Sacred Selling and Sufficiency

You’re listening to The Jewish Entrepreneur Podcast  with Debbie Sassen Episode 88.

Welcome to The Jewish Entrepreneur Podcast. I’m your host, Debbie Sassen. I went from being a financial adviser, author and chronic underearner 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 in to today’s show.

Hello, my friends and welcome back to the podcast. I have a very important episode for you today. We’re going to be talking about a concept that I have been developing in my business for three years. It is called Sacred Selling.

Before we jump in, I think that it is not a coincidence… I don’t believe in coincidences. I believe that God runs the world, and nothing is by accident. But it is fascinating to me that today is the day, Episode 88, that we’re talking about something sacred. Because in Jewish Gematria, which is numerology, numbers have specific meanings.

The number eight represents something that is above the natural world. I think it’s fascinating that today’s episode is 88, which means it is very above the natural world. Now, I don’t actually know what the gematria of 88 is, but when I sat down to record this I hadn’t even thought about it before. I said, “Wow, isn’t that fascinating?”

Because something that is sacred is something that is holy, and something that is holy is above the natural world. We know, for example, that a baby boy has a circumcision on the eighth day after he was born. Because it’s a concept that we have specifically for a child, that we are elevating this baby boy; girls are born differently. This is not the time or place to go into the difference between boys and girls.

But when the baby boy has his circumcision, he now rises to a higher spiritual plane. Girls are just born that way, and you’re going to have to go do your research elsewhere if that is not a concept that you’re familiar with. Because I can only do what I do. I’m not here to educate you on all of the ins and outs of why things happen in the Jewish world.

I will also mention that the holiday of Hanukkah also has eight days. Because the miracle that happened, that the oil for the menorah lasted for eight days, was something supernatural. Even the war between the Jewish Maccabees and the Greeks is also something that cannot be explained through the natural world. We were just a small little army fighting off the big Greek army.

So, eight is a very special number. In today’s episode, we’re going to be focusing on sacred selling and sufficiency. Now, if you remember your English classes, that is a lot of alliteration. But before we jump into sacred selling and sufficiency, I want to give a shout out to two of my clients, who are going to remain nameless; they requested that. But both of them had their highest earning months in June.

One of them said to me this is the highest earning month that she has had of all times. I am just so overjoyed. I have so much love and compassion and respect for my clients who are learning this process, the sacred selling process.

They are showing up powerfully for their clients, and they’re growing their businesses. They’re making money, as women in the working world, doing the thing in the world that God has gifted them. They’re helping other people heal, grow, thrive, and just be bigger versions of themselves.

I also want to point out that both of my clients have evolved their business and who they serve over time. They never made it a problem that they started their business and they didn’t have their exact, ideal client avatar all figured out. I don’t like to call it ideal, client avatar. I like to call it your best fit clients.

Because there are times in our life where certain clients fit what we’re doing, who we are, where our skill set is, who we enjoy serving the most, and then, for various reasons, they’re no longer our best fit clients. Of course, we can continue to serve them, but we grow, they grow.

That is such a beautiful, normal part of the human condition is that we get to keep growing and evolving, and we don’t have to be the same things, or serve the same people for 30 years. So, a big shout out to my clients. If you’re listening, you know who you are. I’m just totally in love and awe with everything you have accomplished.

I also want to tell you that it is here! If you’ve been listening to my podcast for the last few weeks, I have been talking about the four-part training that I am creating for you: The Art of Ethical selling; Four Key Steps to Non-Sleazy Sales Conversations.

It is going to drop on my birthday, July 24. My Hebrew birthday is July 21. But July 24 is a Monday, so we’re going to release it to the public. You can get your ear pods on it because it’s going to be an audio recording. If you are not yet on my email list, make sure that you pause right now and go sign up to my email list: DebbieSassen.com/newsletter. Once you get on my email list, you will know the moment that the training has dropped into the world.

Alright, my friends, let us talk about sacred selling and sufficiency. If I say that too many times, my tongue is just going to get stuck in my mouth. But sacred selling is a concept that I have been developing for the last three years in my business. Nobody in the industry is talking about selling like it is a sacred encounter.

I think it is a missing piece. There is a lot of bro marketing and high-pressure sales tactics out there. I think that we need to reverse the conversation and really look at selling as a way of serving. I know there are people who talk about selling as serving, so I don’t want to say that all people are like this.

