11. Listen to This if You Hate Selling

A lot of women are brilliant at what they do… and absolutely terrible at telling people about it. 

In this episode, Claire talks about selling, and why so many good business owners freeze when it comes to promoting their work, putting a price on it, or asking someone to buy. 

If selling has ever felt pushy, awkward, or like you’re bothering people, this will change how you see it. 

Claire shares a simple shift that makes selling feel a lot easier. Not a script, not a trick, just a different way of thinking about it. 

You’ll hear a very real story about being completely exhausted, searching for help, and finding exactly the right person at exactly the right moment. No pressure, no pushiness, just someone clearly saying “this is for you” and meaning it. 

Inside this episode, you’ll see how to: 

•  Stop holding back from talking about what you do 
•  Understand the difference between helpful selling and pushy selling 
•  Feel more comfortable making offers and sharing your prices 
•  Make it easier for the right people to recognise that you can help them 

If you’ve been second-guessing yourself or staying quiet because you don’t want to sound salesy, this is well worth a listen.

Before we get into today's episode - my Big Girl Knickers Business Bootcamp is back and starting Monday 20th April. Four weeks of accountability, support and action to get your business properly back on track. The Facebook group is open now, payment plans are available, and if you're feeling flat - this is exactly what you need. Head to www.biggirlknickers.com to join us.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:35

Welcome to the Girls Mean Business Podcast, where we share business and marketing tips, advice and trade secrets to help you raise your game and build your brilliant business. Get more clarity, more customers, and more sales. Here to show you how your host, Claire Mitchell.

SPEAKER_00 0:57

Hello, it's Claire from the Girls Mean Business, and today we are talking selling. Because I know a lot of women who are brilliant at what they do, and they're absolutely terrible at telling people about it. They do beautiful work, they go above and beyond for their customers, they get brilliant results, and then when it comes to actually promoting themselves or making an offer or putting a price on something and asking somebody to pay it, they completely freeze because it feels pushy or like a pest or they're bothering people or icky. So I want to change the way that you think about selling. Because to me, selling is helping. That's it. Selling is helping. When you have something that solves a problem that somebody has and you put it in front of them and tell them about it, you are not imposing on them. You're doing them a favour, you're helping them, you're saving them the time and the energy of having to find it themselves. I mean, think about the last time you bought something that you really were pleased with or you loved, or something that made your life easier or better or a bit more enjoyable. Did you feel like the person who sold it to you was bothering you, or did you feel like you'd found exactly what you were looking for? If somebody has a problem and you have the solution, the helpful thing to do is to tell them. The unhelpful thing to do is to stay quiet because you don't want to seem like you're selling. I'll give you an example. So many years ago when Chloe was tiny, she was nocturnal. Oh my goodness, she didn't sleep through the night until she was at least five. I was like a sleep-deprived zombie. I couldn't work, I was really struggling, I was running on empty. I tried pretty much everything, and I was Googling one day and I found a website of a woman who said that she helped children sleep using energy work and distance Reiki. So I signed up to her newsletter and was reading about what she did on a website. And within a couple of minutes, I got a welcome email, and it said something like, Are you exhausted? Have you tried everything? Do you just want your child to sleep without crying it out? And I was like, Oh my goodness, she's talking to me. Sleep deprived me. This is written for me. And I didn't even care what it cost, I didn't even look at the price, I just went, Yes, please, how do I pay you? Now she wasn't pushy, she didn't sell at me, she just described my life, and it was so accurate that I felt like she was in my head and she already knew me. So when she said I can help, I was like, Oh, please, yes, and she was right, it worked. Who knew distance Reiki helped my daughter start sleeping through the night? And do I feel like she was a pest? Absolutely not, she saved my blooming sanity. And that's what selling looks like when it's done right, it's just making it really clear who you help and how, and then letting the right people find their way to you. Now, the pushy version of selling is where somebody tries to talk you into something that you don't want or need, and I think that's what we picture when we're scared of selling because lots of us have had that experience at some point, whether it was a car salesman or a double glazing salesman, or when we were signing up for a gym membership, or even that timeshare presentation somebody's parents went to in the 90s. But that's not what we do, we don't do that, we create things, you know, products and services that are really useful or beautiful or both, and we offer them to the people who need them. That's what we do. So if you've been stopping posting about your work because you don't want to come across a sales-y, then I want you to ask yourself this is what I sell genuinely good? Does it solve a real problem or bring joy to the right person? And if the answer is yes, then telling people about it isn't pushy, it's letting them know that you have something that's perfect for them. It's just good sense. Somebody out there right now is looking for exactly what you make or do, and if you don't tell them about it, they will end up finding something that's not as good as yours and buying it from somebody else, or not finding anything at all. And that's the cost of you staying quiet. So there you go. Lots of love. Bye for now. That's it from the Girls Mean Business Podcast.

SPEAKER_01 5:25

Join us for even more fab tips, advice, interviews, and trade secrets to help you get more confidence, more clarity, more customers, and more sales. Connect with us on Facebook and Facebook.com forward slash the girls mean business, and check out our website at www.thegirlsmeanbusiness.com. See you next time.