Higher-Converting Sales Conversations

You're listening to The Jewish Entrepreneur Podcast with Debbie Sassen, episode 171.

Welcome to The Jewish Entrepreneur Podcast. I'm your host, Debbie Sassen. I went from being a financial adviser, author and chronic under earner to building my business to six figures as a financial planner and money mindset coach, and then on to multiple six figures as a full-time money and business coach. 

I help entrepreneurs create money making businesses and build wealth using sales and money mindset strategies in alignment with authentic Jewish values. Now, let's dive into today's show.

Hello my friends and welcome back to the podcast. Do we have a juicy episode in store for you today? Everybody loves to talk about sales conversations. Well, I like to talk about sales conversations. I love sales conversations. I know that so many entrepreneurs dread having sales conversations, but I think they're fabulous. I love speaking with people, meeting them, understanding their businesses and what's going wrong. And I love calling in the right people to work with me.

But before we jump into today's episode, I want to let you know that at the end of March, March 24, 25, 26, I am going to be doing a special training on messaging. It is called Piping Hot Buyers: How to Turn Crickets into Paying Clients. And I don't have the sales page up yet for you to join that training. So if you would like that and we're going to be talking about your messaging today on this podcast, so I have a feeling that you're going to want to get into that training.

So join my newsletter, debbiesassen.com/newsletter, so you are the first to know, or just send me an email and tell me waitlist. And I will make sure that you are on the wait list so that when I do start sharing and advertising that training, you will be one of the first to know. So you can go to my website, debbiesassen.com/newsletter, get on my newsletter, or just send me an email, Debbie@debbiesassen.com. I will make sure that you get into that training on piping hot buyers.

So if you are calling in buyers to work with you, of course you need to have, you know, the skillset of managing a sales conversation under your belt so that you can convert your ideal clients. We're not talking about convincing or manipulating or asking the wrong people to work with us. We want to call in the right people. We want to convert our sales conversations at a higher conversion rate.

So today we're gonna be speaking about four steps you need to have in place to have higher-converting sales conversations. The first one is who you are being. The second step is who you are calling in. The third step is your thoughts, your mindset around money objections, any objections really, but money objections seems to be the one that comes up oh so frequently. And the fourth step is actually how to handle those money objections.

So number one, let's start with who you are being when you get on that sales call. So number one, you are the owner of a business. Number two, you have an amazing offer and your belief, your conviction, your confidence in you as being the solution to their problem, as having the solution to your dream clients, helping them to get the results they want to solve the problems that they have to get the transformation that they desire, your embodiment and conviction in who you are and the value of what you share with your clients, that energy, that frequency, that vibration, that is what you are broadcasting to your person when you get onto the sales conversation. Your embodiment and your full belief in who you are.

And this comes from an understanding and a humility that it's not all about you. G-d gave you your gifts. G-d, the divine, put you and your person together. And you really wanna hold that energy in a very grounded way.

I have seen many clients over the years who have self-doubt, who doubt really the value of their offer. Sometimes it's even their offer just comes to them easily, as if it has to be hard work, as if it has to be hard work, as if it has to be something that we grind over and hustle over, that we slug over. If you have a gift and you have been called into the work that you are doing, that is exactly where you're supposed to be.

It doesn't have to be difficult for you to, like if you're a creative person, creatives often get these divine downloads, these inspiration and things just come out. If you are a design, interior designer, brand designer, if you do something creative, even coaching is a creative profession because we rely on G-d to give us the right words, the inspiration at exactly the right time. 

And if it comes easily for you, and of course, wherever you are today, I imagine that five years from now, you are going to be that much better, so much better. You will have significantly improved whatever skillset, whatever embodiment you have.

But today, in this moment, the people who are coming to you, They're coming to you for a reason, and you get to embody that conviction and that groundedness that you are the one, that you have the solution. It's been given to you by G-d. You have the process, and you can get them the results that they desire. This is not arrogance. This is you being in integrity and not trying to sell them the Brooklyn Bridge if that's not really what you have to offer.

Nobody's selling the Brooklyn Bridge. I don't even think it's for sale, but you know what I mean. So really you holding that energy, that is what your clients are gonna feel energetically. And you project that in your tone, in your posture, in your language, right? You don't wanna say something like, oh, I hope this can help you.