But I know people go through sales courses, and there is a lot of pressure, convincing, a little bit of manipulation. Certainly, the culture in Israel, where I live, is a little bit more high pressured. I mean, when somebody wants something, they will call and call and call to offer me a service. Oftentimes they don’t give up.

In fact, yesterday… I’m not going to give too many particulars… but somebody knocked on my door; it was something specific. They wanted to come into my house. I was in the middle of something. They’re like, “I’ll sit here on the couch, and I will wait for you for half an hour.” I went upstairs, I closed the thing that I was doing on my computer, and I sat there.

It was very hard for me, for whatever reasons, to push this person way and say no. My husband was right around the corner. I knew he was about to come home. He came home, said, “Thank you very much,” and sent the person on their way. But oftentimes, sales tactics feel so pushy.

Even in the industry, people talk about getting clients, enrolling clients, making sales, and convincing someone to work with you. But I think it’s time, it is high time, that we take a step back and we focus, really, on what our job and what our responsibility is as business owners.

When we are selling, it is all about serving. Sacred selling is seeing the other person on the line, on that sales conversation with you. It’s about paying attention to where they are now. Where do they want to go? How you can help them?.

It is about you being responsible for how you show up. How you listen to your person carefully, and you ask them insightful questions. Sacred selling is about the value you bring to the conversation and the relationship you create with your person. Are you noticing how I’m putting the emphasis on you?

You are the only person that you can control in your conversation. You are the only person you can control in your thoughts. So, you do you. You make sure that you show up to that conversation respectful of the other person that’s on the line.

There is a concept from the Torah, from the Bible, and we all know it; love your neighbor like yourself. Just like you want to be treated with respect. You want to be treated in a dignified manner. You don’t want to feel that someone’s push, push, pushing.

You want to make sure that the way that you are showing up to the conversation is protecting and honoring the dignity and respect of the human being who is in that conversation, who is in that relationship. Right?

The relationship might not yet be deep, because you’re just getting to know each other on the sales call. But you’re developing that relationship in the way that you show up. We’re going to talk about three steps to how you can really show up in service, and in a respectful, sacred, dignified manner, and ethical manner, for the person who is on the other line with you.

Sacred selling is never sleazy. It is never high pressure or manipulative. Now, we can help a person on the other end of the line have a transformation, an a-ha moment. See where they’re getting in their own way from getting the results that they want.

That does not always feel comfortable, when they, all of a sudden, see, “Oh, because I am doing X, that is stopping me from getting Y.” But that is because we see the truth, and sometimes the truth just doesn’t feel good. But that doesn’t mean that you’re being sleazy. It doesn’t mean that you are being manipulative.

It just means that you are creating relationship and telling someone the truth. We want to be truthful. We want to be in integrity, and we want to serve. Serving someone is also telling them where they’re getting in their own way, where they’re blocking themselves, and they’re the ones who are stopping themselves from getting the results that they want, or that they desire in their lives.

So, today, I’m going to teach you my approach to sales conversations, and it is the same approach that I teach my clients. I have to tell you, there is a learning curve, right? We don’t get it right, necessarily, the first time. You’re going to have to learn to become a sacred seller through the process of practice and repetition.

I have so much respect for my clients who put their sales call evaluations into our Slack channel where I can review them. Some people do, and some people don’t; everybody gets to do them.

But what happens, is when you take the time to notice what was happening on your call, when you’re downloading all your thoughts after the sales conversation, even what worked and how the client said yes, then you remember the next time that you got out of your own scarcity. That you didn’t get into convincing energy, right?

Even when you’re noticing that, you remind your brain that these were the things that worked, and I want to make sure that I bring them to the next call. Then, when my clients post their evaluations in the Slack channel, I can see where they were getting graspy or even defensive.

Maybe they slipped into that convincing energy. Or it could be that they even shied away from telling the truth. Remember, sometimes the truth is uncomfortable.

Just today, one of my clients posted in Slack. Here’s what she said, “For the first time ever, I feel like I actually had a proper sales call. I now understand how powerful it is for me to make that distinction between my discovery and sales calls. For me, they are different, and I feel like I actually had a chance to talk about objections. I have a lot of improvement to do. But this is going to be a game changer.”

You see, my friend? When you have awareness around what’s happening, that is how you change the game. That is how you change the script, as it were, for your conversations for the next time. Now, I don’t believe in having a sales script.

