Ep 187: You Can Sell Without Sounding Salesy [LIVE WORKSHOP REPLAY]

Welcome to the Tiny Marketing Podcast. I'm Sarah Noal Block, and this show is made for solo consultants who wanna get booked out without burning out. If you've ever thought, I just want this to feel easier, you're not alone. Around here, we focus on simple, sustainable growth that actually fits into your life to growth, feels doable instead of overwhelming.

Hey there! Just a quick heads up what you're about to hear is a replay of a live mini workshop. So sit back, enjoy the training, and I'll catch you on the other side! It is Friday and I'm on, Hello.

Thank you for joining me today. Today's training is a mini one, so I'm gonna keep it tight. and it came out of this. And it is when you are on a networking call or a connection call and somebody raises their hand in some way, these signals that they.

Need your service and you freeze. So that is what we're talking about today. We are talking about how to convert those signals that you get on connection calls into a sales opportunity. And I'm so excited about this one.

Before I get into it and I make my presentation big, can you guys say hi In the comments, introduce yourself and just let me. See you in the world. And while you're doing that, I want to remind you that I am doing a three sales calls in three days challenge in just like a month now. It's May 18th, so I encourage you to sign up for that.

It's super cheap. It's like $15. and that will be three days of training. It'll be three days of training Hello, Caitlin.

but that's something that you should definitely do 'cause we're going to go through trainings over three days on how to sell better. Okay. With that in mind, I am going to make this bigger so we can really get into the meat of it. I don't have time to talk all day.

Connection, call to sales calls. Let's talk about how to turn those conversations that you're having every day anyway, into a sales opportunity without being salesy, because that is the other thing that I'm hearing constantly is I'm on these calls, they signal that they need me, but I don't want to sound pitchy or salesy, and that's totally relatable. I also have that huge fear that people will think that I'm getting on these connection calls to sell them when that's not at all the case.

It just like, if the opportunity is there and they need me and they consent to wanting that next step, I need to offer that to them. It's a service to be able to do that. So let's get into it. So you're having these networking calls or connection calls, whatever you call them, but nothing is happening.

They are on the call. They say that they need something that you solve, but you freeze. You clam up or you move on instead of leaning into that. So it typically looks like this.

You're booking the sales call one month I had 40 networking calls in one month when I was doing my 30 day experiments that I like to do. and you're like, okay, I'm making progress. Look at all these calls I have. They feel good.

You're making friendships. maybe you're getting some collabs together. and then you're talking to someone and a need pops up. They say that they need something that you literally solve and then you freeze.

The moment passes, the conversation ends, nothing happens, and you're like, okay, maybe I should email them afterwards and bring it back up. But it would be so much easier if you leaned into it while on the call. It's not really a confidence problem because the people who are coming to me and telling me that this is happening, they're really freaking good at what they do. They really are.

So I don't think it has anything to do with your skillset. It's more of a structure issue. You're in a friendly conversation, so when that signal happens, you get nervous and you don't move forward with it because you don't want it to move from like friendly vibes. We're cool, we're friends into a sales conversation and it doesn't have to be that way.

So the structure issues are you don't have a system for these conversations. They're just happening. It's like a normal conversation with your friend. You don't have a way to connect your.

The problems that you're hearing on those calls to your offer, and we have a solution for that, don't worry. We're getting to that. And you default to being the nice, friendly person instead of the useful person, because I'll tell you what, when somebody has a solution to the problem that I'm explaining, I don't feel like you're being salesy or pitchy telling me that you know how to solve that problem. I feel relieved.

Okay, so let's talk about the solve. I don't use scripts at all, and I am not pushy. prescribe to consent based selling. Unless you give me permission to talk about that next step or that offer.

I'm not doing it. So you need a bridge. You don't need a script. You need a bridge.

They say that they have a problem. You need the bridge that leads to the solution. Okay, so I learned this all the hard way, but that's how you learn sometimes and because I had to learn it the hard way, you don't have to. So let's go through this real quick before we get into it.

So the climb, I was in corporate marketing leadership, which is why I know how to sell into a B2B so well because I was the one being sold to, and I know how it works. And then I built my consultancy on the side. I launched that consultancy with a hundred K in contracts already booked before I left corporate because I'm a scared little chicken. I couldn't do it without that already set there.

a couple years later, I had this dry spell 'cause I was busy. I was busy with client work. I wasn't keeping up with my relationships. Referrals slowed down, inbound, stopped.