If you really feel like you can help the person and don't try to sell them something, you're totally out of integrity if you're selling them something that's not the solution. But if you know that you have the answer to their problem, then you get to hold that and say, this is how I can help you. This is exactly what you need, and these are the steps that I will walk you through to get you the result that you desire.

So feel confident, be confident, project confidence, project conviction that you are the one for your clients and that you have the solution to their problems. And the second who is who are you calling in? In your marketing, in your messaging, in your niche, you want to have your messaging so dialed in that you are actually filtering your clients before they even get on the call to work with you.

You want to understand their problems, you want to understand how your solution solves their problems or gets them the results they want, the transformation that they want, because then when they get on the line with you, they have already been through a system. They've read, they've stalked you, they've binged your content, they've had referrals, and they're already gonna be sold, 90% sold on working with you.

In fact, that is one of the beliefs, the mindsets that I have when I get on sales conversations with people is that 90% of the people that I get on sales conversations with, they're already sold on working with me.

So there isn't really much of a sales conversation. It's just them explaining to me what's going on, telling me the results that they desire, and then we get to decide if it's a fit for us to work with each other. And occasionally it does happen that I will say to someone, oh no, you're not ready to work with me. 

And it actually happened not so long ago. I was on a conversation with someone who really had a tremendous amount of self-doubt. And this person kept trying to convince me that they were really unworthy, that they had this self-doubt and they maybe didn't have the solution to their client's problems, even though there was a lot of evidence already in existence in terms of the clients that they'd worked with that they were able to get their client's results. 

And so I just very, you know, nicely told them and said, I don't think you're ready to work with me. And we did continue the conversation a little bit and they went away, they didn't come back. But when you are speaking directly to your people, right, they will feel called in. So you have to know exactly who your person is. 

So let's say for example, you work with women and help them get healthy, right? So that's very, very broad. But if you work specifically with women who are in pre-menopause and they're having hot flashes and they're kicking off the covers at night and they're having night sweats and they're so uncomfortable and you have hormone balancing treatments that are going to help them, you see how specific that is? That's very different than I help you get healthy, I help you eat better foods. 

No, you calling in the people by being so specific in your language makes them like jump out of bed, kick off the covers and say, I need to work with you right now because you get what it's like and you're speaking to their exact problem, how uncomfortable it is to be like sweating at night or feeling like you need to climb into the freezer because you feel this hot fire running up your back. You get how specific my wording is? That's the kind of messaging that you want to use that's going to call your people in. 

So you don't wanna tell people that you help them build confidence. When a woman or a man has more confidence, then what changes in their life? What changes in their business? When you are ready to do newer, bigger, better things in life, like talk about people being so confident that they go scaling mountains, that they're jumping out of airplanes, that they're building a million-dollar business. 

Like, speak very, very specifically because confidence is very, very broad. Do you need confidence to ride a unicycle, to juggle eight balls? Like there are these nuances and so that's why you want to know exactly who your person is and you will call them in through your messaging.

The same thing when you talk about mindset blocks, are you talking about mindset around building a business? Are you talking about mindset that's going to help coaches and other creatives to stop overworking so that they can actually show up for their family and not be burned out all the time and they can actually grow a six-figure business or multi six-figure business you know without feeling like a dishrag all the time or are you going to just be general about confidence and talk about, you know, maybe women who are negotiating for higher wages, they want to have a promotion at work.

You see, there's differences and you want to be much more specific. And when your people feel like you're speaking specifically to them, you are filtering in your people, and that makes it so much more of a no-brainer. In fact, when your messaging is so tight and it's so nuanced, they're going to feel like crazy for passing up this opportunity. They're going to be getting on the call with you. They'll even be understanding that it's a big investment to work with you, whatever big is, but they also are ready because you have primed them ahead of time through the words that you're using.

And that's why I'm running this masterclass, because I find that so many people, either they're very general, they're very vague, they're very fluffy in what they write, they use, especially if you're a coach, I work with a lot of coaches and they speak in coach speak. And I would love for you to try to write your messaging without using the words empowered, without using the words up-leveled, right, with all these words that coaches understand, holding space. Regular civilians don't know what it means to hold space. Regular civilians don't know what it means to process emotions.