If you sign up for my free training, you’re definitely going to hear me say that, because then you’re going to sound like a robot. Have you ever been on one of those YouTube channels and you have tried to follow some sort of training and there was a robotic voice? I can’t listen to those. I turn them off, and I go and try to find a human being. Again, you’re creating relationship with your person when you’re on the sales call. You never want to sound like a robot. So, don’t read off a script.

But I just want to just preface this whole thing, about the sales conversation, before I get into the three steps that I think that you really want to use when you are getting ready to step into that conversation. I just want to let you know that your brain is not really wired to focus on other people.

Now, I know you’re an adult, and I know that you are a nice person. But let’s remember that you being nice to other people is a learned behavior. Babies are self-centered. They’re very self-serving. They cry when they’re hungry, when they’re tired, and when they want to be changed. Babies are self-focused, because that’s the way our brains are wired. Your brain is wired to keep you alive. That is its job.

So, just think about what happens when you’re on a sales call. Your brain wants you to close this conversation, wants you to enroll this client… I know I’m using that industry jargon, lingo, that sounds maybe a little bit icky or a little bit sleazy. Like, let’s get the client, let’s close the client. But that’s the way people talk in the industry. So, we’re just going to use it. It’s familiar.

Your brain wants you to get paid. Your brain wants you to have money so that you will have food to eat. Your brain also wants you to enroll the client because that will help you feel validated and confident as a business owner. I don’t want to make this a problem, but if these things are happening for you, I just want you to know that they are completely normal.

This is your primitive brain that is showing up at the call. The more we can bring awareness to, “Oh, that’s what was happening when I was on my sales conversation. Now, I know. Now, I know what to be on the lookout for.”

Sometimes, when someone has an objection on the call, your brain doesn’t want to be attacked, right? When someone’s like, “Oh, I don’t know, it’s too expensive. I can’t afford it. That’s not what I was thinking.” All of a sudden, your brain is feeling attacked. It feels like something has gone wrong. And your brain wants to protect you, wants to save energy, it wants to reduce pain, and it wants to increase pleasure.

So, if somebody says that on a sales call, it’s too expensive, rather than you being a truth teller, rather than you challenging them for their good… I’m not talking about you, but really about being in service of your person on the line, right? We just go into appease. There are different stress responses that our brain gives us when we’re feeling under attack.

There’s fight, flight, freeze, and appease. So, your brain is just like, “Let’s appease. Let’s not go there. Let’s not fight. The sales conversation has been lost.”  So, we just say, “Okay, thank you very much. If you change your mind, then this is where you can find me.”

Anyway, these are all the things that I’m going to be talking about in that free training. So, make sure that you are on my newsletter list. You will have the link in the show notes, and you can go and sign up for that free sales conversation training.

Here are the three steps that I want you to take away from this call. The first step, which I think is obvious, as I said, and nobody in the industry is talking about, is the principle that we have in Judaism, kedusha tzericha hachanah; holiness requires preparation.

I really believe, as I said at the beginning of this podcast episode, that every sales conversation is a sacred encounter between you and the person on the other end of the line. Your person has a problem, they want it solved, or they have an issue they want resolved. Or maybe a person has a dream or a desire that they want to actualize, and they’re coming to you to help them.

Remember what I said earlier, love your neighbor like yourself. Just like you want to be treated with dignity and respect. The person on the other end of the line wants to be treated similarly, with dignity and respect. So, the way I teach it is that you, as the leader of your company, as the leader of your sales call, you have to prepare in advance for your sales conversations.

You can’t be running these calls while you’re driving carpool. Have you ever had it happen? This, for sure, has happened to me. People get my phone number, they call me, I’m in the kitchen and I’m cooking, and I’m trying to have that conversation. Don’t do that.

Don’t have sales calls when your kids are fighting in the backseat of the car. Don’t have sales conversations when you’re sitting in a noisy coffee shop, and there might be music playing or dishes clattering all around you. Right? It’s very rude.

I have to say this. I’ve been on calls with people where there’s just background noise. And, I’m the owner of my company, right? But just from my point of view, I can’t have a conversation when there’s a lot of noise clattering around. So, you, as the business owner, find yourself a quiet place to sit where there is not noise, not kids, not dogs barking.

Sometimes people say they hear my dog barking, I’m like… Actually, I don’t hear the dogs barking usually. Oftentimes, if you’re on Zoom, especially Zoom, it’s pretty good at noise cancellation so we can’t hear a lot of noise in the background. But especially if you’re in a coffee shop and on your phone, your mic is going to be picking up everything. So, you, as the business owner, don’t do that.

