Today I am excited to welcome the lovely Victoria Fleming to the podcast. We all know that no one likes to talk about sales and when it comes to money, it’s often considered a taboo subject. Unfortunately, everyone needs to be able to sell their product and service so despite it being a topic that entrepreneurs don’t like to discuss, sometimes you need that all-important advice that will help you improve your sales strategy. As a sales expert, Victoria is just the person to show you how.

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST

• When it comes to marketing yourself and not your business, it can feel a lot more personal when someone says no.
• If you don’t feel 100% confident with what you’re selling, start collecting the good feedback you have. Include testimonials, projects that have gone well and compliments you receive online. Ultimately, that is what you’re selling – a bag full of amazingness.
• Entrepreneurs set up their business because they’re brilliant something, forgetting that there are lots of other things you need to consider too. Sales, of course, is one of those things.
• Not focussing on sales is like sitting there and waiting for the phone to ring.
• Being personal is important as often, when it comes to the internet, things can feel like a bit of a mass approach. If you’re more personal, your approach is always going to feel less like you’re trying to sell.
• It’s important to have conversations with your target audience.
• Think about your customer avatar in detail, including what their main struggles are in relation to your products and services. How can you solve their problems?
• One of the hardest things about sales is closing, however, there are steps you need to take in between that are just as important.
• The first thing you need to do is identify who the person in front of you is, then you need to ask them questions to find out more. Once you’ve repeated what their problem is, you can then introduce your solution.
• Don’t run away from objections, instead use it as an opportunity to ask questions. For example, if someone says they can’t afford you, you could say ‘okay, do you mind telling me a bit about the budget you do have in mind?’.

THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE…

Sales is about problem solving. Your products and services help people and solve their problems, so telling people to ‘buy you stuff’ is helping them. If you have a solution to someone’s problem, you should tell them.

HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN'T MISS

• Introducing Victoria – 03:00
• Marketing Businesses vs Marketing You – 04:15
• Why Do People Hate Selling? - 14:40
• Sales Is Like Problem Solving – 20:00
• Closing a Sale & The Sales Process- 28:35
• Dealing with Objections - 41:01

Transcript below

Hello, and welcome to 2020. This is my first official podcast of the new year and the new decade, and I am super excited about it. I have to say I always love a new year. I love that thought of a fresh start, tidying my desk, starting things afresh, writing a new notebook. It's so sad, starting my new planner, making goals, and as you know if you've been listening to the podcast I did some work a few weeks ago about setting new goals for this coming year. I've spent quite a bit of time doing that, and I've now done it. I am all up and ready for the new years, so I'm super, super excited about it.

What about you? Have you done your plans? Are you ready? Do you feel positive? I hope so. If not, come and find me. Come and give me a DM. Let me know what's up. Let me know what I can help you with because as you know I always want to make sure that I produce content, and create podcast episodes that really help you with your business, and today's is no exception.

Today I am really, really excited to welcome the lovely Victoria Flemming to the podcast. She is a sales expert. Now, we all hate that word. None of us like to sell really, I think if we're honest. We also don't like necessarily talking about money, and also if you sell a service that is your head effectively that can be really tricky but because sometimes it just doesn't feel like that is as easy to understand your pricing as maybe a product because you can easily work out a product pricing based on what does it cost to get in, what does it cost to deliver, et cetera, et cetera. Anyway, I've actually been at a few events with Victoria. We've spoken on the same stage, and she's a very engaging, great sales coach, and I just wanted to bring her on, and talk a bit about how we can get over this horrible feeling of selling. How can we actually do it in a way that isn't yucky, and doesn't feel gross, and that we're not comfortable with? That's exactly what we talk about today.

I really hope this is going to be a really good one to start with because ultimately this is what everybody needs. Everyone needs to sell their product and service, so unfortunately whether we like it or not we are going to have to do a bit of that. I'm really hoping that Victoria can show you the way in this episode, so I'm not going to go on any longer. I'm going to hand you straight over to Victoria.

Introducing Victoria

Okay, I am very excited for today's podcast episode with the super lovely Victoria Fleming. Victoria, how are you doing?

I'm doing great. I'm so excited, and I'm even more excited to see you on screen because what the listeners don't know is we can see each other.

Yes, always, and do you know I always do my interviews so I can see them. Sometimes because of quality and things you have to turn the cameras off, but I much prefer it because it's easier because you know what's someone's going to say. You know when they're about to speak. You can read their face and stuff, so yeah. I love it. All the interviews I've ever done pretty much most of them have been on camera, so I've got all these videos. I don't put them out because they're not part of the podcast, but yeah. I love being on screen, and I love seeing people, and I just have to say the day we're recording this obviously this is going to come out in quite a few weeks time, it's Halloween, and Victoria sat wearing these amazing flashing light cat ears. She's got a spider broach on, and she's held up some... What are they, Victoria? They're like-

They're skeleton gloves. They're amazing.

