Ep #204: Selling Yourself on Your Offer with Ryan Moran

Welcome to the Make Money as a Life Coach® podcast where sales expert and master coach Stacey Boehman teaches you how to make your first 2K, 20K, and 200K using her proven formula.

Hey coaches, welcome to episode 204. Today I have an episode for you, actually an interview I recorded with my new friend, Ryan Moran, on his podcast Capitalism.com. He had me on as part of his Belief Series Podcast. And we talked about creating conviction in your offer, selling yourself on your offer and the impact your thoughts have when it comes to making money. And here’s what I loved about this episode is Ryan is not in the life coaching industry per se. And so his clients have businesses of all kinds, even physical products.

So the questions he asked me and the way that I explained it I felt like was different than I’ve ever talked about on this podcast before. And I really loved being able to give that message to all entrepreneurs. But I think it could be really helpful for the life coaches, those of you listening to me on my podcast to hear that message in a different way, to hear me talk about it in more of a broad perspective. And maybe it will click for the first time in a new way for you. So I asked Ryan if he would allow me to have this episode, his interview with me on mine and he graciously said yes.

So this is Ryan interviewing me on your thoughts and your mindset interacting with your offer to make more money. You can find Ryan on Instagram @ryandanielmoran M-O-R-A-N @ryandanielmoran on Instagram. You can find him at Capitalism.com. And his podcast is Capitalism.com where you can find this episode and many others. I really enjoy listening to the interviews he has on his podcasts and his episodes.

He has lots of entrepreneurs from lots of industries come on. And I’m a really big business geek so I love that stuff. If you do too you should definitely give him a listen. But for now here is our episode and our conversation that we recorded together. Enjoy.

                                                                                                                  

Ryan: Stacey, welcome to Capitalism.com. I’m so happy to see you.

Stacey: Yeah, thanks for having me.

Ryan: Of course. Stacey, I couldn’t think of anybody better to talk to because we’re doing this Mindset series. And it all comes back to managing your brain and managing your mindset. I could give one person the playbook to building a $1 million business and they’ll build a $10 million business. And I’ll give the same playbook to somebody else, and they’ll call me a scammer. And the difference is what is between the ears.

And something that has stood out to me in your content over, and over, and over again is how much you focus on coaching the entrepreneur into their own belief of their own product. And this is so unique in the entrepreneurial space. And to start I wanted to hear you talk about why or when that became a focus for you. When did you start coaching yourself into your own belief of your own offer?

Stacey: This is such a great story. Are you ready?

Ryan: I’m ready.

Stacey: So I was the queen of having nine million offers, all the offers at all the price points. I remember when I hired my first CFO around 200K, he was like, “You need me.” I had a million payment plans, I had all the things. And I didn’t know it at the time, but it was the results of the thought that there is a right offer for each person or each group of people that I was selling to that would be the easiest for them. And so I was catering to all these different things and just thinking about what people want and then trying to offer a bunch of different things all at the same time.

And then I got invited to do a mastermind with Brooke Castillo called The Million Dollar Mastermind or something like that. And she saw we wrote all of my offers and all my price points on a whiteboard. And she was just like, “What is happening here? What is going on?”

Ryan: That sounds like something Brooke would say.

Stacey: She said, “We’re going to just burn all of this down, it’s all terrible, get rid of everything.” And we’re going to just create something new.” And so she came up with this idea. She was asking me about who was I helping the most at the time. It was life coaches. I had been helping network marketers and then people started wanting coaching advice. I was making a lot of money doing this by the way. I just want to say, $300,000 with 30 offers. I don’t even know. It was a lot, at least 12 offers, actual 12 price points, 12 things.

Ryan: And by offers you mean funnels that were getting customers with upsells and programs, all kind of different things?

Stacey: So I wasn’t running any funnels. I wasn’t doing ads at all. This was all just me getting on Facebook Live making offers, just announcing retreats, announcing programs and just on social media, organic marketing, all day long. And I’d never done an ad. I had made 300,000 that year and I was killing it. I’m a super scrappy entrepreneur, I’m not tech savvy as you have learned getting onto this podcast. And so she was like, “What are you good at?” I said, “I can help life coaches.” I actually came from a sales background.

I was a pitch artist. I would do those ShamWow Infomercials in department stores all over the country. And I was the best at it for seven years straight, the number one person in the industry so I’m really good at selling. And so I said, “I’m really good at selling. I’m really good at networking. I’m really good at teaching people how to make money and get clients with basically little to nothing.” And so we came up with the idea of my first core foundational program 2K for 2K. And I hated the name.