And I realized that I just, I had momentum. I didn't have a system and I was really just getting kind of lucky I would do it in sprints. That's how I ended up with those a hundred K in contracts is I did a sprint to fill in my, what I would need for salary and then I stopped. So when that happened, I had to do an experiment, and that's what I was telling you about the 30 day experiment.

That is when I had 40 networking calls in one month, I had daily conversations and it directly led to revenue. I closed $94,000 in those 30 days. And it became a repeatable system. I did it over and over again, and now I have helped 50 plus other consultants build systems like this to get booked out.

That's how I created Booked Out in Six. So when I tell you I sucked at sales, I hated selling so much and it felt really uncomfortable for me to turn a friendly conversation into a sales conversation. I know 'cause I did that, I messed up. And then I had to build a system and repeat it over and over to get it into a place that felt natural, not salesy, not pitchy.

So most networking calls look like this. They're always structured pretty much like this. Tell me about your business. Then you explain your business, and then how can we help each other?

Those three things are always brought up in every single networking conversation, and that's fine. There's something we have to do in the middle though, so this loop leads to zero revenue. And this is why nothing happens because you're not, you have a missing piece. You have a missing piece.

I'll leave it at that. So you're not being curious enough during those networking calls. Your prime time of selling isn't when you're talking about your business. It's when they're talking about their business.

That's the very beginning of that connection call. When they're explaining it, you need to be curious. You need to ask questions while they're talking. Don't wait to speak until it's your turn to talk about your business.

Ask questions. Listen to what they're saying. Pull threads that they're talking about. Signals will come up during this portion of the connection call and then go deeper.

So these are the things that you want to listen for, and I encourage you to screenshot this. So what do they need help with? Those are signals that could be either an opportunity for you or it could be an opportunity to send to a referral partner or connect them with a community. What value can you give them?

I like to go into these with a couple ideas of what I can offer them, what they could potentially need. But during this portion of the connection call, you can usually pull out what exactly they'd need. Who can you refer them to? What communities would fit them?

Can you send any introductions? These are opportunities. These connection calls and networking calls are opportunities not only for you but for you to send referrals to other people, for you to help close loops for them, for the person you're on a phone call with, because they have challenges that will come up during this. So be curious.

And then when it comes time for you to talk about your business, answer them instead of your pitch, your one-liner, your elevator pitch, whatever you wanna call it, you want to respond directly to what they talked about. So did they talk about a specific challenge? Did they mention something they're frustrated about or they're stuck about? And if they didn't.

Pull those threads, ask those questions while they're talking. Did they give you any signals? Did they describe that they've tried something and it didn't work? do you share an ICP?

So that's a big one. does your, does the person that you're on the phone call with share the same customer as you? could you partner? Is that a collaboration opportunity?

So listen for challenges. listen for signals and listen for shared ICPs. So, and then turn your, this is what I do into a more, custom version of it to respond to the challenges and signals that they gave you in their section. So instead of saying, I help consultants get more clients through content marketing systems, you can tailor it to them and say, you mentioned your leads.

Feel consistent. That's exactly what I help consultants fix. This is how I do it. So you can pull onto those little signals that they gave you and weave it into your, this is what I do, speech.

Okay. So let's talk about buying signals for one second, and I want a little interaction during this portion of it. So you're gonna hear things as you are talking about. Your business and what you do, like, oh, I could use that, or, that sounds like me, or, I'm dealing with that right now.

we've tried that and it didn't work. So what do you do? that's something that we're struggling with, like these are all buying signals that you need to listen for, so you can pull those threads and dig in deeper in the comments. I would love to hear some buying signals that you heard on your last couple of connection calls, and if you're brave enough to put them in there, I'm gonna show you what kind of bridge statements that you can use that would.

Connect to an offer. So please put in any buying signals that you have heard on recent calls and what you do, and then in a little bit I will go into what Bridges would make sense for that. Okay? So this is the missing piece when you hear those signals, because happen on pretty much every call.

You wanna acknowledge it. So you mentioned X problem. You wanna mirror back what they said so you can show that you were listening, but it also, I like to use their exact language so that they can hear themselves in my response. Next you wanna connect.

That's something I help with. So here I have, that's actually something I help with. One thing I like to use is like direct examples. So another way you can do it is like, oh, that happened to a client of mine recently.

This is what we did and this was the result. So I almost. With that connection part. I like to create a study, but this gives you an example that anybody can apply.

That's something I help with, or my client went through that recently. Something like that, that bridges their reality, what they just explained to you, to your work, what you do. It's not a pitch. You're just bridging the connection there.

