When you're starting or growing a new business, one of the biggest challenges can be around getting new clients, making sales, putting yourself out there. It can be a challenge to get past the mindset, the mind blocks to actually get over the stories that sales is slimy, that you're using people, and actually just say it. That's a challenge in itself. And then the challenge sometimes can be attracting those clients for your products and services when you are first getting started. And a lot of times, if you are running into the problem of not having the amount of clients that you want or getting your first client, it's not because you're on the wrong platform. You might be thinking, oh, I should be on TikTok or LinkedIn or should be using Reels. That's not your problem. Your problem isn't your price. It's not too expensive. Your problem is not that it is a course and it should be a membership, or you made a group program and it should have been a one-on-one program. That is not your problem. Your problem is not that you are bad at sales. That's absolutely not your problem. You might not believe me. I know we're not sitting face to face, but I'm going to tell you literally anyone can be good at sales. Um, there are some other techniques, but you will be well on your way at being good at sales when you nail what we're going to talk about today. And you are not, it's not that your clients or your community don't care what you have to offer. You might think, gosh, I just keep putting things out. People consume my free content. I get a lot of engagement. People respond to my Instagram stories, they respond to my emails. But when it comes to saying, hey, I have something for sale, I get crickets. And it's not the problem is that your community is just doesn't want to buy anything from you. That that is not the problem. What is the problem is what we are going to talk about in today's episode. We're going to talk about what that problem is and a way to help you solve that problem. So if this is something that you are facing, come hang out with me inside and I'll see you over there. Welcome to the Enneagram MBA Podcast, a show for aspiring and growing entrepreneurs and unfulfilled employees who know they are capable of playing bigger. If you are wanting to identify your gifts, find your purpose, do work that matters, and create a ripple effect that goes beyond yourself, you're in the right place. Each week you'll get resources, strategies, and support to help you get to know yourself, to get to know and understand others, like your future clients, and help you get known so that you can reach more people with your gifts and purpose. So grab your notebook or open up your notes app, and I will see you in class. Welcome back to another episode here on the Enneagram NBA podcast. You're listening to part two of our two-part series on the Enneagram and sales. I'm your host, Sarah Lynn, Enneagram, certified Enneagram coach and visibility consultant, helping women get to know themselves, know like and trust themselves so that they can get known and build a personal brand that clients know, like, and trust and do it in a way that really aligns with their personality, their strengths, what they want their days to look like, what their goals are for their life. Today we are looking at the Enneagram, we're going to be using the Enneagram to look at helping us solve the one of the biggest sales problems that many of us face, that you might be facing yourself. In part one of this series, we looked at our own self. We used the Enneagram to better understand our own sales style. In episode 45, we looked at JLo as our inspiration and just her some general takeaways from her promotion of her new movie, Marry Me. We looked at strengths and struggles for each type. We also at the end talked about um two key Enneagram types that you want to pay attention to and bring their strengths into your own sales style to really build a healthy, thriving, um, effective sales channel of your business. So if you have not listened to that one, I would go start with that one, episode 45. Learn about your own sales style using the Enneagram to learn more about yourself. In this episode, we're using the Enneagram to learn more about others and um really identify the problem that you might be facing in your own sales strategy. And right out of the gate, let's just get into it. Your problem, most likely, is that you're not talking to your clients' problem effectively enough or at all. And before we get into this, I do just want to say, I just had, I almost forgot to say this, that what we're talking about today is really around your sales messaging. When you go out to put an offer, when you when you um talk about what you have to sell on a podcast or in a post or in a video um or in a video and um, I just said video twice, in on social media, wherever you're talking about it, in an email. There we go. That's what I was trying to say. Um, just kind of how you position it is what we're really talking about. The other vein of sales is those one-on-one, really important conversations where you're on the phone with somebody, you're trying to set up a call to get on the phone with somebody, you're having an email exchange. And for those types of sales conversations, I have to recommend my own