Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Sales is a love hate kind of thing, y'. All. And listen, when you have all the sales coming in, when people are communicating with you and you're getting DMs and messages and they're back and forth and you're getting those sales, so much fun.
[00:00:19] But most of the time, what happens, especially when you're getting started or you're not super experienced in sales and is you go through a period where you're getting ghosted. And that is really hard, but definitely overcomeable. So grab your coffee, grab your protein powder, put em together, drink em separately, because I've got a simple plan and we're gonna go through that on this particular episode of Fix this Grow fast. And if you're new here, my name is Genevieve Scory. I am the podcast host. I am a former C suite executive of a $350 million health and wellness brand. And I have over two decades of experience in sales, sales coaching, sales speaking, sales strategies, all the things. And I'm here to tell you, you aren't bad at sales. You're just honestly and truly unsure of how to do this thing without being pushy.
[00:01:17] And you're not alone.
[00:01:19] But I do want to say that there are so many parts of sales that are so much fun, but a lot of people don't teach the fun. What they teach is something that's kind of spammy and pushy. You know, my sales training, my sales career started at a health and wellness company for women who are overweight. It was actually called the Richard Simmons Anatomy Asylum. It was so it was so much fun to work at. It was this who. This new concept. And it was women who were 30 pounds or more overweight. And so my job was to sell to overweight women an exercise plan and routine and help them lose weight.
[00:02:05] And I could deal with people coming in the door. I mean, everybody feels good when someone comes into your territory. And like, if you walk through the door, I knew that you had some interest in what I had. So I spent a lot of time trying to close people the first time they came in because I dreaded having to call you back later. And I know there's some of you out there at. You don't want to pick up the phone, you don't want to text them back, you don't want to reconnect after that initial conversation. And it feels hard. You know, we had actually we had a.
[00:02:45] Excuse me, a KPI for this key performance indicator. It's a number that we tracked for what we called B backs and a B Back was a list of people. My B back list was a list of people who had been in the gym or maybe even tried for five days because we give everybody a one week trial.
[00:03:07] And they said, I'll be back.
[00:03:11] So we called them be backs. I hated calling my be backs. I like with a passion of like, it was crazy. I hated it so much. And it was because if you had come in a week or two ago and some of the be backs were weeks old because we always went through in our spare time to call the be backs. And we did call them because back in the day, if you had a cell phone, it, it was in a bag and it was actually in your car and not everybody had those, so you would call them. And it was difficult because one, I had to guess when I might be able to actually reconnect with you.
[00:03:55] Two, if I caught you, I didn't know what you were in the middle of. It's not like we had an appointment. I just wrote on there be back, which meant that I was stabbing in the dark as to whether you were available to talk to me even if I did get ahold of you.
[00:04:12] And when I did get ahold of you, assuming I could, then I had to figure out how to make myself important in your life again. We might have had the very best conversation to begin with, but if you go out the door, life gets in the way and all of a sudden I'm really not that important to you. And so I would try really, really, really hard to close people when I first had my first conversation with them, which, as you can imagine, made me a crazy, pushy fool. And it made me look desperate. And I, yeah, I lost a lot of sales. Now I probably got a few more sales out of that. But overall it wasn't a great experience for me and it wasn't a great experience for, for the person I was talking to. And we all worked in a really close space. And so I could hear the other representatives calling their vbacs.
[00:05:12] And there was a lady who was a top seller, but man, was she over the top. Hypey. She was the epitome of hypey girl. And all I kept thinking when I listened to her is, and no, we're not doing that. There's no way I'm going to do that. None whatsoever. But wouldn't you know it, she closed a lot more sales than I did. And that's when I learned not to reject information simply because of how somebody else brought it to life.
[00:05:49] I learned that I would make more Money if I would take that information and make it my own. And if you've been listening for a while, you know, we call that your unique sales DNA. That part of you that comes through that people can't compete with because it's you.
[00:06:10] So today we're going to address how to reach back with people when they've ghosted you. Without sounding salesy.
[00:06:21] You know, I think about why people don't like to reach back to people and I think there's a lot of false beliefs around.
[00:06:31] If they wanted it, they would have bought it. And I want to tell you a little story that illustrates how that isn't even remotely true in most cases.
[00:06:42] So where I live, there's a bunch. There's a spa for everything.