And then last offer, the next step, like wanted me to share how I'd approach that or do you wanna hear what I did with them to help them move past that problem? So you can do this in a couple ways. You can keep it high level, semi generic where you say, that's something I help with. This is how I help them do it.

Or you could do it in a case study function. That's the way I like to do it. Oh, my client went through this. Do you wanna hear what we did to make that work?

It's permission based. It's low pressure. It opens a door, but it's not pitching at all and it's not very salesy. So acknowledge, connect, and then offer the next step.

Permission-based offer it. Okay, okay, so here are the bridges that are examples for you. we're not getting consistent leads and then the bridge. Yeah.

You mentioned your leads have been inconsistent. That's actually something I help consultants fix. Want me to share what I look at first or. Maybe, do you want me to share what the first problem usually is or the easiest fix is, or the first step is something like that.

Referrals are hit or miss. That's what you hear. That's the signal you hear. A bridge could be.

That makes sense. Most people don't have systems behind the referrals. I've built a repeatable way to generate them. Want me to walk through what I do?

Or it could be like. often say, oh, that's so common. You are in such good company. Because usually I've heard it a thousand times, whatever that thing is.

So I want them to realize, yeah, you're not alone. This is such a common problem. This is not a you problem. This is like an overall business problem.

So that's a bridge statement you can use. Here's a signal. We've tried content, but it's not working A bridge that's super common. Usually it's not the content, it's the system behind it.

That's the problem. Want me to show you how I diagnose that? What I do to fix that, something like that. You can see that the bridge statements aren't pushy.

They're permission based, and they're directly talking about the signal that they gave and tying into your solution without pitching the solution yet. Okay. So you shared a couple bridges with So let's go into those signals and feel free while I'm doing this, to start writing down some of the signals that you've heard recently and start writing some bridges that would work for it. So.

List your signals. three to five things that your ideal client tends to say. When you hear, like when you're on a connection, call with them, just the most common ones, and then start workshopping the bridges that you can use. So you want to acknowledge what that signal was, what's going on with them, connect with that, and then.

Use permission based offers. So do you want me to walk you through that? So keep it conversational, keep it theirs? okay.

Real fast. If you guys want to screenshot this, this would be really helpful for you as your workshopping it. Okay. Awesome.

All right, let's go through these bridges. They tell me a story or situation about something that their client is going through. Like, oh, my client could use this. Okay.

So with that, your bridge could be, Your client, Katie, So they're telling you a situation that their client is going through. Is this when like you're talking to an agency and they might need to outsource it to you? So I'll ask that question. Is that the situation in which this would come up?

And, while you're answering that, I'm gonna go to this one. when I'm more established or making more money, I would love to work with you. Okay. Yeah.

So that, yeah, that's a signal that they're interested in working with you and they're automatically putting in objection in place, which is difficult because they're clearly saying that. They can't afford to work with you yet. So what I would do in this situation is, yeah, that has happened. I hear that occasionally or when you're brand new, it is hard to invest in your business.

What I usually do when this is the case, is we start off with our brand roadmap, and then that gives you a foundation for where you can go with your website and from there, if you want me to build it out, we could set up a payment plan through Klarna to be able to solve that so we can, so the money isn't such a big issue for you or for a money Objection like this. I'm not established enough objection like this. I'd probably put them into a nurture sequence, but yeah, that makes it a little bit more difficult since they can't afford to move forward.

So I would try and address it as best as I can with. These are the options. There's, payment plans available that you can do. We can do the gateway offer first to be able to establish what we would move forward with, and maybe you already know that they have.

The money available, but maybe it's more of a scarcity issue and they could afford it. They're just choosing not to. That's something where the selling, the brand roadmap would help them get over that. They can start seeing like, this is what could happen.

Another way to get over this objection 'cause I feel like this is more of an objection than a signal. another way to do that is to show them some of your past client work and how that has helped them make more money. So you can, I would use more of a case study type of bridge for this situation so that you can adjust their objection at the same time as like moving them onto like what the next offer would be, which would be your brand roadmap. Okay.

Let's see. I don't seem to be getting any value from my current partner, but they're probably too expensive for us. Okay, so for this, they're not getting it. It sounds like this also sounds more like they don't see.

They think that they're paying too much for their current partner and the value doesn't equate to it. So for this. I would start talking about return on investment. Like for you, for example, you can say, you know what?