sales coach, Nikki Rausch. She has the Sales Maven podcast. I'm a part of her SalesMaven society. She is a genius at sales conversations, at giving you specific language. Um, each week in the Facebook group, people are sharing responses that they got back from clients, and she's helping them craft really helpful messages back, um QA calls. Like it, I'm I've been in sales for in some shape or form for eight years now. I'm constantly learning from Nikki. So cannot recommend start with her podcast, Nikki Roush, Sales Maven. Definitely recommend that for really, really tangible sales strategy, sales conversations, um, regardless of your Enneagram type. You're gonna get so much from her. Today, though, we're really looking at kind of that sales positioning, sales messaging. So I wanted to just kind of clarify what type of sales we're talking about or what piece of sales we're talking about. Um, and the issue for for most of us is that we're not describing the problem. We're not talking about the problem. We're offering up the solution before we talk about the problem. And I used to teach this class called Seven Ingredients of an awesome offer, seven pieces of an often awesome offer, depending on what graphics I wanted to use, um, puzzle pieces or kitchen graphics for ingredients, but um, and I would tell the story of this startup investor who was a part of this board or this panel where other startup companies, founders, would go stand on a stage and pitch their idea, their company to stand up on stage to pitch the idea, it costs eighteen thousand dollars. 18,000 dollars. I think it was a six-minute presentation that you you got to share. And he said, time and time again, people missed the opportunity to talk about the problem. They were always talking about the solution, dove straight into the solution. He said, You need to create new space in my brain to hold the information you're about to deliver. It turns me off when entrepreneurs offer solutions without setting up the problem. Let's say that last part one more time. It turns me off when entrepreneurs offer solutions without setting up the problem. So you're just diving straight into the problem, and people may not even know that they have a problem and that they need your service to help them solve that problem. And I will tell you right now, I want to do more public speaking. I want to get better at it, I want to do more of it. So, shameless plug, if you happen to know a company or organization that would love to bring in an Enneagram expert, educator, workshop facilitator, I would love to be recommended. I would love to get connected with them. Just throwing that out there for you. But one of the things that I I do occasionally just to kind of to get better, to practice, to learn from the best is I'll watch TED Talks and I'll also watch Steve Jobs' new product launch present presentations. Um, you know, he is he is the master of the this. He his slides are simple but powerful. His message is simple and powerful, his pauses are so effective, the buildup, how he organizes his presentation. It is all so extremely effective. So I enjoy watching his presentations. And one of the the presentations that I watched that I use as an example is his promotion of the new any um iPhone. Um, and I know it's hard to imagine a world when we didn't, a time when we didn't have iPhones, but there was a time. And he shared this presentation and he didn't just pull out the iPhone right away. He built up the problem. And what he showed first wasn't the iPhone at all, which it's a cool product. I think it would have, I think by itself, it probably would have got the attention, the aha's, the the, you know, the the feedback that he wanted. However, what he did was led with the problem. He put a picture of the BlackBerry on the screen and he talked about what a waste of space that half the phone was like a plastic permanent keyboard. You couldn't make any changes to it. Once it was built, it was shipped and it was done. You could never make changes. Sometimes the user wouldn't need the keyboard, so it was just wasted space when you could have had the whole screen. What are we gonna do? Right. And if I had had a black, well, I did have a Blackberry at the time, but I was sitting in that audience with my Blackberry and he didn't first talk about that and just put up the iPhone, I might have thought, wow, that's really cool. But you know, I already have a smartphone. I have my Blackberry here. I don't need I don't need that solution. I don't need that iPhone. But then by talking about all the things that were wrong with the Blackberry, I was like, you know what? You're right. This is a problem, and I now need this iPhone. So then he put up the iPhone, talked about the features, the benefits, how it's going to make your life easier, why it's better. And so in your own sales messaging and the way that you position your offers to make sure that you are using taking us, uh taking that page from Steve's book and and just what we need for you know human psychology, that we need to create that bucket. Use this example of like a coffee mug. We the coffee mug, the mug is the problem. And then you're gonna pour the solution into the coffee mug. But without the coffee mug, without the container, you're just pouring the solution