Anna is joined by sales expert and business growth strategist Anna Payne to talk about what she calls “Anything But Sales”: all the useful, productive-looking things we can do in business while avoiding the part that involves making an offer, following up or actually asking someone to buy.

They explore why “I don’t want to be salesy” can sometimes mean something more vulnerable: I don’t want to ask. I don’t want to hear no. They talk about the difference between marketing and selling, why visibility alone does not create a sales process, and why selling your own expertise can feel so much more exposing than selling on behalf of a company or brand.

Anna Payne also shares her own experience of working for free, undercharging and avoiding calling herself an expert despite years of sales experience, and why overgiving can sometimes become another way of avoiding the sale. Together they look at how Don’t Ask for Too Much, Stay Humble and other Invisible Rules can show up in the way we sell without us necessarily recognising them as sales problems.

There is also plenty of practical advice. Anna explains why she starts every working day with 30 minutes of “Sales First”, how to think about the different stages of a sales process, and why the goal of follow-up is not to pressure someone into saying yes but to help them make a decision.

If you have ever told yourself that people know where you are if they want to work with you, spent hours on marketing while avoiding the actual ask, or found yourself giving more and charging less because selling yourself feels uncomfortable, this episode will help you look at sales differently.

It’s time.

About Anna Payne

Anna is a sales expert and business growth strategist with more than 25 years’ experience across sales, leadership and entrepreneurship. She has built and scaled three successful businesses, sold millions of pounds of services and consultancy internationally, and is the author of the bestselling book Everything You’ve Been Taught About Sales Is Wrong (Probably). She also hosts the How to Make More Sales podcast.

https://www.annapayne.online/

https://www.annapayne.online/quiz