Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] It's scary story time. It's 3am you are wide awake. The house is super duper crazy quiet.
[00:00:09] Well, the kids are asleep, your spouse is asleep. But you know what's not asleep? Your crazy little brain. Your brain is wide awake and it's reeling with fear. And you do what any other normal person does.
[00:00:23] Spiraling. At 3:15 in the morning, you pick up your phone, you start scrolling. But here's the thing.
[00:00:32] You start scrolling the job listings this time. You know those job listings that you swore you would never look at again?
[00:00:41] You didn't actually burn that bridge, but you left that full time job to build a bridge to freedom. You told your spouse, just give me six months. I, I remember telling my spouse, just give me six months. And I remember telling my kids, mommy's building something big. Have you done that before?
[00:00:59] But now it's 3am and you're freaking out because it's been longer.
[00:01:05] And regardless of what longer looks like, the real problem isn't that it's been longer. It's that now the scales have tipped and you actually are working more hours and making less money and the guilt is just piling, piling on. And you're starting to wonder at this point in time, was I wrong? Am I cut out for this? Did I trade time with my family for a dream that's never actually going to work?
[00:01:33] And that part of your brain that's designed to protect you, that part of your brain that loves security, is whispering, go back to your job.
[00:01:43] You left stability for this.
[00:01:45] You're crazy.
[00:01:47] And you're trying to live the part you're posting on social media, it still looks like you're winning. You're smiling at school pickup and you're saying things are good, but on the inside you feel like you're holding this thing together with duct, duct tape and popsicle sticks. And on top of that, you're super distracted because, oh mamas, you don't just feel like a bad salesperson.
[00:02:15] You feel like you've let your family down. You actually feel like, and I must say it, a bad mommy.
[00:02:24] And I am here to tell you I have felt that way. I'm also here to tell you I have felt that way probably more recently than you could even imagine.
[00:02:33] But the truth is, and I really do want you to know this, you're not a bad mom.
[00:02:39] Yeah, you might be making mistakes, but you actually haven't processed a target.
[00:02:46] You actually haven't created the right kind of support that you need. You're not working from a place of Alignment. And honestly, your heart and your work are just a little out of sync.
[00:03:00] So you're not a bad salesperson. And we can fix that in this episode.
[00:03:06] My name is Genvskouri. I'm a former C suite executive for a $350 million brand.
[00:03:13] I was the one in charge of the sales strategies and all of the things required to teach people how to sell our products and services. I have trained and spoken to tens of thousands of women like you who are all either being successful or you are stuck. You are in a stage of stuck stuckness. And we are going to unstick you.
[00:03:37] Is so important that you understand. And I want you to repeat this out loud.
[00:03:43] I am not a bad salesperson. I am not a bad mommy. I am just not fluent in failure.
[00:03:54] This is the episode that's going to change everything for you, because being. Being fluent in failure is where it's at. And listen, as I mentioned, I've had the nice salary, I've had the secure jobs. I missed bedtime three nights in a row or more I didn't miss. I missed the soccer practices, the plays. And I will tell you, there were two phrases in my life that made me think, I have to fix this.
[00:04:22] Like, I really want where we are going.
[00:04:25] I understand that it's going to take some grit, but these two sentences, oh, my gosh, they did it in for me. It was when my kids started reciting in unison, we know you're working.
[00:04:39] That was the first one. And then the second one was on closed days, one of which lands on one of my children's birthdays.
[00:04:47] And they would say, we know it. It's closed day.
[00:04:52] Even as adult children.
[00:04:54] Oh, I heard that one too many times. And I thought to myself, I am going to figure this out. And so I have created a framework that allows people to bridge themselves, to actually cross the bridge from I don't know to I can fail, I can learn, and I can actually get where I want to go with a little bit of joy, and maybe a lot of joy, but definitely a lot less judgment.
[00:05:26] Because what I want you to know is entrepreneurship changed my family's life. And people aren't lying when they say that it can change your life, too. But until you get fluent in failure and what to do with it, you are going to suffer needlessly. You see, there's a lie out there that all you have to do is keep. Keep showing up. And I said what? I said it's a lie. You can't just keep showing up and doing the same Things and getting a different result.
[00:05:57] And what I've been sharing on social media is something that I call resilience mapping, which is part of savvy selling. And I had somebody call me and actually asked me, actually they texted me and they said, hey, now that I'm on the right path, now that I have hit a little self discovery here, is it okay if I go back and talk to all the people that I sold to and just tell them I'm really sorry that I was doing it all wrong?
[00:06:25] But it really begs the question, how do you recover if you've been bad at sales? Is there recovery and is there hope for you? And the answer is 100% yes.