all over, and it has no container to to take root in and to actually be something. People don't get what it is until you contrast it with the problem. And so right now, maybe you take a look at your posts, your emails, what you've been saying, and reflect on how much you're talking about your program, your course, your membership versus how much you're talking about the problem. So within the problem, um, I had mentioned that I, you know, we I did this um seven pieces of an offer awesome offer training. One of those pieces was the promise. And that is the the first piece. And within the promise is the problem that you are solved solving, but it's also the transformation that you're promising. But you can't promise a transformation without first addressing the problem. And your transformation is not your product, if that makes sense. It's it's not your coaching program, it's not your course, it's not your book club, it's not your workshop, it's not your round tables, it's not your services. Your solution is the transformation that people will get once they experience that vehicle. Those things that I just mentioned are the vehicle to take people from where they are now to where they want to go, but it is not the transformation. What the transformation is is you know, having a fully booked out coaching practice. It doesn't matter if it takes you a course or another coaching program or a membership or a workshop to get you there. You want that the fully booked out course, right? Or the fully booked out schedule. Um a new website. You want a new website? Um, you know, does it take your person half a day, all day, a week? You know, may, maybe, maybe that's a bad example because yeah, it depends on when when you need it. But, you know, if you are um if you're helping somebody lose weight, does it matter if you're teaching them through a weekly membership where you're dropping trainings or if you're teaching them in a core a self-paced course? No, they just want to get the result, right? And and so again, making sure that when you're talking about what you're selling, you're also selling the transformation and not the vehicle necessarily. Because if you think about it, if you said here, you know, you can take these pills, or you can take this 12 module course. You can take a pill to have a fully booked schedule, or you can take this 12 module course just to take a 12 module course. What are you gonna pick? You can just take the pills and get the results, right? It's not about the slides, it's not about the hour that you're spending with your client. It's it's it's about the transformation, what's going to come from that hour of sitting down with them. And this is something that I had to learn, and I still have to remember from when I used to sell advertising. And for a long time, I thought I was selling ads. I was never selling ads. What I was selling was exposure. When I sold sponsorships to an event, I was not selling a sponsorship. I was not selling your name, their name on a logo or their logo on um, you know, the presentation slides. I was not selling just the general sponsorship. I was selling for them to have an opportunity to sit next to their ideal client. That's what I was selling. That's what I had to talk about. I talk about the exposure that they were gonna have from their ads, the attention that they were gonna get, how they were gonna stand out with their messaging on that ad um to their ideal client. It wasn't about advertising for six months or 12 months. It was about the exposure and the connection and the access that they would get to their ideal client. And so that is your challenge is to make sure that you're one talking about the problem, and then two talking about the transformation and letting those two things lead your sales messaging. Um, when Steve Jobs sold the iPod, do you remember the iPod? Um, he didn't sell an iPod. What he was selling was a thousand songs in your pocket. That was the marketing message. It wasn't buy an iPod. What's an iPod? What the heck is an iPod? It's a you know, a metal rectangle that has some buttons and you got to stick plastic headphones into it. Like what really is that? It's a thousand songs in your pocket. That's what that is. And so what is your? I mean, that is that is really good. I I you know, I'm I'm here in the trenches with you trying to um pay attention to these kinds of things too, and to make sure that I'm commuting that communicating that way. But what is your thousand songs in your pocket? What's what's your message? What's your transformation? What is the thing that you're actually selling versus the vehicle that you're using to sell that thing? And when we are explaining what that is in our messaging, the one piece of the Enneagram to use is that um it's it's kind of how it's how we handle conflict is the piece of the internet there or not the internet, the Enneagram that can be helpful for you in this situation. And yes, understanding how you yourself handle conflicts is great. You can use this in relationships, understanding, understanding that. Um, but what we're gonna do is look at it through the lens of our buyer. And what do they need to see on a sales page? What do they need to hear in your messaging? What um do they need to see in in an email, in your social media