So you have to explain to people with words that they use exactly what it is that you do. And you wanna speak about the result that they get, the solution that you're offering them. You don't even wanna speak about your process. You don't wanna speak specifically about doing breath work, about EFT tapping, unless someone is specifically looking for your modality.

Somebody told me recently about a new modality that I heard about, I forget the initials, but they said to me, have you heard about it? I'm like, no, there are like hundreds of different healing modalities. And people are looking for the healing, they're not looking specifically for the modality that you are using.

And you have to be that refined and nuanced in the words that you use, in the copy that you write, in the sales pages that you write, so people think, oh yeah, this is exactly what I need. It's almost like if you waved a magic wand, right, you are speaking to the exact problem that they have that you know that you can solve.

So that is what we're gonna be doing in the masterclass at the end of March. So if this is something that is tripping you up and stopping you from having those higher-converting sales conversations, you really want to get into that masterclass because it is going to be amazing.

All right, number three. Let's talk about your mindset around objections when people have objections. So I also believe that many people, I used to believe 80% of people had money objections, but as I have continued to refine my messaging, I get significantly less money objections. There's still people, but I'm speaking to such a specific person right now, someone who's ready to invest to expand and grow their business and double their income, that I very rarely get money objections anymore.

But if you're still at the stage of your business where you are getting money objections, then number one is you want to have the mindset that it's completely normal for people to have money objections. People sometimes like to part with their money and sometimes don't like to part with their money.

If they can see something tangible in their hands and they can feel it and they can touch it, then it's easier, not easy, but easier to say yes and part with their money. When they have to do some of the work, and again, it depends on what you're doing and what you're selling, but if you're doing work where your clients also have to be invested in doing the work, right, you're not going to do that for them. It's not like you're selling them a car, which again is tangible and they can just walk out of the dealership or drive it off the lot.

But if they actually have to do part of the transformation, part of the healing, so then it's really not gonna be about the money, it's gonna be about their fear that maybe they're not gonna show up for themselves. Maybe they're not gonna get the results that they desire. Maybe they've tried before and it hasn't worked. So it's really not about the money. They'll use the money as kind of like a foil to show that maybe it's not about them, it's about the money. 

But really underneath the money objection is usually an underlying fear that they're not going to get the results and they're going to be the reason that they don't get the results and they don't want to be a loser again because they probably invested in themselves before. Most of us have invested in ourselves, in our business, you know, once, twice, 20 million times. 

So believe that it's number one, it's not a problem that they have money objections, and number two, that there is a reason underneath the reason, and it's your job when you get on that sales conversation to figure out what that reason is. And that's where you have to be more curious, how you have to slow down the conversation and you have to ask them questions. 

Because if they're saying it's a lot of money, for example, which often happens on a sales call, you wanna ask them, what does that mean? What were they thinking when they got into the sales conversation with you? What were they thinking about investing? You could also ask your person when they get on the sales conversation, if the results were guaranteed, would the money be a problem? Or if the results were guaranteed, do you want to work with me?

And that's something that you can also feel out, suss out your clients and don't feel uncomfortable about asking them that questions like if the results were guaranteed, would you want to work with me? Because maybe you've said something, they felt judged on the call, they feel uncomfortable, they feel unsafe, and if they would say, no, I don't think I would want to work with you, then you can just find out why. 

Like what is it that you brought to the sales conversation because they might tell you they felt judged, they felt uncomfortable, they felt that you were promising them the Brooklyn Bridge and they felt that you were out of integrity and you actually weren't giving off the impression that you could actually solve their problems and that's important information for you because if they don't feel safe, if they feel called out, if they feel like you're not in their court, if you're not on their side, you wanna use that so that you can tweak your sales conversation for the next person that you're gonna get on the sales call with.

So don't worry if it's happened, we all make mistakes. I remember one of my sales calls, I don't know, years ago already, when the person wrote me an email afterwards and she told me that she felt judged. And I was a little bit in like a dilemma. Wow, how did that happen? But I was peer coaching with someone at the time and she's like, Debbie, you know exactly how that happened. And when I was confronted by that, I really did understand the truth of what she said and at that point I remember I was having a sales conversation with this person, I can actually see it in my mind right now.

She had told me she runs her own business. She has a successful business And she also told me that her husband manages all the money for her business. And in my head, I was judging her thinking how can you be running a business and not understand what's happening with the money? So that's my stuff. 