If you’ve got someone on the sales conversation, and you are finding that you’re being distracted, you might say, “Hey, let’s reschedule this call for another time, when it’s quiet.” That’s especially true if they’re on a call and they’re with their kids fighting in the background or they’re doing carpool or something like that.

But here’s what I want to offer you. That is, make sure that you have 30 minutes. I know we’re all short on time, but I want you to prepare for the sales conversation. Because I want you to clear your mind. Just purge all of the thoughts from your brain that could be standing in the way of you showing up in service with dignity and respect of your person.

Here’s what I want you to do. I want you to take a piece of paper. I want you to take a pen, or your other favorite writing instrument. Do not do this on Notes on your phone. Do not do it in your mind. But really, I will believe strongly that this is pen to paper work.

We have tens of thousands of thoughts in our brain every day. Most of them we’re not even aware of. I want you to get your thoughts out of your head and onto paper. I want you to write down things like, “I really need to sign this client. I haven’t signed a client this month, this year.” Or maybe you’re out of money, and you need to pay the rent. Or you need to pay school fees for your children. Or your credit card bill is due.

You really need the money. Like there’s some neediness inside of you, that really wants to have this client on your roster so that you’re going to get paid. We said before, you get paid, you get money, you eat food. That is your survival mechanism that is wired into your brain.

Or maybe you want to feel validated as a business owner. You want to feel successful, or you want to feel confident. Maybe you’ve got something to prove to your partner or your parents, so you want to make sure that you’re having more clients, and that your business is successful. Whatever the heck is going on in your brain, we’re not making it a problem, we’re not shaming you, we just want you to get it out of your brain and onto paper.

Because when these thoughts are looping in your mind on a call, your brain is going to be scattered, and you’re not going to be present for your client. Your presence is everything. Your presence is going to be the creator of that relationship between you and the person that is on the other end of the line.

If your brain is thinking about the electricity bill that needs to be paid… Or if your brain is thinking, “I need the client. I haven’t signed a client in so long, and I want to feel successful and confident,” it’s going to impact your energy. Your people are going to feel it even on the other end of the Zoom. I promise you, they will. It’s energetic, it just goes through. It shows up in your body language and the way you say things and even the tone of your voice. So, make sure to clear your mind ahead of time.

Step number two is getting out of your client’s wallet. One of my favorite concepts… Before we go there, this is one I want to talk about. That is the concept of sufficiency. Sufficiency is a term that I first learned many years ago, when I read the book The Soul of Money, by Lynne Twist.

It seems, in the last few episodes of my podcast I have been reading directly from books. There are so many eloquent authors out there who say things so beautifully. Why try to repeat their words, if I can just read from the book. So, let me tell you what Lynne Twist writes.

“Sufficiency is not a message about simplicity, or about cutting back and lowering expectations. Sufficiency does not mean we shouldn’t strive or aspire. Sufficiency is an act of generating, distinguishing, making known to ourselves, the power and presence of our existing resources, and our inner resources. Sufficiency is a context we bring forth from within, that reminds us that if we look around and within ourselves, we will find what we need. There is always enough. When we live in the context of sufficiency, we engage in life from a sense of our own wholeness, rather than a desperate longing to be complete.”

That is just so beautiful. I’m going to read that last line again, because it is hugely powerful. “When we live in the context of sufficiency, we engage in life from a sense of our own wholeness, rather than a desperate longing to be complete.” That actually so much connects with what I talked about in step one of Sacred Selling.

You want to be successful or feel successful. You want to feel confident. And what Lynne Twist tells us, is that when you feel sufficient, you feel whole. You feel complete. You don’t need anything more to feel that sense of success, because you are already successful. You’re a human being, you’re living on this planet. God created you, and you’re still alive in this world today. Everything is good, you have what you need.

This connects very much with one of the blessings that we say every morning in our Jewish prayers, and that is that God made me everything that I need. I think that is so fascinating that this specific line in our prayer book is written in the past tense. That God already made you everything that you need. He already made me everything that I need. I have what I need. I am enough. I have enough. I am sufficient.