post? What are those things that um they need to hear from you in order to feel confident? And it's not going to necessarily be what you need. Okay. So we have step one, identified the problem. And if you have not, if you feel like maybe I don't yet know, I don't yet have a good grasp on the problem. Um, I have I learned about market research calls when I took Marie Forelio's B school almost four years ago now, when I still at my old job thinking that I wanted to start a business. And um, I have a question sheet that I have used since. And I do market research calls to this day. And I have gotten on the phone with a handful of people and I've decided not to put out an offer because it wasn't clear, it wasn't what's what people needed. Um, I have used them to help me validate my ideas and also to help me um communicate my idea in the way that they're seeing it. So if you feel like, gosh, I don't really have a maybe I don't have a good grasp on the problem that I'm trying to solve, that's okay. In the beginning, that is incredibly normal. Or with any type of new offer or product or service that you're putting out there, that's that makes sense. That's totally fine. Um connect with people, set up some calls, send out some surveys. If you would like that that question bank, um connect with me over on LinkedIn, message me over there, and I'll I'll send that to you at Sarah Lynn Wallace. Sarah Lynn Wallace, I believe, is my LinkedIn. I'll put it in the show notes. Um connect with me and I'll send you a PDF of the those question banks. Um so but step one is identifying that problem, getting clear on what that is. Then step two is understanding what your what your um transformation is. So you have the problem, what is the transformation? Again, not the vehicle. And now we're gonna look at how to communicate what are some tangible things, what are some tangible ways to communicate the transformation and to start to communicate how you help, to start to maybe add in some ways that your vehicle, your membership, your coaching services, your your roundtable, your um webinar, whatever it is, is is going to be something that they need and want to buy from you. It's going to be a no-brainer. And so there is a grouping called the comp competency grouping, or ones, threes, and fives. They have a tendency to respond to conflict and difficulty with rational thinking. They see emotions as clouding judgment and preventing objective solutions. Um, they're they're going to expect people to put aside emotions, to solve problems like mature, sensible adults. They want to use data logic and knowledge. And so for Those people in your messaging, they're going to be looking for the details. They want to see the stats. Maybe there's research behind the problem. Maybe there's some analysis about the problem. Maybe you share a framework. If you haven't developed a framework, huge fan of frameworks for your transformation. When you explain the transformation or when you explain the path from the problem to the transformation, you have a success path. You have a framework, lists, testimonials, dates of when the program starts or when they can expect to see results. Maybe you have a comparison chart of, you know, where they are, where they could be. Maybe you have a comparison chart of, you know, what you're offering versus the other options out there and what stands out about yours, talking about your process. So those types of things are going to be important for all of us, but especially for those people who see the world through that lens. We have a positive outlook group as well. They have a tendency to respond to conflict and difficulty by bringing on this positive attitude, reframing disappointment with some kind of silver lining thinking, the glasses half full, rose-colored glasses on at all times. They don't want to feel bad about themselves. Okay. And so if they start to feel bad about themselves, this is going to drive them to reframe any situation into a brighter, more optimistic one. And so for people who see the world this way, it's going to be important for you to complement the data, the charts, the analysis, the facts with some vision casting. What's possible in the future? Where are your people now? So this is where really painting the picture of the problem and then really painting the picture of that transformation. Where could they be is going to be really important. You want to reframe situations that and maybe beliefs they have about themselves so that they're not, it's not necessarily their fault. So I've I've heard Gary V say before, this is just an example, you know, it's not that you're lazy, you're just not inspired. Um, maybe you know your people have made commitments or set New Year's New Year's goals and they've fallen off a long time ago. And so your message might be, you know, today is a new day to renew your health commitments. You can also describe a common enemy. It's not them. Listen, it's not us. It's, you know, the this culture, these beliefs that we have grown up with, the messages that we're inundated with every day. Um, we're gonna work together to fight against this common enemy. Those might be some things that you want to include in your sales messaging as you talk about your offer. And then the last grouping is this emotional reactivity