360. How to Sell Without Being Salesy

I’m Jody Moore and you’re listening to Better Than Happy, episode number 360: How to Sell Without Being Salesy.

Did you know that you can live a life that’s even better than happy? My name is Jody Moore. I’m a master certified life coach and a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. And if you’re willing to go with me I can show you how. Let’s go.

Hey there everybody, I’m going talk today about sales. And I think a lot of you have situations where you’re selling things through your job, through your business, through a lot of different avenues. If you have a podcast you’re in sales, you’re trying to sell people on listening to your podcast and rating and reviewing it, and sharing it, and continuing to listen or subscribe. If you are a social media influencer, or you are selling maybe products and services that you promote on there but also you’re selling people on following you, on consuming your content.

So obviously directly applicable to entrepreneurs or people that are in a sales job. But applicable to I think a lot of you in a lot of other ways. And for those of you that are like I am not doing any of that stuff right now, I don’t care about this topic at all then you can just skip this one and come back next week. But you might find it fascinating anyway because the truth is even as a mom I’m constantly selling my kids on doing their chores, on turning in their schoolwork, on being in a better mood, all the things. So you might find this relevant too.

But I wanted to talk about it because I had this insight and discovery recently. I have been doing sales for a really long time. When was my first real sales job? I think my first job, well, my first job ever at The Old Spaghetti Factory, I was a hostess. Once I became a server at The Old Spaghetti Factory. I would say I was more directly in sales. Even as a hostess I’m trying to sell people on staying at the restaurant until we can get them a table and things like that. There’s a little bit of sales.

But mostly once I became a server I realized, okay, I’m in sales now. I’m in customer service but I’m also in sales because I was trying to sell my customers on having a great experience there in the restaurant. That was my job. I did that by trying to get the food out on time. What I learned as a server way back when I was in my senior year of high school and I got that job was that in order to get the best tip I could get, and have happy customers, and have an enjoyable time that evening, I had to read people.

There were some people who were in a hurry. I’d learned after a little while, if they had little kids with them, rowdy little kids, they wanted their food to come out as quickly as possible. So I needed to put their food order in right away and get their food out. They just want to eat dinner and then get out of there, if they have little kids. And I didn’t have little kids at the time. Now that I do I totally understand this. But I learned this by observing people. If they have little kids they really appreciate when the food comes out fast, they can feed everybody and then get out of there.

And then there were other customers who were in a different situation. If it was a couple on a date at The Old Spaghetti Factory that went out for a romantic spaghetti dinner then many times they didn’t want the food to come out too quickly. If they were still enjoying their salad, their first course and the spaghetti came they were a little annoyed because they didn’t have a lot of room on the table for all that food. And they really wanted to sit, and linger, and enjoy their dinner and have some nice conversation.

So I needed to not put their food order in until they’re about halfway done with their salads. So that by the time the spaghetti order was ready I could clear away their salad plates. And that’s what made them happy. So I learned early on, I mean yeah, there’s other sales involved in waiting tables, like upselling on desserts and drinks and things like that to get the tab up higher. But I’m just talking about in general selling them on a great experience meant reading people.

And I went on to have many other sales jobs after that. I have sold shoes. I have sold women’s shoes. I have sold treadmills and all kinds of exercise equipment, over the phone, I was a telemarketer sales. I have sold really high end accredited college degree programs. I have sold other programs that were less traditional types of education and classes. I have sold so many things, you guys. I’ve sold memberships at gyms. I have sold equipment and apparel at gyms. I have sold books and CDs back when we used to buy CDs.

I’ve had a lot of experience selling. And there are some core principles that I’ve picked up one of which is that the best salespeople read their customers. So I think again that’s why I love it so much because as a coach that’s what I’m doing. I’m reading people. I’m trying to understand people. I’m trying to get in people’s heads and understand what’s going on for them so that I can better serve them and help them. And I’d learned to do that actually before I was ever a coach. I learned to do that as a salesperson and not in a sneaky manipulative, let’s trick people kind of way.

But what does this person genuinely value? And is my product or service going to make their life better? And if not, if it’s not a right fit I was never hesitant to tell people that as well. So the concept I want to teach you today when it comes to selling, I hear this all the time from people. I want to be able to sell more. I want to grow my following, or my business, or my downloads, or whatever it is but I don’t want to be salesy. So I want to dive into that for just a minute.

First of all if you go to the dictionary you’ll find that salesy is not a word. It’s not a real word. So I like to remember that because it helps me notice that that’s just when I’m thinking this, I don’t want to be salesy, it’s just my brain being dramatic. It’s not even a real word. It’s not a word I like to use. But what I think people mean by that word is they don’t want to be aggressive. They don’t want to be manipulative. They don’t want to be pushy. They don’t want people to be offended or turned off. They don’t want to scare people away. They don’t want to be annoying.