[00:06:46] There's a gym for everything. I mean, you name it. We got all kinds of things around here. But I happened to visit an establishment. It was a spa type of place. And I don't mean like spa as in like gowns and towels and things. It was like red light therapy. It was five different types of saunas that you could take. You could get vitamin IVs, things of that nature. And I loved that kind of stuff. And so I went and took a tour and I even tried a session because she gave me a trial and I got this whole red light therapy thing. And the gal was kind of new and as a result she was inexperienced and I took the tour, did the whole thing, but she didn't really answer my questions and I didn't really understand the pricing. And she basically told me she didn't really usually do that kind of stuff and that somebody would be here shortly to help me. And that somebody never came.
[00:07:45] And then I left.
[00:07:48] Now I left fully still interested in being a member. I literally wanted to be a part, a customer. I really wanted to be a customer. And so I kept waiting to get a call back from this company. I kept thinking like, any day now somebody's going to call me and go, thanks for coming in. Here's the program. Hey, thanks for coming in. Here's what it costs. Thanks for coming in. Come on back. Any of those things?
[00:08:17] 0. 0. I had no communication whatsoever with the organization for like two weeks.
[00:08:28] And I happened to go back in that, that where the spa was. And so I walked into the spa and I happened to be talking the person at the front desk and that gal was there. And I was like, hey, so what happened? Like, you guys, are you open still? Like what? I really genuinely was like, maybe they closed and she said something to the Effect of, you know, yeah, here's the specials. And she kind of, you know, pushed a card across the desk and she was kind of like, I just thought when you left, you really weren't that interested.
[00:09:04] Now every time I hear that as a sales coach, I want to just sit down and have some coffee and just be like, girl, you're going to starve if you do not figure this out.
[00:09:15] But what was really clear to me is that she adopted the same mindset that so many people adopt in sales, which is, and it is incorrect.
[00:09:27] If they really wanted it, they would have already purchased it.
[00:09:33] And the truth, honestly is, you don't know that.
[00:09:37] You don't know that at all. Truly, the truth is, and something that I want to help you reframe here and something that I learned, and when I did learn it, it really took a lot of pressure off me, was that people buy on their own timelines.
[00:09:55] They buy on their own timelines. But I still need to find a way that's consent based and service based and, you know, more serving than chasing.
[00:10:11] A way that I want to reach back and reengage with them. I needed a system for that so that it felt more like serving than being self serving.
[00:10:24] And I did. I finally actually learned that when I actually applied this in the gym scenario, I was thinking to myself, okay, so there's all these women, they came into the gym, they came into the gym because clearly they felt like there was something they wanted to improve.
[00:10:42] And I desperately wanted to help people. I thought this concept was amazing. The whole idea behind this gym was was that you could come shame free and work out. And I loved that because a lot of times women that are overweight don't go to the gym because they are embarrassed. And the exercises were modified for them. And it was fun and engaging and I just loved it. And I really wanted to see these customers get healthy for their family, for their kids, all the things.
[00:11:15] So I really need to figure out how can I reach back to people in a way that I don't know, Even if they weren't calling me, once they heard my voice, it would reconnect with them.
[00:11:28] So here's what I found out and this is what I started teaching myself, my sales staff at the gym, and even to this day to my clients.
[00:11:39] The first thing is you have to assume that you can indeed reach out in a non spammy sort of way. You also have to get to a point where you accept that most times those conversations will need additional conversations and that it's not you it is that life gets in the way.
[00:12:04] But your job is to continue to create safe conversations that serve them and make it personal and permission based. So the biggest problem for most people is they don't know how to make it permission based. Like, they don't know how to do that and still drive the conversation forward.
[00:12:27] And they can't resist the urge to pitch instead of connect. Now there's a time for pitching, which we'll go over.
[00:12:38] But in our last few episodes, we talked about how to make the initial connection.
[00:12:43] And I really do want to spend some time here talking about, what do you do when you get ghosted?
[00:12:49] And it's not if you get ghosted. It is a hundred percent when you get ghosted. So I say this a lot and I mean it. Sales is a lot like dating.
[00:13:01] You don't go to the bar, you don't go to church. You don't go to a singles group and meet someone and say, nice to meet you, let's get married by Friday. If we don't get married by Friday, this is your last chance to get married to me. Like, we don't do that in real life, but somehow that kind of comes up in sales.
[00:13:19] And so we're going to slow our roll a little. Listen, Linda, we are slowing our roll a little bit. We're going to understand what's actually going on in your prospect's mind so that you don't keep making it. It's you, you did something wrong. Because it's. It's really not.