I've heard that before and that's totally reasonable. One thing that I do right away to make sure that you're getting a return from working with me is we look at your offers and we see which ones have the biggest return for you, which ones are the most profitable, so you can focus on that. So we focus on increasing your profitability first and then move on to those deep, that deeper work. So that's one thing that you could do.

Again, that's kind of an objection, wield into a signal. Okay. So for Katie, okay. Katie's is.

And she said, yeah, when another marketing agency or consultant has a client with a messaging or positioning problem. Yeah. So that sounds like a clear, yes, I need this. And so for you, I would say, oh yeah, I work with a lot of agencies.

I am, I'm working on their. Whatever they're, messaging constantly. And these are the results that we're getting. The, if you want, I can walk you through what the first step of working with me would be or how I would get that messaging really solved for your client.

And then that's when you can talk about like, building out the persona. Okay. Okay, so on your next networking call, I want you to listen for signals. So go in, listen and look for any openings that you can pull a thread on and see if you can get any more information out of it.

use one bridge statement. So don't try to nail. Every kind of bridge statement, just choose one and don't overthink it. So this is permission based.

It doesn't need to be perfect. It doesn't need to be a script. You just need to get them to the next phase. Like do want me to walk through what this would look like for you or, the first thing that I do is this gateway offer.

Do you want me to walk you through what that would look like? So those are some ways that you can do permission based pitching at the end when they've already signaled for it. Okay? So what I want you to do is practice this.

I actually have a worksheet that goes along with this that's going to be in the email that follows this. And I will also send you this link to join the Consultants Mastermind. It's free, but what I want you to do is practice using these techniques, this bridge technique on your next couple of sales calls, come to the consultants Mastermind and bring your results, bring your questions, tell me what worked and what didn't, so we can refine it. Because what we're talking about today, it does take practice.

I mean, I told you when I built out this bridge statement, I did 40 sales, I did 40 networking calls in one month. It took a lot of practice so we can refine it and customize it for you in this consultant mastermind. Hold on. Let me see.

The next one is May 26th at 11, so you're gonna get an invitation for that. Totally free work on this workbook and do that. and what I want to do real quick before we close up is go through this chat and see if there are any other signals that we should go over. So here's one.

when I'm more established or making money, I would love to work with you. Okay? So multiple people are hearing that and it is a, a money objection and kind of also asking you to show that it's important, that they will get the value from it. They're asking you to convince them that's what it is.

so for both of you. They want you to one, address the objection. Tell them why it is worth that value. And then help them figure out what is the next step?

What can they do Now, Katie has a good point here. I feel like money objections are asking, is it worth it? And the ROI story is helpful in answering that. So when you're creating those bridge statements, like I talked about earlier, I said I like to use case study versions of them.

Those are best when you're hearing some sort of objection along with the signal. Use a case study as your bridge. So let's go back real quick right here in this part two of the bridge, the connect. Use a case study to be able to create that bridge.

So thank you guys so much for joining me today. Do you, if you have any other questions, pop them into the chat real fast. We're at time, but I can hang out if additional questions come up. And remember, you're gonna get access to this inside of the tiny Marketing portal for the people who are in booked out in six.

It's booked out in six. You'll get that in the fast cash section. And then, you're also gonna get an email after this that will have the replay of this presentation. It'll have the invite to the consultants mastermind.

Which I encourage you to come to. I really want you to practice this and come with, hey, what didn't work, so we can refine it because it takes practice. And, then you will also get the fast cash challenge. So if you want to book more sales calls, you're gonna three different trainings over three different days on different techniques to be able to do that.

And it's gonna be a lot of fun since everybody's doing that at, at once. Okay, this was excellent. Made me realize I need to get a better listening signal, get better at listening to signals on calls. Yes, be brave.

Ask for consent to sale, and listen to those signals while they're in that first section and they're talking about their business and customize your, about my business based off of what their signals were. Awesome. Thank you, Cindy. Thank you Kate, Caitlin.

Thank you everybody. You guys were awesome and since no other questions are coming up, I'll end the stream here, but you're gonna get all of these resources afterwards along with the worksheet. Okay. Bye.

If you want to go even deeper, the full workshop, resources, and access to the next Consultant's Mastermind are all available for purchase. You can grab it in the show notes for just $47, or head over to bridge.sarahnoelblock.com to get access.

If this episode made things go a little more doable, I'd love to help you take the next step with the Booked Out Blueprint. It's a practical, low pressure session to clarify your offers, your marketing, and what actually moves the needle. You can book yours through the link in the show notes. You don't have to figure it out alone.