And we’ve all been at the receiving end of somebody who we would describe that way, who was trying to sell something and we would call them salesy or we’d call them annoying, or pushy, or aggressive etc. And we don’t want to be that person. Okay, great. Makes total sense, don’t be that person. But there’s a couple things that you’ve got to keep in mind. What makes somebody what we call ‘salesy’ I think first of all is that they’re operating from their agenda.

They’re not reading me to discover what I want and selling me on the fact that I can have, and achieve, and become what I want. They’re selling me on what they would want, and even maybe what they think I want. But if they’re too far off base it comes across as their agenda. So let’s start with a negative example. I hate to be negative but we’re going to have to look at some specifics here to really let the point land. Years ago I went to a gym, I had just moved to a new city. And I wanted to join the gym because I wanted to be able to go to fitness classes.

At that point that’s what I did at the gym. I went to classes, aerobics classes, step, back then it was step aerobics, or strength training classes, or a kickboxing class or what have you. And I wanted to be able to go to fitness classes at the gym. And so I went into the gym that I thought I wanted to join and I said, “I’d like to see about getting a membership and can I see your class schedule?”

And the salesperson, they didn’t call themselves a salesperson but that’s what they were. They had other roles at the gym too but they were in charge of signing me, that was one of their roles was to sign up new members. They said to me, “Oh, yeah, hold on, I’ll have to find a copy of our schedule for our classes. I’m not sure where it is right now but I’ll get you one. But first let me show you our weight room. We have a brand new weight room that’s for women only. All the machines are designed specifically for women and you’re not going to have to worry about being intimidated by some big guy walking around, or worry about any of that.

It’s for women only. Let’s go see the new weight room.” And I said to him, “You know what? I don’t really lift weights. I know I probably should.” This was years ago by the way. I’m sold on the value of lifting weights now but back then I was just, “I’m not going to ever use that weight room.” I just want to see the classes.” And again he said, “Okay, but it’ll just take a minute. I’m just going to take you on a quick tour of the gym because you’re going to want to see around the place.” And I was like, “Okay, whatever.”

So I went with him on this tour, he showed me where the locker rooms were and he showed me where whatever else was in this gym was and he was really excited about the women’s only weight room. And he took me in there and he gave me the full on tour. And I said, “Okay, this is great buddy, but I really just want to see the classes for the gym.” And when we went up to the front desk he said, “Are you ready to sign up?” And I said, “I think so but I’d love to see the schedule of classes.” And he was telling somebody else, “Can you print off the schedule for her?”

Long story short, he finally got me the schedule of classes. I did join that gym. I loved the classes at that gym. I’m glad I joined that gym. I just didn’t love that experience. And if I hadn’t already been pretty set on that that was the gym for me, I may not have joined that gym because as excited as that guy was about helping me improve my fitness and everything, he wasn’t reading me. He wasn’t meeting me where I’m at. All I needed was to see that they had a good variety of classes and that they were at times that I could accommodate and I would have signed up right then.

He didn’t need to waste his time or mine on all the other stuff. So that’s when it feels salesy, when he’s telling me what he thinks I should care about, what maybe even most other women who come in there care about. But he’s not paying attention to me. You have to get to know your customer or client. You have to ask them questions, “What do you care about? What’s the most important thing to you in a gym? What are you looking for when you go to join a gym? Tell me about the last gym you were a member of if you’ve ever been a member at a gym before.

What did you love about it? What did you not like about it? What was frustrating? If you were going to design your own gym.” I’m not saying you have to ask every one of these questions but I’m giving you ideas. The types of questions you could ask to get to know your potential customer or client. For all of you who are coaches, ask them, “What’s the most important thing to you in a coach? What are you looking for in a coach? What is your ideal coach like? What’s an ideal program, if you were going to go through a coaching program, what’s your preference and why?”

Because they may say things that you don’t offer. If I’m talking to a potential client and they say to me, “I just really like private one-on-one attention.” I don’t actually offer that. Actually we offer some of that in my membership but for the most part that’s not how I sell it. We don’t offer that all the time. I don’t do it. So if they say, “Jody, I love you and I want to work with you individually privately one-on-one. That’s what I’m looking for in a coach.” Then it may be that my offer isn’t the right fit for them but also I can ask a follow-up question.