[00:13:37] The main reason you get ghosted is because there's customer confusion. So somewhere, somewhere the customer, the potential customer has become confused.
[00:13:50] And a confused mind doesn't just say no. A confused mind actually runs away.
[00:13:55] So I want you, when you get ghosted from now on to think about, okay, I need to continue this conversation in a safe way so I can figure out where I caused some confusion.
[00:14:10] Now, I will be honest with you. In my experience, it was always better for me to assume responsibility for the confusion. There were so many times, and I'm not gonna lie where I was like, girl, I couldn't have made that clearer. So I just want to be clear here.
[00:14:30] That clarity sometimes is on them. I get it. But as the person who's leading the conversation, we are going to accept, we are going to assume responsibility for the confusion. And part of the reason is because that posture is very safe for the person you're talking to. In other words, it takes you out of a pitching kind of mindset and feel to more of A human and connection.
[00:15:03] So.
[00:15:16] So what could they potentially be confused about? Well, you won't know until you figure out a way to ask a lot of times. So when you call with an apology, a lot of times that's an easier way to connect. So I might say in some cases, hey, I just wanted to apologize if something in the conversation felt hard for you.
[00:15:38] Sometimes I would say, because there, listen, we're all, we're all human.
[00:15:42] Sometimes I would say, I just want to apologize. If that conversation felt a little pushy. If I felt like maybe that's what they were thinking, I might actually say that. I might say, I just want to make sure that that conversation, it didn't feel weird for you. I apologize if I was a little over exuberant and I just wanted to connect to ensure that I didn't put you over the edge. So this were, these were things that I would say because those were things that I honestly and truly felt. But I would also say things like, hey, sometimes taking a step like this can be confusing.
[00:16:22] That's that I would start the conversation there. I could start with, you know, sometimes it feels like a lot. It can feel like a lot of information and a lot of steps. And I assure you it really is very simple. So when I assume this position of it was my fault, it makes it easier to reconnect with that person.
[00:16:43] Sometimes I would say things like, you know, I feel like sometimes people can get confused by all of the information and all of the next steps. I promise you it will make more sense once you take a first step. The first step looks like this.
[00:17:02] Here's what typically confuses people. They're confused in their own head about whether they think they're going to stick with it. There's a lot of people that have tried what you sell before or your product or your service and, and what immediately comes up for them is, you know, that didn't work for me before.
[00:17:19] So they're thinking, I'm confused about how am I going to stick with it this time.
[00:17:26] I found out based on a lot of our be backs that people went home and talked to their husband and sometimes they had unsupportive spouses that very conveniently reminded them that they don't stick to things like this.
[00:17:42] There are also, there's also guilt for people depending on what you sell. It's like, I'm really disappointed in myself. Like in the weight loss category, there's a lot of guilt. In the money making category, there's a lot of guilt and that creates confusion so if I were to say, what did I learn about confusion? It boils down to these few things.
[00:18:08] They don't believe in themselves. They don't believe that they're actually going to follow through. That's the first thing. A second thing that I saw a lot of second confusion. Point was I needed to talk to somebody else. And oh my gosh, friends, when they have to talk to someone else and they are relaying the information, they're not really relaying it the way that you told them.
[00:18:34] So when that's a very real confusion. Like, I felt good when I left our conversation and then I went home and I kind of half explained it the right way. And now my spouse or brother, mother, sister, whoever isn't going to support me. And, and, and now I feel bad now. Now I'm confused.
[00:18:53] There's also, believe it or not, and I, and this is the one thing I need you to know.
[00:18:59] It's always their perspective. And sometimes we can be blind to how confusing what we sell our product or service is to new people who, like, this is the first time they're hearing about it. So they may be confused, still, still may be confused about how to get started. Especially my friends, if you've given them like 900 choices, and I know there's so many people that want to say, and I've heard this a lot in coaching, well, I just want them to have a lot of choices.
[00:19:32] You actually don't want them to have a lot of choices. You want to present the best possible fit for them and then work from there. Now you need to know about all the other choices. But it's super confusing for a customer to have to pick for themselves. And especially if there's multiple steps or multiple products, that's really confusing to somebody who is brand new. So there's a lot of confusion about which package should I start with? Why do I need all of these things? What do I do first? How do I pay?
[00:20:06] How much exactly am I paying? Am I getting a membership? Is it a monthly thing? What if I want to cancel? What am I actually committing to?
[00:20:16] And then it's how do I get involved or how do I use it?