[00:06:39] And the very best thing you could do right now is be at a place where you have actually created an awakening to who you really are and how what you're doing doesn't fully align with who you are.
[00:06:54] You don't have to quit. You are just going to recalibrate and this time you're going to do it for real.
[00:07:03] Now, I might be dating myself here, but back in the day, there was a animated show on called Blue's Clues. It was about a guy with a striped shirt. I think his name's Steve. Steve and his dog. Look it up. And on every show, Steve and Blue would go through a journey and Blue was a blue dog. And during parts of the show, something would happen and Blue would go and kind of see some sort of clue to help them on their journey.
[00:07:34] And when Blue found a clue, you would hear these voices going, a clue, a clue that is you. You are now inside an episode of Blue's Clues.
[00:07:47] Every time you are at a spot where you are going to do some learning, I want you to reframe that learning and get to a place where you're like, it's a clue, a clue, a clue. When someone doesn't buy from you, a clue, a clue. When someone ghosts you, a clue, a clue.
[00:08:08] But what's the problem?
[00:08:10] We don't want to read the clues.
[00:08:13] We just want to keep doing the same thing because we haven't been taught how to read those clues.
[00:08:22] And I know why that is.
[00:08:25] Because it hurts too much to fail. How are you supposed to get fluent at something that actually really crushes your soul sometimes?
[00:08:35] You know, when I think about my biggest failing conversations in sales, I can go back to, well, there are many, but I can go back specifically to one where it was closed day. It was like five o'. Clock. I was gonna be done at six. I had to hit A quota. I was at a potential customer's office. They'd actually invited me, so I had an appointment. I had every reason to believe that I was going to close the sale.
[00:09:02] And at the time, I was selling a product and he was interested, and we had talked about it. So this was like, yes, let's set up a day and a time. I was invited there. I had every reason to think that I was going to close that sale.
[00:09:17] I was so crazy desperate. They actually exuded from me. I'm sure he wondered who the heck he was meeting with, to be honest. And he actually verbalized my worst nightmare.
[00:09:31] I heard him say, and I still hear it today in slow motion. I hear him saying, let's not be desperate.
[00:09:44] Desperate, desperate, desperate. That echoed through my head for what seemed like 15 minutes.
[00:09:57] There I was in his office knowing that I need to close the sale to hit my goal.
[00:10:05] And he has just said my worst nightmare phrase, let's not be desperate. The things that went through my head were, oh, my gosh, you're so stupid. Oh, my gosh, this is so embarrassing. I wanted to drill a hole into the center of the universe and crawl in there and never come back out.
[00:10:29] I know you've all felt that way, too.
[00:10:32] And what I remember thinking was, I never will sell again.
[00:10:38] I never will sell again.
[00:10:41] I. I actually don't. I. What. What I kept thinking was, I don't know how to fix this. I don't know how to fix this. And because I don't know how to fix this, I'm definitely not going to subject myself to this day after day after day.
[00:10:58] So it begs the question, if it hurts so much, how are you supposed to become fluent in starts with a few mental shifts. The first mental shift, and something that is so important is that you have to start understanding that failure is simply unprocessed feedback.
[00:11:22] Nothing more, nothing less.
[00:11:26] It's not an indictment. It's information.
[00:11:30] But if Blue says there's a clue and I'm not going to look at the clue, then I can expect to keep making the same mistakes over and over again and thus experiencing the same pain over and over again, too.
[00:11:48] So whose job is it to process that information?
[00:11:54] You?
[00:11:55] I don't know. I was never told that.
[00:12:00] I was never told, hey, Genevieve, it's your job to process that feedback. I was told things like, like, listen, I have the T shirts and I have the mugs. Failure isn't final, right? Failure is your friend.
[00:12:16] But when push came to shove, no one could tell me how to make the Hurt go away.
[00:12:24] How. How could I avoid? Failure became the name of the game because I couldn't figure out what I was supposed to do when it felt so bad.
[00:12:39] And I know some of you listening to this understand this. I know you do, because in sales, for some reason, we get this really bad advice. So it just keeps showing up. Just keep showing up. I heard someone tell me once that someone gave them the sales advice of just smile more.
[00:12:58] And I'm like, what?
[00:13:00] No, no. When that person told me that I was being desperate, if I had smiled at that point, I would have looked like a crazy, maniacal weirdo.
[00:13:11] And what happens is we keep doing the same thing, and we keep getting caught in what I call the weirdness loop. And that is my primary rule of selling.