I don't know what she and her husband do behind the scenes. Not all CEOs is a CFO, the chief financial officer. So it could be that she did the work and she did a lot of the marketing and the sales and her husband was managing other aspects of the business. But I was too young and new in my business at that time to really understand how there could be a division of responsibilities.

So yeah, she called me out and then I was able to fix that in future sales conversations. So don't think it's a problem. Just get that information. So money objections are not a problem. And number two, there's always a deeper reason that is underlying that money objection. So this is number four. How are you going to handle that objection when it comes up?

So as we said, if they say it's a lot of money, then you can speak with them as I just say, but you also want to understand, you know, what's it costing them right now. If someone is not investing with you, they got on the call, they've already checked you out. They may have asked some people, is this a good, you know, a good person to work with, right? And for them not to move forward has a cost.

It's costing them in a family relationship maybe, it's costing them because they're not growing their business, it's costing them because they have these hot flashes and they're not sleeping well, so they're very uncomfortable all the time, all day, all night, and so they're just feeling like prickly skin all the time. Or maybe there's someone that their cholesterol is too high and so they need to change their diet to lower their cholesterol, and that's costing them, and maybe they'll have to go on statins.

So you really need to understand, if they don't work with you, what is the cost? Because then we start balancing what their future could look like if they decided to work with you versus what's the cost of staying where they are right now? Because when they decide not to work with you, when they decide to stay stuck, right? They're making a decision. They're deciding that the discomfort that they're currently experiencing, that they're willing to continue that discomfort over and over and over again until maybe the next try.

So that's how to answer that objection of it's a lot of money or it's too expensive. What happens if they say, I don't have the money? Well, that's really curious because again, depending on your messaging, how refined and how nuanced the words are that you use, it would be interesting that somebody felt filtered to come onto the sales call, but they don't have money.

So you could just be curious about that, like, oh, that's interesting, why are we here? What got you onto the sales call today if you don't have the money? And again, the fact that they don't have money might be true, they might not have money sitting in their wallet right now, but it's possible that they have access to money. Like if they really felt down deep into their tippy toes that you had the solution to their problems, it's possible that they could find the money, they could use a credit card, they could borrow money from the bank, they could go to a good friend, they could go to their mother, their sister, their mother-in-law, their father, right? I've had people borrow money to work with me.

So I understand you might not have it now, but just be quiet when people like pause, when people say that, oh, I don't have the money, and just be, huh, okay, tell me about that. Because you just, again, you wanna use this as an opportunity to get information from them. Like, exactly why are they on this call if they weren't planning on paying money to work with you? Did they just think it was a strategy call? They would get all their problems solved in like 30 minutes or 60 minutes, and that's, again, that's something that you just want to be curious about and maybe go deeper on.

So the third objection that we can talk about is, I need to ask my partner, my husband, my spouse, and that's very normal. Sometimes I tell people, yeah, I'm not here to cause a rift between a husband and a wife, but it would be also interesting to make sure that they're getting clear. 

Sometimes again, just like the money objection, I don't have the money, it's too expensive, we use our spouse to deflect the decision-making, usually because on a deeper level, we don't believe that we can actually get the results that we want and that we desire. So we kind of pin it on our spouse.

Now, I since the first investment that I made in my business a gazillion years ago, when I got my first coaching certification. And at that time I asked my husband about it because I had never made a five-figure investment in myself and my business. So it felt very uncomfortable.

I asked my husband about that and he said, "Yeah, this is what you really think you need to move your business forward, then go for it." So I did, and since that time, I have never asked my husband about any investments in my business. I share with him here and there what I invested in, what I'm doing, what I'm changing up, but it's my business, I'm responsible for showing up, I'm responsible for getting the results in my business, for serving my clients. My husband for sure is not going to be serving my clients, so he doesn't know what I do, and it's my responsibility to make sure that I run a profitable business.

So I'm just curious, like, you know, I understand if you wanna like ask your husband, your wife, make sure that you guys are on the same page, but are you asking permission or are you just sharing the news? Like, "Hey, this is what I wanna do and this is what I'm going for." 