[00:20:22] So I want you to really take a moment and I want you to think about the fact that regardless of how great your product or service is, if it doesn't feel simple to the person who's buying, it creates confusion. So for me, when I was talking to my potential clients on my be back calls, I determined that it was confusing for them because one, there were A lot of classes. There were a lot of classes. So they didn't really know what classes to sign up for. It was also confusing to them because there were some machines involved. They didn't know how to use those machines. So am I going to use those machines? I'm signing up for something. I don't know what the classes are, I don't know what classes I need and I don't know how to use any of those machines. And you got these newfangled exercise bikes and I don't know how to use those either. And who's going to help me with my food? Like they're actually. It opened a lot of floodgates for them.
[00:21:24] Hear me when I say this. Even though they were still very, very interested.
[00:21:31] So what I ended up doing was I would reach out with a system that I called care. I would reach out with care. And it's very much like how you reach out to people in the first place. You provide context, you ask for permission, you're going to create a next step that helps combat the confusion or the risk that they're feeling.
[00:21:54] So what I used to do in this particular case, and you have to decide for yourself how this works out for your business.
[00:22:01] But I would say things like, hey, step number one is just to get you in the very best class for your goals.
[00:22:12] That class happens at 10am Monday, Wednesdays and Fridays. And I can sign you up, we can get you in that class. That is the only decision you need to make. Are you starting Monday, Wednesday or Friday?
[00:22:27] Once you come, we will have an orientation and then I will introduce you to a trainer who is going to show you everything you need to know about the machines.
[00:22:41] But in my excitement, like I really overwhelmed them. I was like, oh my gosh, we got classes. Look at all the classes. We got this class and that class and look at all these machines. And they're these new powered machines and they're air powered and not weight powered. And inadvertently I threw up Richard Simmons Anatomy Asylum all over them. And it created confusion.
[00:23:13] But it's all fixable once you understand that.
[00:23:16] But if you don't really understand why people are ghosting you, then it becomes really, really hard on yourself emotionally. Because why? Because you tell yourself it's you. Because you tell yourself they don't want to buy from me. And the truth is they actually are waiting for you to reach back up to them. You know, I use the popcorn analogy a lot in comp. In training and I was going to say computer training because I did sell computers too, in training, in sales. Because, you know, popcorn to me is the great, the great analogy. Because how much popcorn you get depends on the consistency of the heat and how many kernels you put in the pan. Every new conversation to me is a new kernel in the pan.
[00:24:02] Every additional follow up conversation is consistent heat.
[00:24:07] So the more kernels in there and the more consistent the heat, the better your outcome is going to be.
[00:24:16] So very quickly you want to reach back to people so that you can resurface and reconnect about their needs.
[00:24:27] And again, the conversation here is around, I sent you a message and I feel like it was, it was a good, safe message because I listened to the other episodes and you ghosted me anyway.
[00:24:39] So it is acceptable to reach back out within 28 to 48 hours and then reach out again on day four to five. So you're going to reach out first day or two, I would say I would do it the next day personally if I could. Because remember, you're talking to busy moms, you're talking to working moms, you're talking to maybe husbands that have full time jobs. People have lives outside of what you are selling. And the longer the time between each conversation, the harder it is to reconnect. But here's the deal, you can't be pitching every time you talk to them.
[00:25:17] So in that first reach out that 24 to 48 hours, you literally are just reaching out to re establish a connection to their needs and get permission to continue the conversation.
[00:25:33] On day four to five, if you still haven't heard from them, then what you're going to do is reach out and you're going to offer a piece of information, a PDF, a recipe, a voice note that is going to help reduce the perceived worry or doubt that they have that you think may be keeping them from reaching back out to you.
[00:26:00] And then again, day 10 to 12, if you're still getting ghosted, is you're going to clarify where you are in the conversation and the fact that like, I can help you make this decision because Honestly, by day 10 to 12, they are obviously either distracted or they're still on the fence.
[00:26:24] None of this is about pitching now on day 21. And so I want you to hear what we've done here. We have created a system where you're going to reach out 1, 2, 3, 4 times, 4 times within the same month in a very safe way, creating safety and service.
[00:26:50] And once you start doing this, and you know this is the cadence, this is how I reach out. And I'm Going to trust the process.