You've set the bar now. I feel like every time someone comes on, and I am going to have to screen shot this, which I will do, and I will put it in the show notes so that people can see how you're dressed. It's so funny. I love it. I love it. I love it.

Every day should be Halloween, shouldn't it? Dressing [inaudible 00:04:19] like this. Why not?

Marketing Businesses vs Marketing You

Do you know what? Having just come back from the States because they love Halloween, and boy do they do it well. Our friends live over there. I've got to quickly tell you this as we digress. Our friends live over there, and we stay with them in LA. They have no children. They're very grown up. They have a very nice life, and they would find anything like that, they're British, so the fact they live in the States I think they probably find that a little bit tacky. That's what they would think.

Anyway, my husband and I have often joked. If we had the money because we stay at that house, and they go off to work. We're like, "Wouldn't it be amazing if we had the money we could buy all these decorations, and they come back, and we have covered their house in Halloween everything." When I've got loads of money, and time that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to go over there-

[crosstalk 00:05:07] do that.

We're going to do that, and they're just going to be like, "What the hell have you don't to my house?" It's going to be hilarious.

Anyway, Victoria, in case my audience don't know who you are let's kick off, as always, with you telling us how you got to be doing what you're doing now.

I'm super lucky. I get to work with businesses now on how to sell more, which makes a dirty word for some people, but I love helping people sell more because I think if you sell more you can have a more fulfilled life. What's got me there is that I have 15 years in corporate. I think like so many of us you start in corporate, and actually I think we learn heaps like that because you get to move around. You get to work for other people. You get to meet different people, and I was really lucky because I had 10 years with a technology company, and in that company the last three years was actually working with individual businesses who were selling the software, so with resellers. What was brilliant was actually even at a corporate point in my career I was working with businesses on how to be more effective with their sales, and how to have more fun with them, because selling should be fun. Then I went to construction, did the same thing. Construction software, right through the recession. I was a bright spark. I thought, "This is a great move to make." I literally I went into that business, and construction fell off a cliff, so that was really tough because you were going out talking to businesses going through really, really tough times.

They didn't have business themselves, and again, that was a fabulous industry to work in, and come through the recession with that. Then I've been out on my own for nearly six years now because essentially I just go to the point where I thought, "You know what? All I want to do is help people sell." I want to help people address that challenge, and to be able to do that with loads of different businesses now it's pretty much a dream job actually. I know some people are just like, "Really? Why would you want to do that", but I really love it, and I get really excited when people I've worked with are excited about selling. I like it when I get the messages going, "Had a conversation. It went great." Or, a business comes back to me, and they say, "The team was so excited. Went back. We changed what we're doing, and this has been the result." I just love that. I love that instant success. It's like tick, success junkie.

Do you know what is so funny because you and I are both in jobs where we have to practise what we preach because if I'm no good at marketing, and you're no good at selling then we've got to make our own businesses successful because if we can't do it for ourselves we sure as hell won't be able to do it for anybody else, will we? Sometimes it's actually really hard, like I find you give me someone else's business, and my brain goes, "Oh yeah, I know how to do this." I literally go, "Here's an idea. Here's an idea. Here's an idea." I sit there on my own and I'm like, "What do I do?"

Do you find that the same with you? Are you much easier telling someone else how to sell than necessarily do it yourself?

It's really interesting. When I first set up, when I very, very first went, and went, "Yeah, I'm going to have this business", I did that thing I think we all do, which is you go, and you find some friends, don't you?

Yeah.

You go and find some networking groups. It was a disaster. It was just a disaster. I was just like, "What? Why am I having such a challenge with this." In the first couple of months I really, really struggled because it's that little old me factors. I think we all have little old me syndrome, and I think that we go, "Oh yeah, but nobody's going to actually want me because [crosstalk 00:08:54] rubbish really, aren't I, because it's me." I think we all have that little thing inside us, and it took me a little while to actually think, "What are you talking about? You're not about little old you. You are about your 15 years experience where you've delivered [inaudible 00:09:11] million pound results, where you've built and established teams, where you've made people so excited to sell that they've gone on to do amazing things in their lives, and their careers." You're not selling little old me. You're selling that. That is your package, all that experience, all those results. That's what you're selling.

It was almost, it was quite interesting, it was almost like a switch flicked for me because up until that point I'd always sold other people, other things, other products, other services. All of a sudden I think you're right. It then becomes you, and it's personal because you think, "Well, what if someone says no?" Actually you can feel like I think somebody's saying no to you, but to you personally, and it's like if you go and ask a boy out on a date, and he says, "No." It's like-

Yeah, it's a wounder, like literally. It's like straight in the pit of my stomach, oh my God. What's wrong with me? You're entirely right. I think that's the interesting thing because again, I had always marketed businesses, other businesses, I wasn't the business, and it was easy to do because I could see what they were brilliant at, and I could get excited about that, and I could be like, "You're amazing at this. Tell everybody." I could come from a point of view of it's not me. It's someone else, and if it's easy for you to really see, and praise that other person. Trying to do that for yourself is inherently not what we do. We don't sit and go, "Man, I'm awesome. Geez I'm good at this." Then feel like you can say, get an instastory, "Do you know how good I am?" We don't do that because, one, we're not very good at it, and I think maybe there's a British element in that as well. Obviously as we were just talking about [inaudible 00:10:56], and I do a lot of stuff in the States. Do you think they're better than we are at that?