I can say, “Yeah, that’s great, tell me why that’s important to you.” And if they say, “I just want to make sure I’m getting enough attention that I can really make progress.” Then I have something to work with. I make a note. So when I’m telling them about my program and I tell them that everything is done in groups I’m going to explain why most people actually make much more progress by listening to coaching and by being in a group setting than they’re able to make on their own. And I know because I’ve done both.

And I’m not going to, again, try to trick anyone. I’m going to say, “If that’s really a priority to you, this is not going to be the program for you. But if your reasoning is that you want to make sure you make the most progress, I would challenge you to try it out because you’ll save yourself money by doing it in a group setting. And you may be surprised at how much easier it is to grow mentally and emotionally through listening to others than just doing it on your own in more siloed.”

So do you see what I’m saying? Even if my program isn’t exactly what they describe, I need to understand why they want what they want. And I’m going to be very upfront and clear but I can match what I offer to what they value. Now, I’m going to give you another example.

I have, one of the things that we do in our coaching program, Be Bold is we have a place called ask a coach where you can write in a question any time. So it’s anonymous and it’s a really powerful way to get coaching because there’s some time in between the feedback and you have time to process it and think about it and then come back and ask more questions. And a lot of people really love that option.

But if I’m talking to someone about joining Be Bold and they say, “I don’t like doing coaching and writing”, or they just don’t even bring that up I don’t necessarily have to bring up that feature. It’s not like it’s going to hurt them for it to be there. I might touch on it. I might say, “There is this thing if that’s of interest to you.” But I’m not going to spend a long time selling someone on it if they don’t care about it, if they say, “I’ll probably never use that.”

I had a friend of mine who’s in my coaching program, another feature we offer is the private podcast feed. So people can listen on the go to the classes and calls through their podcast app and it’s just a really convenient way to listen to content without having to worry about streaming or anything. So this friend of mine who happens to be in my program made a comment about watching the coaching replays. And I said to her “Are you using the private podcast feed? You’ve got to use the private podcast feed. It’s so convenient.”

And she said, “Oh, no, I don’t want that. I like video. I like to see what you’re wearing, and I like to see the people you’re coaching and see what their faces look like. So I only do video.” I’m like, “Cool.” So notice I’m not going to go into selling her on the private podcast, she knows about it. I mentioned it. Even though most people like that option, she doesn’t care for it, that’s totally fine. Don’t try to sell people on seeing it the way you see it or the way most of your customers or clients see it.

What we’re ultimately trying to sell people on is themselves. We’re trying to sell people on the idea that they can make progress or they can get whatever result it is that you offer to people, that their life can be easier and better. That they can be more at peace. That they can have more convenience, that whatever you offer could work for them if we think that’s true. So that’s number one, read people, sell them on what they care about, match what they say to what you offer and be honest the whole time, very straightforward and honest.

We all are good at reading people who are not being honest. It’s another component of salesy, there’s a little bit of dishonesty there. Please don’t do that. That will not feel good to you, your client or customer will probably read it as well. Okay, the other thing, and this is the thing that I started alluding to this in the beginning that had this aha light bulb go off. And so I wanted to share it with you here which is on the one hand part of selling when you’re selling something to a client or customer is you want to show them the value, don’t tell them about the value if possible.

It’s much more impactful to show them the value than it is to try to explain the value. So today, as of the day I’m recording this actually is the last day of a weeklong course I have been teaching called Wellness Week and it’s been awesome. And we sold that for $19 just dirt cheap, ridiculously cheap, to have five days of courses, and coaching, and training, and get to keep all the replays after, and everything. It’s ridiculously kind of embarrassingly cheap.

But I did it that way on purpose because my main reason for offering Wellness Week wasn’t to make money. It was to show people the value of coaching. The best way that I can show them how impactful it is to either get coached or listen to coaching is to just get them to come and participate in it. And so it is a way that I show the value of coaching. I’m showing the value of my membership program, Be Bold through Wellness Week which means I don’t have to spend a long time in Wellness Week talking about Be Bold. I spent a little bit of time. I make sure they know about it and I touch on it. And I tell them, they should join me there.

But I don’t have to spend a long time selling them on it because they’re already sold if they’re coming to Wellness Week and they’re participating. And I know this because at least the ones that are the right fit. I don’t want them to come and join my program. I don’t want to take somebody’s money that I can’t help. So I’m showing them the value of Be Bold, I don’t have to sell it that hard. Now, the thing that you do have to sell hard, that most people are trying to sell the value of their offer and that sounds salesy to us after a while, instead of showing.

But the other thing that people aren’t doing is they’re not telling people specific steps to take. I want you to show people the value of your offer and then tell them what to do. Just tell them what to do. So when I finish Wellness Week each day, it’s a 90 minute class, I say, “Don’t forget to join me tomorrow. Tomorrow’s topic is going to be”, whatever it is.