That is so much the concept of sufficiency that we want to bring to our sales conversations. Lynne Twist said it, that there is enough. God created enough. He’s abundant. There is enough for you, there’s enough for me, there is enough money in the world, there are enough clients in the world. I don’t need to be or do anything else. I need to focus on the fact that I have everything in this beautiful, abundant world.

So, let’s go back to step number two, which is get out of your client’s wallet. I mean that really, really seriously. Because people are going to show up to the sales call, and they’re going to say that they don’t have enough money, they can’t afford it, and they don’t have enough money to buy. Your brain, again, it’s a survival mechanism. Your brain is wired to want money so that you can eat.

We’re never ever, ever going to make it a problem. Right? It seems logical for you, that people will talk during the sales conversation, you might hear things, you might hear a word here or there, you might notice about money or money they spent.

You’re going to think that if somebody mentioned something about having money, that they will be the ones who are most likely to say yes. You might hear about somebody else being in debt, or all of these other expenses they have. You might be thinking, in your brain, “Oh, no, they don’t have money. They’re never going to buy.”

Then, your shoulders drop, you feel a pit in your stomach, and you’re like, “Oh, no, this is never going to work.” But here’s what I want to offer you. You never know what is happening in the mind and in the bank account of the other person on the line. Sometimes it is the person who does have a lot of expenses, they might even have some debt, and they’re going to be the ones who are going to say yes to working with you.

Sometimes the ones who have money, and you’ve heard things on your call, they go on vacations, they just bought a new car, which may or may not affect their bank account. But you might be thinking, “Oh, they know how to spend money. All’s good. We could work together. I feel really confident about this.”

Then, you slip out of your serving energy, being present, and being there for your client because all of a sudden, you are in their wallet. It often happens, or it can happen, that the people with the most money are the ones who are most unwilling to part with their money.

So, you have to stay out of a client’s wallet. Anything that you hear them say about money, about resources, about what they can or cannot pay, get that out of your mind. You just show up sufficient. You show up whole. You show up with that sense of belonging; that you have enough.

Right now, you have a roof over your head. You have food in your refrigerator. You have running water. You have a flush toilet. You are listening to this podcast on some sort of electronic device. You have everything you need. Stay out of their wallet.

Alright, step number three for our Sacred Selling, that is for you, as a person, to remember who you are. It goes back to the concept of wholeness that Lynne Twist writes about in her book, The Soul of Money. In addition, I encourage you to remember who you are as a person. You are a gift that God has put in the world. You have skills, you have experience, you have expertise. There will never be another you.

In the 8 billion people that there are in the world today, and the gazillions of people who have already been created; they’ve already been here, done their thing in the world, added what they had to add, and they’ve passed away; there never was, there never is, and there never will be another you.

There is something special about you, right now. When you were doing your pen to paperwork, I want you to remind your brain about this. Because we make the other person saying yes or no something about us. That that is what is going to make us whole and complete. But I want you to remember who you are.

That you have been created in God’s image. That you have tools, you have a skill set, you have an expertise, that were specifically designed for you to fulfill your purpose in the world. It may or may not be with this person on your sales conversation. But still, nevertheless, you are special. You are a gift to the world and to the universe.

Then, if you want to get a little bit more specific, if you have a few details about the person that you’re about to have that sales conversation with,  you can write down for yourself: What do you already know about this person, about their problem, about their desired result? How can you feel more confident on that sales conversation with them? What do you already know that can help you to help them achieve their desired result? How can you feel more whole, complete and sufficient right now?

It’s so important for you to do your preparation for your sales conversation. I want you to be there, showing up feeling unattached to that person; giving you something, having to make you feel better or more confident, or in a different place from where you are. You are good enough. You are enough.

Again, you were created in the image of God, and there is a reason why you are on this earth today. You have a purpose. I want you to embody that and embrace that. Then, I want your mind to be clear; that’s step number one. Do a thought purge. Just take everything in your brain that could be clouding the way you show up and get it out on paper.

Remember that you have enough, and you are enough right now. Stay out of your client’s wallet. Then, get more specific. Drill down into who you are, your expertise, and how you can help your client solve their problem. Just remind yourself that there will never be another you. Alright, my friend, that is sacred selling and sufficiency.

I want to remind you that on July 24, my free training: The Art of Ethical Selling: Four Key Steps to Non-Sleazy Sales Conversation, is going to hit the airwaves. So, make sure that you are on my email list. DebbieSassen.com/newsletter, because I want you to have it as soon as it drops.

Have a beautiful day. I will see you next week. 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.