But, like you said, with our worlds, because we come from corporate and other businesses, we've done it for everybody else, and doing it for yourself suddenly is then very like, "Oh, this is not feeling great", like how do I do this where I don't feel like I'm literally saying, "Man, I'm amazing, buy my stuff."

I think one of the things I quite often do with people now is I'm really keen. I think it's really helpful in service business is to prioritise, to actually put together, and your services into almost a product, like into a box, and say that, "This is what I do. This is how I do it. Would you like to buy it?" I think that it makes it easier for us to talk about. It think it also gives us a little bit of a degree of separation as well. I do my workshops actually. We make gift bags, so do you all know how to make gift bags, Teresa, because this is like you've got to.

What you have to do, you have to go to the shop, and the gift bag shop. You have to buy the best gift bag in the world. For me, mine's sparkly. It's got holographic things on it. Buy a really good one though that you're really excited about. Then what you need to do is you need to start and think, "This is what I'm selling. I'm selling this bag", so every time you get a nice tweet print it out, cut it out, put it in the bag. Every time you get a thank you card put it in the bag. Every time you're thinking, "I did a great job with that client" write it down. Put it in the bag. Every testimonial, put it in the bag because actually that's what you're selling. I've even got my professional institute certificate in the bag because that's part of... That's what I'm selling. I'm selling this bag full of amazing-ness. I think that that's really helpful

It's really interesting. I was at an event, and somebody who'd been at my workshop and went, "I've got to show you." They went in their handbag, and they pulled out this really battered bag, like all split down, all overflowing with... "I take it everywhere."

That's amazing.

I was like, "Why shouldn't you? This is what you're selling. This is how amazing you are", but I think that by default we just dismiss that and move on.

Yeah, and we do. We're not very good at that because when I think about when someone has said something to you not nice, or someone has commented, or said no to your service, or whatever, we hang onto that for ages, or we can do. It's something that I think the more you do it the more you work on letting go of it, and going, "That's not about me", or "I shouldn't need to hold onto that." But, like you said, people say lovely things, and even in our responses we dismiss it straight away. We're like, "Oh, thanks so much", move on. You don't even want to have a conversation about it because you don't know how to respond. Funny enough, I do have a folder on my computer. I now am going to buy a really beautiful bag to put it in. It's called Teresa Love, which sounds a little bit egotistical, but it's like every time someone does an amazing tweet, or says thank you, or sends me a DM, or anything it all goes in there because like you said, sometimes on those days where you're like, "Man, I'm rubbish. Man, what am I doing? Who do I think I am? I can't help people. This is going wrong. This is doing this."

You need to go back and remind yourself as well as which I think's a great idea, the fact that you're looking, and going, "Look, this is what I'm selling. I'm not selling me. I'm selling all these amazing things I've done." But, also to go back and go, "I am all right. I am pretty good at this stuff, so maybe."

Why Do People Hate Selling?

Let's start off by talking about we need to address why do people hate selling. I remember seeing you at Andrew and Pete's ATOMICON. I think that's where we... No, I think we'd met previously, just briefly, at an event of theirs. Then we both spoke at ATOMICON this year. You sort of said, "Who here loves selling?" You must do it on every tour call. That's definitely a line that you're coming in with because everybody's, "No."

That resounding silence.

Yeah, they're all looking at` you like, "Are you crazy?" Why don't people like it?

I think there's a couple different things about it. I think especially for entrepreneurs, I think it's a particular challenge because quite often the reason why entrepreneurs have set up a business is because they're brilliant at something. You're brilliant at marketing. Some people are brilliant at building websites. They're brilliant at doing copyright, and they're brilliant at something. Sooner or later there's been a light bulb that's gone, "Wouldn't it be amazing if I could just do that for the rest of my life?" We all go, "Yeah, that'll be amazing. Let's set up a business." Then we set up that business, and realise it's all this other stuff we've got to do. I think some of that is a bit self-explanatory. You have to do accounts. You have to do admin, but I think the thing that people don't consider is they suddenly go, "How am I going to get people to buy my stuff?"

It's that moment, and I think quite often then people fall into this thing if they do loads of marketing. Marketing, it's a little bit more removed. You can send emails, or you can put things on the internet. It's not very personal.

Absolutely, and it can be very passive. It's like you're not really... It depends what kind of marketing you do, but if you don't want to you don't really have to put your neck out on the line, do you? You just kind of go, "I'll just send this, and if nothing happens nothing happens. That's fine."

Yeah, it's a bit like that. You're just sitting there waiting for the phone to ring. Sooner or later I think that most people have a moment where they're like, "I've got to do more than this. I'm going to have to start to sell." A lot of people have never had any experience of selling. Did you ever get taught how to...