I need to hit a sales target soon, where do I start
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Brooke Greening: I need sales now.
Scott Greening: Yeah. And hopefully not too many people are in that situation, but that's a reality that we face.
Brooke Greening: And it's a highly emotional conversation as well. It's a high ticket sale. I don't know how much more emotional you can get from, there's guilt involved, there's multiple people involved. It's a huge financial investment that's going on and there's just all of these things going on and you're expected to actually sell through all of that in a way that's authentic and helping them.
It is frustrating when you need sales and you feel that pressure and that overwhelm, anxiety, whatever emotion, it's, they're big feels.
You need to find the customers that you already have. Find the customers you already have. And what I mean by that is you have more customers than you think.
So many times we think so much about our business, but just because we're thinking about it doesn't mean that anybody else is.
Scott Greening: Hello, and welcome to another episode of Sippin' Matcha and Helping You Make More Sales. I'm your host, Scott Greening, and I will be joined by my co-owner of Building Momentum Resources and matcha drinker Brooke Greening, and most importantly for this, conversation Sales Coach, we're excited to have a good conversation with you today about another question that's come up in Brooke's sales training.
Here's the deal. we'd love to hear from you. We'd love to get your questions and to feature them on one of our episodes. So if you could go to buildingmomentum.info/matcha and submit your questions. We'd love to include you in a future episode. Remember, these can be anonymous. We'd love to have your best creative pseudonym, but that's not even required.
You can just leave it blank and we'll look forward to answering your question. Let's bring Brooke in. We have both been breezing in from a little vacation beach days. It's summertime, and we're excited that Brooke's got her iced matcha. In a very festive beach cup that always makes,
Brooke Greening: it's my seashells.
Scott Greening: I don't even ever know how to hold that cup. It's very awkward for me, but I'm glad that you like it, alright, so Brooke, here is today's question. I need to hit a sales target soon. Like yesterday, where do I start? Where do I start?
Brooke Greening: Mm. Oh man. That happens so often. I actually hear that question on a regular basis.
So if that's what you're feeling, like you're not alone at all. Let's just talk about for a second in regards to why that happens and why we might be feeling that. But the first thing is in regards to they need sales. Now, something may have happened where they had a great month that they made all their sales that they need, but now, like we're at the end of July, and so you start to look into August and you're like, oh, where are my sales coming from?
I need sales. We're like, on this sales rollercoaster, we're going up and down and up and down. Another reason why people usually are saying, I need sales now is because maybe they've done everything right. They've done their expenses, they've had sales, all of that, but something happened. Either they really wanna go on a great vacation, or they're, heaven forbid there was a car accident, or their air conditioner died, or whatever it is.
Scott Greening: Hey there, momentum Builders. It's Scott here from Sippin' Matcha and helping you make more sales. We're so glad that you're part of our podcast family. If you're finding this content valuable, could I ask you to do us a favor? Would you leave a review on your favorite podcast platform where you listen and connect with us at?
We'd love to, to hear your feedback, to connect with you, to see your comments, and it would help us get the word out about this podcast. Have a great day. Let's get back to the episode.
Brooke Greening: And they need an influx of cash now. They need sales now. And then the other piece is, and what I see quite often is it's been a bad pattern. For quite a while. And what I mean by bad is they're not doing anything bad, but their sales are not coming in consistently. And and they don't have new sales, so maybe they have clients that they've had in the past and they're like on a retainer, but they don't have new sales coming in.
And so that is making it tighter and tighter and tighter. So they have to start looking at laying people off. They have to start looking at what are we gonna actually do for our business? Because it's been going on for months, and they're just like, we can't afford to have another month like this. I need sales now.
Scott Greening: Yeah. And hopefully not too many people are in that situation, but that's a reality that we face. And oftentimes that's where you may enter the picture as a sales coach. I didn't want to gloss over like in the spirit of fun and vacations in that, that, that second thing of Hey, I wanna pay for, I need to pay for something.
Okay, sure. That could be like an unexpected. Car accident or a tax bill or something like that. It could also be something really fun like a vacation or
You know, your ski, we're gonna have a school bill for our son coming up. You know, like these things that are important and good and you're like, Hey, I just, I need to make some more sales.
And so there's a variety of ways that somebody might be feeling this.
Brooke Greening: Yeah,
Scott Greening: pressure and
Brooke Greening: for like us, our kids are desperately wanting to go to Disney and we're like, okay, then these are how many sales we're gonna need to do.
To be able to hit that.
Scott Greening: Yeah. Let's talk about this.
I know that you actually for a season in your sales career, you were like the person that came in and had to get sales going quickly in some circumstances. So what was that like? Where, when did you do that? How did that go?
