Who loves the word sales?
Sales. It can be a word none of us really feel comfortable with or want to think about. The reality is we all need to be selling what we do in order to make a living and yet, we might have a negative belief around sales. I hope to share my favorite 3 tips on how I got over that icky feeling of sales and flipped it into something that felt positive!
What do you believe when it comes to selling?
To get started, I want you to think about the first words that pop in your head about the word sales. I have done this with some of my students of the Fearless Practitioners training programs, and they come up with words like sleazy, used cars salesman feeling, icky, or even scary. Most of theses words come from our personal experiences with sales. We might have had a negative experience in the past around sales or purchasing things.
But what about a positive experience?
Take a moment and think about a positive purchasing experience you might have had. One of my students mentioned they joined a movie pass club. The first month was free. During the first month, they had seen more movies than they have in a year. The were so happy and excited about this monthly pass to now see more movies. I had purchased a pricey, online training and was a bit freaked out on the cost. As soon as I hit purchase, there was communication from the company in my inbox and in the Facebook group. Once I started the online course, the instructor was inside the course weekly and was interacting with everyone. This sealed the deal for me and I knew that every penny I spent was worth it! This course set the tone of how I run my online course in the Fearless Practitioners.
Here are 3 tips to help you feel good about selling:
1. Provide Value
What’s the difference between the negative and positive purchasing experience? Those negative experiences did not provide value to the customers. Also, the person selling the product may not have believed in the product they were selling. When the salesperson doesn’t believe in the product, it comes across. Step one in flipping the script of sales and learning to feel good about selling is to make sure you are providing value. Looking at all the services you offer, write out how those service provide value to those your are serving. Make sure you can answer all these questions about each of the services you offer.
- How will their lives be better once they purchase your service?
- What pain point are you solving for them?
- Why is your service better than others?
This will get you started in knowing how you provide value.
2. Believe in Your Services
How do you feel about the services offered? Do you honestly feel that when a client comes into your office you will be able to 100% no doubt fix what’s going on?! If your answer is not HELL YES! then we have some deeper work on your confidence to do now!!
I get that you might feel a bit shaky about your abilities as a practitioner in this transition to private practice; I was there too. It will take some time and a ton of practice to own your badass-ness as a practitioner.
What I want you to do today to begin this process is think about something you know 100% to be true about you and your services. Here is what I had to start with…biochemistry! I knew 100% how the body worked and digested food. There is no shaking of biochemistry for me. I knew I was a badass about biochemistry. When I was trying to help a client and felt a bit shaky, I would lean into the biochemistry and get my feet and belief back in myself and in my services.
3. Build Trust
Have you ever thought about what makes you trust someone? Think about why you trust your bestie, or another provider in your life. When I ask students this, they all come back with the same answers…time. Trust takes time to build. So how can we build trust for free, before a new client buys from us?
Show up and provide education. This can be through blogs, videos, podcasts, social media posts, or even free lectures in your area. Show up and show off. You are pretty amazing at what you do, so allow your ideal client to learn from you and see you be authentic in how you educate and help. We all came into our line of work to help, so just imagine if a blog post impacted a person’s life?! Start building that trust journey by showing up consistently and authentically.
Bottom line about sales is to flip the script and start to feel good about selling. You are the expert in your field and you are sharing your expertise with people who are asking for help! It can all look easy to do in this article, and I know it will take time and practice for you to get to a place that feels good about sales, but it can happen! You CAN Feel Good about Selling – just start with these 3 Steps.
If you want a little support as you build your private practice, join me on the Fearless Practitioners Facebook Page! Let’s support one another as we build our private practices.
Adrien Paczosa is a Business Strategist for Private Practice Owners and Dietitians and helps them grow and scale their practices to six and seven figures. She is the founder of Fearless Practitioners, the division of her business that offers business training and coaching to private practitioners, dietitians and wellness professionals.
Adrien is a Registered and Licensed Dietitian, owner of iLiveWell Nutrition, her private practice with two locations in Austin, Texas and the surrounding counties.
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