[00:26:58] You literally will start to enjoy this so much more. Because I'm telling you, this is what you're going to. This is what's going to happen. You're either going to get a no, you're going to get a yes, or you're going to get a not now. That's typically what you're going to get now. By day 21, if you're still getting, you know, by day 21, you're either ready to close the sale because they connected, or you're gonna kind of tell them, like, I'm gonna circle back around. Or you might decide, this is draining my soul and I'm done talking to you. Either of those things are totally okay. And I mean that in all sincerity. I want to give you permission to tell people, you know what? Maybe this isn't a big concern for you right now. And it is totally okay. I get that people's lives get busy. I don't want to keep pestering you.
[00:27:50] Now, in that particular case, you're going to give them kind of like one of two examples, one or two choices. Because I don't. Again, I just want you to say yes or no. So it's either. Do you want me to stop, you know, calling you? I used to tell people, like, hey, before you put me on, you know, the restraining order list, I just want to reach out one more time and let you know I may have confused you. Something might have happened, I don't know. But I don't want to feel like I'm pestering you. I literally would say that to people. I don't want to feel like I am pestering you.
[00:28:27] So some clear examples of this. Like, literally the only thing you need to know here, y', all, is reach out the same way that follow up the same way you initially reached out. So if you were DMing people, go back in the DMs. If you were on the phone, go back to the phone. If you were in person, try to reschedule an in person event. But something very similar and easy that you can do is something like, let's say we were DMing. Hey, Sally. RECONNECTING from our Monday text. So again, I'm giving her the context.
[00:28:57] Quick next step for you if you're still. Still looking to manage that stress.
[00:29:04] If not, just say the word and I'll stop bugging you.
[00:29:08] It's really that simple.
[00:29:10] You could DM someone and say, hey, here's a quick tip based on what you said about being stuck at the same weight.
[00:29:17] It's easy, it's tasty. Do you want me to send you over this recipe?
[00:29:23] So what am I doing here? I'm actually creating something to help that person with something we talked about.
[00:29:30] I'm trying to show her, right? I'm trying to create a little authority and expertise. Something simple that's like, hey, here's an energy drink. This is what I do. And that energy gets me through the day and I exercise more. Or maybe it's a metabolism boosting kind of thing. Like add some water and some vinegar and some whatever. Like it's something that helps eliminate the risk. And maybe in this particular case, the risk is she's tried a bunch of things before and and she just doesn't think anything is going to move the needle.
[00:29:59] I could also send a voice message. I'm a big fan of voice messages because I like people to hear my voice. And I could say something like, are you still thinking about what we discussed on Friday?
[00:30:11] I mean, like, did you really want to create an income from home?
[00:30:15] I'm wondering if you're willing to think out loud because I'm a great listener and I can explain everything, any questions you might still have without any pressure.
[00:30:27] I know when it's me, I like to talk to somebody else about it. Things can feel confusing. Let me know so I can stop pestering you. Yes or no?
[00:30:38] I will tell you, I could do this for days. So if you would like more script ideas, make sure that you are signed up for the Shift, our weekly newsletter where I put all kinds of notes in there from our from our podcast, including an AI generated prompt that'll help you create these things at a moment's notice.
[00:31:05] So here's what I want to leave you with.
[00:31:08] Following up with people should not suck you dry.
[00:31:13] This actually can be something so rewarding and fulfilling when you move from pitching to serving.
[00:31:22] Okay, so how to apply this? Here's your homework. You're going to spend 15 to 20 minutes total on a little bit of homework. I want you to go through your DMs, your texts, your voicemails, and I want you to look for people where they ghosted you or the conversation stalled. So you're literally going to spend time doing just that and you're going to make a list of all those people.
[00:31:48] Then I want you to spend seven to 10 minutes crafting your follow up messages. Now, y', all, it's so important until you actually get really good at this that you write some of this out.
[00:32:00] And remember, one breath. You shouldn't have to read it. It shouldn't sound like a script. One breath and if you if you are receiving the SHIFT newsletter there is an AI prompt in there this week and if you need that and you got this after the newsletter went out, just DM me. I will send that to you. But it's super easy. Just create those messages, make them unique and then I can't implore you enough to keep a tracker of where you are in your conversations because when you see that the system works it will bring you so much more joy. By now I'm hoping that you're starting to see that sales is just simply this conversation flow that you can master and it is about being human and clear and just not weird. Thanks for spending time with me today. Make sure that you subscribe, leave a comment and pass it along to a friend because everybody needs to know how to sell without being pushy.
[00:33:05] Thanks so much. I think that's a heart maybe. All right, have a good week.