Brooke Greening: Yeah. I was what was called a sales specialist, and so that is when we're on the corporate side, and they are hiring you to go into the senior living communities and help because things are not going the way that they need to. Either that director of sales, the person who's in charge of the sales for that community is leaving, or they've struggled, or whatever the case is.
They bring us in to start figuring out, okay, what's wrong? Why are we not hitting the sales that we need to, and what do we need to do immediately to alleviate that? Our goal literally was get in there as quickly as we could find the problem as quickly as we can fix it, train 'em head out. That's what we did.
Scott Greening: Yeah. So you've been in these use situations, you know what it's like and whether it's like your job that you just get to have this repeated anxiety of needing sales or whether it's. It's just a season that, that you enter in and need that. I know as we've stepped into like our own business in that, and many of our listeners and people that engage with us may have their own business yeah.
You feel that in a, maybe in a unique way that is even more pronounced because it feels like your family's on you, your future, your everything is all on you.
Brooke Greening: Yeah, a hundred percent. It is so true. So when I was, when I worked with Sunrise, I would go in and I did feel a lot of that pressure 'cause that was my job.
And it's a highly emotional conversation as well. It's a high ticket sale. I don't know how much more emotional you can get from, there's guilt involved, there's multiple people involved. It's a huge financial investment that's going on and there's just all of these things going on and you're expected to actually sell through all of that in a way that's authentic and helping them. And so I thought, okay that's what it is. I had no idea. Then when we became our own business owners, all of the pressure that can come into that, because again, you're either looking at, I need to make sales or I have to go back to my corporate job.
Like those are the, those tensions that you can face. And so I've talked to many, many clients who have come to me at that point and said. I really don't know what to do next. This is not working, and I don't want to have to go get another job. I want to continue in our business, but I don't know what to do.
Scott Greening: So let's come back. You've had the experience. You've done this, you've been in that seat. You've gone in and you are successful as a sales specialist. You have awards and all of those types of things that, that you did, but. The person here one of your coaching clients where this question came from, was asking like where do I start? So what would be the principles? What would you help people to understand and to think through?
Brooke Greening: The very first thing that I wanna encourage, we're gonna talk about three things today. The first thing is I. You to take a deep breath.
It is frustrating when you need sales and you feel that pressure and that overwhelm, anxiety, whatever emotion, it's, they're big feels. That you're having, but you need to take a deep breath and know that it's going to be okay. The things that we're gonna talk about today are going to help you to keep moving forward, but you have to take a deep breath because if you don't and you start having sales conversations, when you're in this frenzy, it is going to come off.
That's when we start coming across as desperate and needy and that they have to be able to buy from us because they have to help us, and none of that. Is what we wanna do in our sales conversations, and none of that actually builds trust with our potential clients. So the very first thing is just take a deep breath, and then we're gonna get to work.
We're gonna start fixing it.
Scott Greening: All right? So let's do that now, everyone, wherever you're listening from let's take a deep breath. Inhale, eh? Yeah. All right. Put us to work, Brooke. What do we, where do we go from there?
Brooke Greening: Then the very first thing you wanna look at. Is, do you have a clear offer?
If you do not have something that you can talk to your potential client about that they could make a decision to be able to work with you today, and it's gonna take multiple conversations to be able to even figure out if it's a good fit or not. That's not a great sales strategy. That is going to be hard if you have to reinvent the wheel every single time that you wanna be able to talk, wanna be able to sign on a new client or whatever the case is, especially in the service industry, that is really difficult because it just prolongs everything.
I am not saying to be clear that you can't have those customizable options. You absolutely can. But is there something that you can start to offer them that helps them to start working with you, that's gonna start helping solve their problems? If there's not, you need to start looking into that because if you know, Hey, my sales cycle takes six months.
We've got a little bit of a problem. What can we do to be able to maybe not necessarily change what you're offering, but what else could we add so that they could start to work with you sooner?
Scott Greening: Yeah we try to think about this and if you need to make money fast, you need to be able to sell it.
Like sell things fast. You need to be able to tell people like, Hey, like we've had a good conversation. Buy now,
Brooke Greening: you can buy today.
Scott Greening: Like we can do this now. And so that, to have those at least one offer set up to do that. I know you also help sometimes people think about a value ladder or a product ladder, and maybe how does that relate into this kind of buy now point.
Brooke Greening: The pieces a lot of times. Clients are not going to jump from zero to 10,000 immediately. And sometimes you don't necessarily want that. So when I'm working with agencies and we're talking about retainer clients and things like that, and like where we're like in a locked long-term relationship with them, it's better to have something that we can both test the waters out and make sure it's going to be a good fit.
And so that's what we're talking about, like what can you be able to offer them? That is gonna help them solve the problems that they have, it's gonna help start to do that. And they can actually make that decision today. They could say, yes, you know what, that's something I wanna do. And you have it all wrapped up on your side that you can be able to do that.