Yesterday I said, “Hey, tomorrow’s the last day of Wellness Week, make sure if you can come live, come live, if you can’t, watch the replay as soon as you can in the day because we’re going to be touching on spiritual wellness which is not what you think it is. And it’s going to take everything else we’ve learned this week and put it all together. And it’s going to be the best of the five days I teach.” I’m selling them pretty hard on coming to that last day of Wellness Week, you know why? Because I want them to get the full value out of this course.

The more I can get them to come, and consume, and watch, or participate, the more they’re going to experience the transformation I want them to have. Yes, that’s good for my business, but it’s also just good for my client or customer. I want to take care of them. I want them to have that transformation, even if they don’t join my coaching program. I want them to leave a little bit better, maybe they’ll come and join down the road or maybe not. Maybe I just helped make their life a little better, all good either way.

What I don’t want is somebody not showing up because I didn’t sell them on showing up for the last day. That is not good for them, or for me, or for my business. So I tell people very specifically, if you want people to click on a link, tell them where to click. If you want them to leave you a rating or review, tell them to leave you a rating or review. Ask them to leave you a rating or review. These little steps, you’ve got to make it very clear by the way what to do next, where do you want them to go? What do you want them to do? Do you want them to click on something?

Do you want them to sign up for something? If so, do you want them to sign up by a certain date? Get very specific about the little steps people need to be taking and sell those steps harder. But ease up on selling the overall value, just show the overall value. This requires some creativity I realize, but that’s what marketing is ultimately. We’re trying to show people the value so we don’t have to sell that part. We’re just going to sell little baby steps we want them to take. Some of them are a little bit bigger steps but ultimately they’re just steps.

Each step should feel like a natural progression of wherever they are currently. So for example, here on this podcast you’re listening to me talk about the concepts I teach. You’re listening to my advice. You’re listening to me so I can sell you on something like coming to Wellness Week and paying $19. That’s a realistic step. I don’t come on the podcast and say, “You should work with me for a year and pay me $25,000.” You don’t meet someone at a party and say, “Gosh, I feel like we would have really cute kids.” It’s too far.

You meet someone at a party and you say, “Gosh, I’ve really enjoyed talking with you. Here’s my cell number, text me, or call me, or chat me, or TikTok me.” What do we do nowadays? I haven’t been dating for a while. Whatever you do, look me up, ping me if you want to hang out again. It’s a natural next step to say, “Let’s hang out again or can I call you, or text me, or do you want to even go on a date”, or something. But we don’t go all the way to proposing marriage and talking about having a family with somebody we just met.

It’s kind of creepy and weird, even if you’re interested in that person. That’s how selling is, whatever you sell, you’ve got to get to know people. You’ve got to be available for people to get to know you and your offer. And to get some of the benefit of what you offer, even for free or for very inexpensive along the way. So show them the overall value of what you do, by just giving it away for either really inexpensive or free and then tell them what steps to take.

Tell them the steps to take and the steps should ultimately lead to a paid offer of some sort so that you can keep your business running and you can go help more people. That’s the way all this works. Alright, if you want more help on your business, I’m so excited about business coaching right now. I’m sorry, I can’t stop talking about it, and thinking about it because I just love it. And we’ve had so many people who are about to finish their first year in Business Minded and they’ve just made amazing progress and it’s been so fun.

So I have so many ideas about making the next year even better. So we have a live event Impact 2.0 happening in Salt Lake July 27^th and 28^th. I’d love to have you join us there. We’re also going to be opening up Business Minded right after that for the following year. So the best way to keep in the loop about all this and just get some help from me right now is to go to jodymoore.com/business, you can learn about Impact 2.0 there. You can get on the waitlist for Business Minded. And most importantly you can join our brand new Facebook group we just set up.

I’m going to be going live in Facebook every week teaching business strategy, talking to you about what’s going on in your business, answering questions. And we’re going to just do that all summer long. I just want to help you for free with your business. So come on over there, again, head to jodymoore.com/business to get all the details. Alright, you guys are amazing, I’ll see you next time. Take care. Bye bye.

Hey there, if you enjoy this podcast or even if you just find that it sort of piques your curiosity, or it makes you think, you’re going to love the book that I wrote. It’s called Better Than Happy: Connecting with Divinity Through Conscious Thinking. And it’s available now at Amazon in print or kindle version. Or if you want me to read it to you, head over to audible and grab the audio version. And why not grab a copy for your sister, your best friend, or your mom while you’re there too. Just saying.