group, our four, six, and eights tend to be in this group. And this is where they're going to have a strong emotional reaction to any type of difficulty or conflict, and they're going to get angry, they're gonna get really worried, they're gonna get really sad, and then they're gonna want to vent about it. And whoever it is that they're venting to, they want them to have an equally um emotional response. And so, ways to incorporate this type of energy into your sales messaging is to share your own story. Why are you offering this specific transfer transformation? What problem did you experience in the past that led you to creating a solution for it? What is your why? Open up, get, you know, connect with others through those emotional stories. Share what you stand for and also what you stand against. Maybe you have a mantra, you know. This is for people who believe. Dot, dot, dot. Who is your who are you wanting to help? Who is this transformation that you're selling for? People who believe what? Describe the challenge, what's the issue, who is the enemy in this situation, connecting with people, getting people emotional, right? There's some overlap there with that the positive outlook, storytell, share testimonials. But the reason why we're looking at testimonials here might be people who have an have an have had an emotional experience with you, have some sort of emotional story versus somebody who shared, you know, I worked with Sally and I increased my email list size by 25%. Though the people who love data are gonna love that. Anybody's gonna love to see that. But making sure that you're also getting and sharing testimonials that also have are telling a story, connecting emotionally. Um, you can share how they can expect to feel after they complete your program. You know, I know you're feeling really frustrated right now. And but here's how you could feel after we work together, after you go through this program with me. And then lastly, um, you want to think about some emotional, emotionally charged subject lines to help get your emails open. And you can think about subject lines really in in all these contexts and just test and experiment. That's ultimately what marketing is is one big experiment. What works for one type of industry may not work for another. What works for one type of coach or consultant in the industry may not work for another. And even if it works for you now, it may not work for you three months from now, six months from you. So it ultimately is all just an experiment. But the one thing that is tried and true is how you talk about and position that problem and then paint the picture of that transformation. All right. So with that, we're gonna wrap it up. And the one takeaway today is that if you are struggling, if you're feeling frustrated in your sales area of your business, to look at your the heavyweight, make sure you're bringing in the heavyweight, which is the problem, and talking about it, talking about the problem that you solve, not just, you know, talking about problems and it's hopeless and what should we all do? It's talking about the problem that you can solve and bringing in those the data piece, the positive outlook piece, the emotional reactivity piece as you describe it doesn't have to be, you know, every single time you're talking about all three or you're taking five bullets every single time from each category, but just looking at how am I saying this? What maybe could I add for somebody who doesn't see the world like me? And I think doing that, understanding the problem, and I'll tell you right now, if you feel like you just you aren't super clear, I would absolutely take the time to do those market research calls. Even if you did two or three, you're gonna have so much more insight and clarity. And I also think inspiration for putting your services out there, letting people know that your taxi cab light is on, you have something to sell. So the this is a exact topic that we will talk about inside of any a brand. It's on pre-order right now. This is the last week that you're, if you're listening to this when this is released, the last week of March 2022 is the last week that it's available for pre-order. It's the last time it will ever be at this low of an investment. Um, you'll also get a bonus one-on-one spotlight session to talk about a specific sales, marketing, branding challenge that you're having, um, or to just kind of use it for rapid fire questions. So you'll have that as well. And really the intention of Anea Brand is to solve the problem of there being so many different types of advice that's flying at you. And that's why we spend the whole first half really learning about yourself more deeply. And even if you're familiar with the Enneagram, we're going, we're looking at the Enneagram through the lens of entrepreneurship. And what does that mean when it comes to putting yourself out there and getting more visible and money and that kind of stuff? So you'll learn about yourself, and then I will share specific fundamental strategies with you that will be kind of a buffet for you to pick and choose from where you want to start, what you want to do based on what you learned about in part one. I'd love to see you inside. And um, with that, I am excited to see you back here next week.