That's the very first piece. You can't, you usually can't jump from zero to a hundred thousand right out the back.
Scott Greening: Yeah. And I think for a lot of companies because of internal controls and that type of thing. It's maybe harder to get people to sign up for recurring costs, but Yes. But even if it is a bigger investment and it's just a one time project type of thing it's an easier yes.
For people. So to have those types of offers that are at least available, even if your end game, is I wanna to have a retainer, I want to be a fractional leader in your organization. I wanna to have an ongoing relationship to get that foot in the door offer.
Yeah,
to get started with
Brooke Greening: and the other, yes, you're absolutely right.
And then just the other pieces, and we can do a whole podcast on this in regards to like offers and what do I charge and all of that. But it's just important to know if you can't actually tell someone what they can do to work with you on that first call, it's just going to be really difficult to be able to make those sales that you're wanting to be able to do.
Doesn't mean you have to change anything. It doesn't mean you have to change your values. It doesn't mean you have to offer things at a lower investment. Like you just need to start thinking what is something that I could offer them that would help them and help us move forward in this relationship?
Scott Greening: All right, so the first idea, first principle was clarify your offers. What? What else do you have for us, Brooke?
Brooke Greening: You need to find the customers that you already have. Find the customers you already have. And what I mean by that is you have more customers than you think. So many times, if someone says no, then we're just done.
We don't ever try to follow up. We don't have any other plans. We're just like, whoa, okay. They said, no, I gotta respect that. I'm moving on. Instead of actually trying to understand, is it No completely, is it? No, not right now, is it? No, that I've got, they've got other things going on, like one, we need to get that clarified.
But then two, we have way more customers than we think and so I work with my clients to have different sections where customers go when we have a sales conversation, are they gonna buy within the first 30 days? Are they gonna buy within 30 to 60 days? Are they gonna buy within 60 to 90 days? You should know after every sales conversation where they are going to land.
And then that's what I mean by you have more customers than you think. Who can you talk to that you've already worked with before, and what could you offer them? Who can you talk to that you talked to six months ago? They didn't say, never call me again. I never wanna talk to you, but it just wasn't the right time or whatever the case is, that you could be able to reintroduce your services.
You have way more customers than you think, but if you don't have any way of actually tracking that, then they're just gone. It's out of sight, out of mind, and you have no idea those type of people that would be ready it. The people that have actually talked to you and were interested in what you did are the very first people that we go to when they say, Hey, I need more sales and I need 'em now.
Scott Greening: Yeah. The statistically speaking, like the people that are most likely to buy from you are the ones that have already bought from you, and then yeah. Beyond that are the people that are already familiar to you and maybe they haven't purchased, but they're aware of you, they've had good conversations with you and focusing your efforts on those people is a great place to start. And you already have their contact info. You already Yeah. You already know how to get in touch with them. You can call them, you can email them depending on your business. Like you could show up and take them out, bring coffee to them or take them out to lunch or whatever the case may be in your particular business.
But you can interact with those people. And that, yeah. And then sorry, were you, go ahead.
Brooke Greening: I was just going to say sometimes when we share that clients get nervous and they're like, but they didn't reach out to me. So they feel like how dare I go to them and try to share something because they didn't actually ask me.
But I would push back and say, how many people have actually gotten upset at you for just sharing something that you feel could benefit them? The worst thing they're going to say is, Hey, I appreciate you thinking about me, but this just isn't a good fit right now. That's the worst thing. If you had a good relationship with them and you worked with them and you provided results for them, going to turn you away and say, you're a horrible person.
Or say, stop spamming me, or whatever the case is. But those are the thoughts we have in our head, and that's why we don't usually do it.
Scott Greening: Yeah. And oftentimes, even if it is the wrong time not to go down this rabbit hole too much, but even if it isn't the right time for them currently, they may be like, oh yeah, you know what?
I'm not like ready, or, I don't need your services right now, but I just had a conversation with so and so. And I think they could really benefit from you. And so it, it leads to new business and other opportunities that way. Yeah. Alright, so we've talked about clarifying offers. We've talked about realizing and finding the customers that you already have and that you have more customers than you think.
Got anything else for us? I think there's one more. One more thing. As we were comparing notes beforehand,
Brooke Greening: you need to practice business development. And what I mean by that is we gotta make sure is our marketing on target? Are we getting the actual leads? If you are not getting people who want what you have and can afford what you offer, then we have a little bit of a market.
We have a marketing problem because you're not getting the leads that you need. If you have the leads that you need, but they're just not turning into sales, then that's when we're saying we have a sales problem. But for your business development. Doing to let people know who you are and to be able to develop those leads.
So many times we think so much about our business, but just because we're thinking about it doesn't mean that anybody else is. So you have to get your marketing on point. But then the second piece is, let's talk about referral development, because that is a big piece too. You can't have just one or the other.
