How odd is this concept: 75% of your job as an entrepreneur, trying to build a multiple six figure thing, is sales and marketing.
I mean: If you're wondering what you should be doing today, it's this:
- Making offers and making them better
- Posting content and building audience and pipeline
- Adding value to future customers and making sales
Once those jobs are ticked, you can raise your invoices, book your calls, reply to the person quoting you insurance. These jobs are secondary. Your main job is to market and to sell.
Again…
Your main job as an online coach / provider is to market and sell.
How does that sit with you? Does it feel weird? I bet it does. Good people who feel driven by purpose ALSO have a feeling deep down that selling is a bit odd. We want to share our gifts and knowledge, and we want to help...for free.
You can of course build a model like that, where you give away your gifts for free. But you'd have to make your money elsewhere. A lottery win. Marrying into money. A job. Another business that funds this one.
Or…you can build a model where you get to add a lot of value, and make a lot of sales. That's what I'm talking about in today's video but first, a little more context…
I know you might feel like you're wasting your time editing a video that only 100 people see. You wish you were better on camera / at editing / with lighting. You wish you could afford to outsource it. You wish more people would see it.
You might feel frustrated, like 'Argh, that'll do', finalising the sales page for your next offer, knowing you're anxious about selling. You wish someone could just send you the clients. You wish selling was easier.
But this is business: marketing, selling; learning to move people to action. The very nature of being an entrepreneur means learning how to provide value in exchange for money. And like anything worth doing, it is truly a skill that requires mastery. It takes time and hours in. Again…
Marketing and selling are skills that require mastery.
And the more time and effort you put in, the better you will get.
You WILL be better at positioning value if you craft 20 offers in a year instead of three. You WILL be better at marketing if you post once a day, rather than twice a week. You WILL figure it all out faster if you lean in and recognise that this is a skill that requires practice, time in and attempts. The work will mould you.
That being said, there is something you can take advantage of to help you on this journey. All of us have an 'edge' – a skill that we've developed without even knowing it; a skill that has become so baked into our personalities that it's natural and normal to us now. You will even use it today.
For me, growing up as a military kid and moving home / country every two years, then going off to boarding school had its downsides, but it also gave me something I will value and leverage forever. I am good with people.
I am very quick at reading people. I know people. Sometimes I feel like I can read minds. I know how people are feeling, what they're not telling me, where I need to push, and where I need to encourage more gently. I learnt this from having to fit in and make friends over and over and over again. I learnt this as a child, in a natural way, without books and psychology and hacks. It's became part of who I am, and then I built on it with books, psychology, training, and hours in coaching and helping.
Using this little bit of magic, I can find the crux of an offer, I can build honest relationships quickly, I can position the value people want. I can sell.
In the coming weeks, I want you to reflect on this concept and ask: What is my little bit of magic? What skill or ability have I developed that I can lean on and use in my business, to help me add value, to make deals, to sell?
We all have something. You have something, I promise you. So what is it? And how can you use it more? Start looking.
Meanwhile, this might help as a reminder of what's important when it comes to selling at this level. In this week's instalment, I'm showing you the three places where the sale happens. What I'm about to share with you is known to six figure business owners who continue to sell and grow. If you can shift your mindset to master this approach, you can sell and sell, build and build, and never have to worry about where your next sale will come from.
Enjoy.
Lisa