[00:13:23] Don't be weird. But it's really hard to not be weird when you're not processing the feedback of failure and you're not learning from it. I mean, imagine if I kept showing up to every additional sales meeting doing the same thing and. And getting a reputation for being desperate.
[00:13:46] I know what. You know what I'm. I know you know what I'm talking about, because several of you have talked. Many of you have felt like I. And I see it on the Internet, too. I don't want to be that girl. I don't want to be that girl. Nobody wants to be that girl.
[00:14:00] And the only reason it really hurts is because we think it means something about our character. We think that failure means there's something wrong with us.
[00:14:14] And when we treat failure like an indictment, then we don't learn, and we just loop and loop and loop and we say, failure is the enemy. And I know because after that meeting, I would try to avoid failure at all costs, which included not even having sales conversations, by the way.
[00:14:36] But what you have to do is you have to flip the switch to, this is valuable intel. A clue.
[00:14:43] A clue.
[00:14:47] So the last term I heard my children say, I know it's close day in unison at the family table, I decided I need to figure this out. I mean, I've read all the books. I understand sales psychology and what I found.
[00:15:05] And I just got to a point after I heard my kids almost chanting together at the dinner table, we know it's closed day. And then I had to excuse myself and go turn my computer on. I needed to figure something out, because all I knew was I needed less failing and more learning, but I needed it to feel good.
[00:15:27] And until it feels good, that protective part of your brain is going to be resistant. It's going to be resistant to you continuing to try because its sole job is to keep you from feeling pain.
[00:15:42] So let's all agree failure is simply unprocessed feedback, nothing more, nothing less, and that we are going to take ownership.
[00:15:55] We are going to have a position of empowerment. We're not going to be victims of our failure. We are going to take a position of empowerment, which means that we are going to process the feedback using the failure framework that I put together. That is just three simple steps.
[00:16:17] If you've ever said to yourself, it's too late for me, I've tried and I failed, or success is for others, I got you. This is going to be fun.
[00:16:28] It's going to be fun and it's going to be powerful because this framework works every single time. And it will dismantle all the negative emotions around selling and failing at sales.
[00:16:45] And it'll convince you once and for all selling is safe and it's not personal. Like, you actually can do this.
[00:16:55] Okay, so we're all agreeing.
[00:16:58] Sales is the transference of inspiration. See previous episodes for that.
[00:17:04] Two, that we are going to be transformational and not transactional. See other episodes for that.
[00:17:11] And then thirdly, that failure is simply unprocessed feedback. And we are going to own that. We are going to be accountable for processing our feedback, and we're going to do it in one of three simple ways.
[00:17:29] When I looked at why do people fail? It's basically one of three things that have happened.
[00:17:37] One, you weren't being someone. Literally, that's it.
[00:17:44] You weren't being someone. You had an identity gap, meaning you were here, you needed to be there in terms of identity, and you just need to bridge that gap somehow. But first you need to process that.
[00:18:00] In the case of my. Let's not be desperate.
[00:18:04] What I was being was someone who's desperate. What I was being was. Was someone who chases what I wasn't being was a leader.
[00:18:17] I wasn't leading my customer, my prospect, through a respectful conversation. I'd already jumped to the end in mine. I wasn't being patient. I actually would say I wasn't being loving. Like, I wasn't really focused on him. Who was I focused on? I was focused on me. And that takes specific intention. Y'. All. People don't often, often get trained and stop and evaluate what you're going to say before your sales conversations. And not only what you're going to say, but the energy you're going to show up with. You aren't desperate. You aren't Chasing, you do not need them.
[00:19:01] You are creating a partnership where you are going to bring them through a transformation.
[00:19:08] And it is not about the transaction. It is solely about the customer and their transformation.
[00:19:16] What aren't you being in that particular state or that particular situation where you fail? Think about it. I want you to think about something in the last 24 hours. And if you've been working your business, there's something every day that you're failing at that you want to process and listen. Just like Blue's Clues. And every episode ends well.
[00:19:40] It ends well for Steve because he puts all the clues together and it ends well. But every additional episode, guess what? It has more clues.
[00:19:51] So I want you to have this expectation that every day you're going to be going a clue, a clue. There's clues everywhere. So I want you to think about the last thing that you failed at.
[00:20:04] And I want you to ask yourself the question, who wasn't I being? Like, what wasn't I being?
[00:20:11] What energy did I bring that caused me to act and behave in a way that didn't align with the success of the conversation?
[00:20:23] Was I being desperate? Was I being pushy? Was I being scared?
[00:20:29] I can tell you everyone experiences those things. And all it takes is a reminder that you're the leader in the conversation.