You need marketing to help you bring in leads and good referral connections. You need both. And so if. In order to do that, you need to get out there and start talking to people. And sometimes people are like, I'm not entirely sure what to do or where to go. 'cause there's so many different networking groups or networking makes their skin crawl, whatever the case is.
And I just encourage whatever group you choose, wherever you choose to go, whether the chamber or other groups, check two things. One, are my ideal clients there? If they are great, that's a great place to go. Or two. Are the people who know my ideal A clients there, the ones who interact with my ideal, A clients on a regular basis, but we don't actually offer the same services.
Are they gonna be in this group? That's a great thing to do as well, and start having conversations with them. You need to be practicing business development on a regular basis. It will make a big difference so you don't have this feast and famine. It's the type of situation.
Scott Greening: Yeah. And I know like for you, when you were in your sales specialist role, that was one of the things so you worked your database, you found your customers in that. But often in those circumstances, for whatever reasons the referral network hadn't really been engaged for.
Brooke Greening: Oh yeah, a hundred percent
Scott Greening: a period of time.
And so you had to go reintroduce yourself to people introduce the business to people and get on their radar.
Brooke Greening: Yeah. A hundred percent. And that's what's going to happen. You're going to know, and I don't say this like I'm all knowing by any means, but it's not hard for me to figure out where the problems are in sales. We're either looking at, okay, do we have any type of relationships that are bringing in leads? If we don't, okay, what happened with that?
And are we doing what we need to with the leads that are coming in? Those are usually the two places where the holes are at, and when you have 'em, the holes in both of those places, that's when things really get dicey.
Scott Greening: Great. This is, this has been good. You've said throughout Hey I, this is often where clients and that, that get, and I know that you help clients virtually all of your clients you've had this conversation with in some fashion or another.
What's a success story? What's a story where somebody engaged and saw some neat things happen? Where were they at when they started and what happened?
Brooke Greening: Yeah. One of my clients, they had reached out and it was a real, it was a difficult time for them because they were getting ready to lay off an employee because the sales were not where they needed to be and they had not been there for the last quarter, and that was really frustrating.
There recurring sales that were going on, but no new sales were coming in and you have to have both in order to have a successful business. And so they were really frustrated. They were questioning their worth. They were questioning, is this gonna work? Do we have to shut this down?
We've been doing this for a long time and now I really have to start thinking about I have to lay this employee off. Do I have to start laying others off? What are we gonna be able to do? So we sat down. We started looking at it. We started looking at what was going on with the offers. We started looking at what was going on in their sales conversations, and things started turning around really quickly for them because they started to be able to gain that confidence of, I can start talking about how I can help them today.
I don't have to have another call and another call, and another call before we start figuring things out. There are things that I can offer them today. And that's what they started doing. And things started coming together and they started signing bigger and bigger contracts and it just started taking off for them, which was great.
Scott Greening: Yeah. And they were on a downside trajectory laying people off, maybe gonna have to lay other people off, and that was able to get turned around and yeah, to continue to grow in that. So I know. That interacting with you in person is like the best thing ever. And you help people think through these things all the time, but there is a special circumstance where people can learn from you in person and do that.
You are going to be participating in something called the Sell Well Conference. Yes. What is that all about? Where is it? When is it? Yes. All those things.
Brooke Greening: It's in September, I believe, the 11th and 12th. It's in Houston, Texas, and they have asked me to be a track champion for sales system, so helping people to understand. What am I doing? How am I getting sales? What am I doing when the sales come to me? How do I have these conversations? And so we're having in-depth conversations and sessions on how to be able to do that. And so it's a great networking event. There's gonna be a lot of business leaders there. And so that's where we're headed on in September to be able to speak to that.
And so I'm inviting all of you and there will be a link, and the notes, and this is coming out before July 31st. So if you are hearing this, you can sign up and even get the early bird special for that, and they can start putting you in different referral groups and just giving you the tools and the ability to be able to build relationships.
So when we talk about that business development, this is a great tool to be able to do that.
Scott Greening: Yeah, so you heard it here. And if all goes as planned, this will drop on the last day for that early bird special. So act now, get your tickets. Join Brooke in Houston at the Sell Well Conference, and I know it'll be a great experience.
I'll be missing you Brooke, as you're in Houston and sipping, matcha in another state. But it'll be a great experience and you can have. The lessons, the experience the guidance, some of the tactics that Brooke has by coming to this conference and participating in her that the link and all that will be in the description, and we're excited to see you there.
I'll from afar, I'll hear the stories, but Brooke Will Brooke will love meeting you. And that Sell Well conference. It's the 11th or 12th or so of September, and you can see us there. Thanks for joining us for another episode of Sippin' and Matcha and Helping You Make More Sales. Have a great day.