But if you're asking permission, like if you would ask your husband permission to buy a pair of shoes, if you would ask him permission to buy clothing, an outfit, I don't know, something for the house, interior decorating, and I understand 100% that there is a budget that is for the whole family and you want to make sure that you're working together on it, but again make sure that you are on the same page as far as like, "Hey it's your business, you're in charge of showing up, getting the results that you want," because your husband's not like a partner in your business, unless he is.

So just understand and just hold space for what they mean. Make sure that they feel confident, your person on the sales call, in investing with you. If their husband said yes, if their wife said yes, would they be on board? Just check in with them. Like, "Oh, what do you think he'll say? What do you think she'll say?" 

And if you ask them, they'll be like, oh, yeah, because it happens all the time, by the way, that when we evaluate sales conversations in my group, people say their husband told them that they really want them to do this thing X, Y, and Z, but then when we find out underneath it is that the person that got on the sales call, she was the one who really wasn't confident that she could get the results, that she wasn't gonna show up and do the work. So find out what's going on underneath it. 

And the last objection we wanna talk about, it's kind of like a deflection is, I need to think about that. And that's very curious, I need to think about that, because as I said in the beginning, I really do believe that 90% of the people who got on the call with you were already decided that this is what they wanna do. So they're just feeling that little fear.

So you could be like, oh, okay, what do you need to think about? And let's try to uncover, like when you're doing this and you're asking that question, and I say to people, okay, let's just make sure it's clear to you what you're gonna think about. Because people will say that because it's not clear to them. And they're just feeling uncomfortable, they're feeling the discomfort of growth, that little fear that maybe it's not gonna work out. 

So if there is something that they really wanna think about, that's fine. I don't have a problem with that. But make sure that they get off of that sales call and it is clear to them that they're gonna think about A or B or C or all of the above, and it's not just going to be this amorphous think, because they'll be stuck in this indecision loop. 

And we talked last week on the podcast about decision fatigue. And when you're not making decisions, it's exhausting. So it can be a yes or it can be a no, but make the decision and move forward. That's what's going to get you all sorts of progress because having a lot of thoughts like take up space in your brain, it is very, very tiring. 

All right, so when you get onto a sales call, let's just do a little bit of a recap. Number one is who are you? What energy are you embodying? Are you convicted in the value of your offer? Are you convinced to yourself? We're not convincing any clients, but have you brainwashed yourself? Like, are your thoughts about you that you are the one for your clients, that you have the solution to their problems, like make sure you're sitting in that energy of you are the one, that is who you are when you get on the call.

Number two, who do you have on the call with you? Who is that person who wants what you have? Is that someone whom you have called in through your very, very refined marketing, through your messaging, through the niche, through your brand, through your positioning, right? Are you positioning yourself as a high caliber person with high caliber solutions, or are you just like generic, like a commodity, like everybody else?

If you have positioned yourself correctly, branded yourself, you know, specifically, your people will be called in to work with you. You're not a commodity. You're not like everybody else. You are a unique, special individual created by G-d and put by G-d in this world and you are calling in your unique special individuals. And as I said before, your clients are divinely contracted to work with you. This is a special combination of people that has come together in this moment, in this time.

Number three is your mindset around objections, especially money objections, is it's not a problem, completely normal, nothing has gone wrong. And the fourth step was exactly how you're gonna handle the money objections, and mostly it's just being curious, it's going deeper. 

The first words that people say to you are usually to just deflect you, to just push off the decision making, but what it means is there's an underlying fear and your job on the sales call is to uncover that fear so that you can actually help them take the leap because they really, really want to. Like you believing that they really do want the transformation and it's just a little bit hard, a little bit uncomfortable, that's what's going to actually give them the encouragement that they can get the results that they desire, and that is how you will have higher-converting sales conversations.

All right, my friends, I look forward to seeing you next week on The Jewish Entrepreneur Podcast, and don't forget to go to my website, debbiesassen.com/newsletter. Get on the newsletter so you are one of the first to know when the training comes out for messaging and marketing at the end of March. All right, my friends, see you next week, bye-bye.

Thanks for listening to The Jewish Entrepreneur Podcast. If you want to stop underselling and underearning and close more sales, you need to clear the limiting money beliefs that are sabotaging your business growth. 

Head on over to DebbieSassen.com/mindset and download my free Money Mindset Workbook. Uncover and dissolve money blocks, like hundreds of other entrepreneurs who are now building six-, multi-six-, and seven-figure businesses and creating true financial freedom.