[00:20:39] And that is a new concept for a lot of people, that you're actually a leader and not a chaser. Meaning I don't really care if they buy. Like, I don't need them to buy. I want them to buy, but I don't need them to buy because the people that I'm looking for are out there looking for me.
[00:20:57] In this particular case, you know what else I wasn't being?
[00:21:00] I wasn't being very strategic.
[00:21:03] I wasn't showing up for my business in a strategic way. And I definitely wasn't showing up consistently. And I didn't have a lot of other people, a lot of other eggs in my basket.
[00:21:15] I needed to process that information. Girl, you have to have more than one sale depending upon your quotas. Like, when you do not have enough new people to talk to, when you do not have enough new people to talk to, then you are going to show up with a little bit of different energy. So I actually needed to go back in the whole entire sales process and ask myself, well, what made me feel so desperate? What wasn't I being? And I will tell you, I wasn't being intentional. I wasn't.
[00:21:48] I wasn't being confident.
[00:21:50] And I wasn't being confident because if I was being confident. I would have had a bunch of conversations going and I wouldn't have had to have been so desperate. Are you picking up what I'm laying down?
[00:22:01] Okay. The second reason people fail is because they just didn't know something. It's really simple. You had a skill gap. This is why I talk again and again and again about. You should listen to podcasts, by the way, and audiobooks and trainings. Seven times in a row. Seven times in a row. Because you're not ever going to get all the juicy nuggets in the first time. Two, nobody sits down and takes notes and then rereads them. So you just want to keep playing it over and over again so that it just becomes part of who you are. People will often say to me, I don't understand how you can come up with scripts so quickly.
[00:22:37] Hello. For two decades, for two decades, I've listened to the Masters on repeat at least seven times. Listen to this podcast seven times. If you do that over the course of the year, you are going to have fewer and fewer skill gaps. The other thing is, is that you have to take your role as an entrepreneur and as a salesperson seriously if you want to get less slimy. The only reason people are bad at sales is because they have one of these three issues.
[00:23:11] And the skill thing is something someone can change immediately.
[00:23:18] Immediately. Now, if I were to draw this out for you, it would be kind of like a triangle, and the bottom triangle would be the identity. It would be, you weren't being somebody. Identity is the biggest part of this. Who you are showing up as, by the way, is about 90%.
[00:23:40] We don't spend enough time talking about that. You know what we talk about? We talk about the other 10%, which is tactic, tactic, tactics, which is why people try all the things. It's like, I did it, but, like, the way you showed up was weird, man. So it doesn't work when you're being weird.
[00:23:55] So identity is first. The second thing is the what to say, how to say it, when to say it, what you should do, the order, the processes, all of those techniques, Those are all part of the skill gaps. Now, for me, in that conversation, it wasn't so much a skill gap because I'd gone through all the things. I told him. We actually were in a place that I believe that if I hadn't shown up and been so weird, he would have closed the sale for me on that day. It wasn't that, but I have plenty of situations where it was a skill gap, where I Thought I skipped a sale step.
[00:24:32] Shoot, I didn't know I skipped a step.
[00:24:36] And again, I'm going to go back to. Does just showing up help you if you have a skill gap? It does not.
[00:24:46] And last but not least and at the very top is you didn't say something.
[00:24:53] In other words, you had a courage, confidence gap.
[00:24:58] And this is something that people think is going to happen magically. Do you know how it happens? Do you know how that happens? I'll tell you how it happens. It happens by really getting good at 1 and 2. It happens by showing up in an authentic, aligned, leadership, confident kind of way.
[00:25:20] And it comes after you have enough skill set.
[00:25:24] Then you're going to feel courage. Then you're going to feel confidence.
[00:25:29] Confidence comes last, y'. All. And so many people think, well, I'll just wait until I feel confident. That's just not how it works. You have to process all of these things, all this feedback, the clues, the clues, they all have to get processed in order for you to feel courage.
[00:25:48] Now, in this particular conversation, I really don't think it was a courage thing for me. It wasn't. I actually said too much.
[00:25:58] I said too much and I said it in the wrong way.
[00:26:03] But so many people don't say things that like, oh, it would be so easy for you to actually get that sale if you could figure out how to say the things you're afraid to say.
[00:26:19] Prices make people afraid. Offers, right? You're like, okay, I said all the things, and now I'm afraid to say, let's get you started.
[00:26:29] I went through the whole process. The person's pretty excited, but I'm afraid to say the price.
[00:26:36] Oh, my gosh, they're spinning. They're reeling. They really need to buy this thing. I am afraid to tell them they should do it anyway.
[00:26:46] Do you see what I'm talking about here? I mean. And can I tell you these three things you can use in any area of your life, in any conversation where you are not winning the game, Ask yourself, who am I not being?
[00:27:01] What skill am I not using? What don't I know? What don't I know? There are so many times in life that you just don't have the right information and you jump to conclusions, right? That is just simply a something I didn't know. I didn't know you were late because you had a flat tire. I didn't know you didn't call me because things got busy or a child was sick or what have you. I didn't know those things like yes, it can be a skill gap, but there can also be some knowledge things. But the courage part, y', all, this is going to come for you and I want you to do this.
[00:27:39] It's going to come over time by doing one and two. But I also want you to know it is something that is easily overcome by being honest with the prospect, by saying things like, well, at this point, I'm actually not sure where to go with this conversation.
[00:28:00] What I know is people like you who have felt this way in the past and it is the old feel, felt, found thing. But it's not just like you feel this way. I found this. It's like, I'm not sure where to take this conversation.
[00:28:17] Or you can say, at the risk of sounding pushy, may I ask you one more question?
[00:28:24] Or there's something I want to say, but I'm really afraid of feeling pushy. I'm really afraid of feeling self serving. I'm really afraid of hurting your feelings. Whatever it is that like, that can always be the default place to start.
[00:28:42] And I want to tell you this at some point, honestly, like, I have a whole savvy selling system and part of that system is resilience mapping. But a big part of that system is, is learning that the close should be your favorite part of the conversation.
[00:29:05] Your close should be the part of the conversation that is actually something you're excited to participate in. If you're not excited about closing a sale, if that scares you to say the cost, if it scares you to tell them how to join, if it scares you to tell them how to commit, there is something that needs to be processed about your offer or your product or your service. And chances are pretty good it's because you're being transactional and not transformational.
[00:29:37] So I'm here to tell you the last part of your sales conversation should be the most exciting.
[00:29:43] And if you've got an underlying problem, we need to talk about that. But it's always okay to say, at this point in time, I want you to hear my heart here.
[00:29:54] Or I know this sounds a little crazy. Like I used to tell people this all. My favorite line was always, you're gonna think I'm nuts, but I would always say that you're gonna think I'm nuts, but I think you should do it anyway. I would say you're gonna think I'm nuts because I have this, this great degree and you know, I'm doing something different now. Like I. Whatever it was that I thought they were saying is what I would use When I didn't know what to say now, in reference to the person that asked me, should I come back? And should I apologize to everyone of my customers or people I've worked with in the past? And the answer is maybe.
[00:30:39] Maybe. Because what I really want you to know is you very rarely lose a sale. I know a lot of times people think I failed. I lost it at a sale. You didn't lose the sale. The sale just became stagnant. That's all. It just became stagnant. And you can revive conversations at any point in time if, number three, you say something.
[00:31:06] And in some cases, yeah, it's okay to go back and talk to people and say, hey, I wanted to connect with you because we had an interaction a few years ago, a few months ago, a few weeks ago, that I've come to find out maybe wasn't in alignment with who I was. I mean, I'm just going to be honest with you. I felt like because I was so new, or I felt like because I was so inexperienced, or I felt like because I was so passionate that I did fill in the blank or that I showed up in this way. Right.
[00:31:47] When you say those things, people genuinely appreciate it.
[00:31:54] They appreciate knowing you saw what they saw, and that's not who you are. And it's also okay to say, and if you are open and if you ever have a need, I would welcome the opportunity to earn your business and to help you transform your problem, your life, or help you get healthier or help you get more sales or help you love what you do more or help you show up more for your children. Does that make sense?
[00:32:28] It's okay to do that. Do you need to know, can you do it 100%? If you don't have anyone to talk to, you may as well go back and see if you can, you know, move from stagnation into momentum. You know, when you use this system, you are going to find that you are going to move from frozen to energy and from energy to momentum.
[00:32:55] And you are going to enjoy the clues. The clues. And you're going to learn so fast that in six months, your sales are going to have more zeros on them than you could ever imagine.
[00:33:08] I'm Genevieve Skori, and today I hope we fix something so that you can grow fast. And with that, I'm going to tell you, you better get on the newsletter if this kind of information, like, listen, you, I'm here to help you with 1, 2, and 3. I am here to help you with not failing in identity and skill or in courage. Make sure that you are on my email list.
[00:33:34] The subscription to the newsletter is in the show notes and absolutely if you're having problem that you have to solve right away, make sure you look at in the show notes as well. The fix a quick conversation that we can have to get you unstuck and moving into momentum in 40 minutes. I love you. I love everything that you're doing. I'm here to support you.
[00:33:55] Go out there and create impact.
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