I thought it was so dumb, no one was going to buy it, all life coaches want is to make 100K, they don’t care about 2K. It’s not enough. I had all of these thoughts. And so I made the decision in the room and then I had to go after we made those decisions and spend the next two weeks selling myself on why this was the perfect offer, why I loved 2K for 2K, why it was actually so important that coaches focus on their first 2K. Every single thing about my offer, why was it amazing and why was it going to be industry disrupting, industry changing.

So I went from I hate this offer, I think it’s so stupid, no one’s going to buy it, Brooke’s wrong, to this is going to revolutionize the industry. I’m going to make a ton of money and I love this offer. And so I did that with that offer then I created a mastermind. So to answer kind of your second question which was when did I realize to start teaching my audience this. I started a mastermind called the 200K Mastermind. The goal was for life coaches to make their first 200K. And the first couple of rounds I didn’t have a process. I was just getting in their coaching which is I think how you create a process.

And I noticed that every time a coach made an offer, and they didn’t get the result they wanted they would just change their offer. They’re like, “It’s the offer, that’s the reason I’m not selling.” And this was the year that I was busting my butt selling 2K for 2K. And I failed for almost a whole year. I remember just the goal was to get 50 people enrolled in one launch. And I did six launches the first year and my highest ever was 36 people. My first one was 15 and then 26, I mean just failing miserably. And the next year I remember it was a January, I did a 100 people in one launch.

I went from 26 to a 100 and the only thing that had changed is I had coached myself for an entire year on that offer. And now we’ve made millions of dollars in that offer. Now we have funnels that are evergreen. We have made millions of dollars off of our funnel. And so now I just know the secret if you want to make a lot of money is you choose your offer, you choose it wisely. You do think about your positioning and your client and all of those things.

But the secret source is being willing to sell yourself on your offer so deeply that there are no more objections in your mind about your offer. And then you stop getting them from other people.

Ryan: So I want you to clarify this a little bit of what it means to coach yourself into believing in this offer. Because I think a lot of people will hear what you said and say, “Wait, wait, go back a second. There definitely is a right way and a wrong way to do things. There definitely is a good offer and a bad offer. And I just don’t have the good one yet. There are good products and bad products, and I just haven’t found my good one yet.” So what does it mean to actually coach yourself into, I would call it conviction or belief of that offer?

Stacey: Can I just rewind first and say, let me give the outlier situations. Just so that people can listen to what I’m about to say. So I am going to agree with them. So for example if you’re like me and you want to teach life coaches how to make their first sale. Yes, there is to a degree a right offer as in you would not charge that brand new coach $100,000. That price point wouldn’t make sense for who I’m selling to. So there is a little bit of thinking about what makes the most sense for who I’m selling to. Does it match?

For example, my 200K Mastermind, it’s a $25,000 investment but the requirement is that they’ve made at least $25,000 in their business. So there is some let’s think about our clients, let’s think about our offer, let’s think about the result they’re getting, or the product. And I watch a lot of Shark Tank, I love that. There are things where you can be like protein bars, there aren’t a lot of protein bars probably selling for $20. So that wouldn’t make sense.

So we’re not saying that there’s just like you can sell Pet Rocks for $100 apiece and just believe that they will sell, and they will. That’s not what I’m saying. But for most situations, for most people I would say 99% of people do not fail in selling for that reason, because they have that inherent knowledge of their client base. They have that inherent knowledge of the marketplace. Most of that is I would say commonsense for most people.

But what they don’t have is that commitment to being willing, your offer sounds great or your product sounds amazing in theory until people start telling you no. And do you have the stamina, the staying power to still love it and to still go out and sell it when people are telling you, no? So what I mean by selling yourself on your offer, coaching yourself on your offer is for me it’s not even – I was trained with The Life Coach School, so we use the model. But it’s not even about being an expert coach. It’s asking really great questions of yourself.

Why do I love this offer? Why do I think it’s amazing? How do I know it’s the right thing for my people? What is in it for them? What’s the value for them? Is the value a no brainer for them, how so? And answering all these questions like, why will this be revolutionary for them? Why will it change their life? And then imagining, I love doing this is imagining what objections they might have. Or they’re like, if it’s a physical product and they’re standing in the store and they’re holding two different products. And they’re like, there’s yours and there’s the competitors, what are they thinking?

Just imagining, just making it up, what do you think they’re thinking? And then why do you think your solution, your product is the one they should buy? And when you get so clear in your mind about all of that, what do I imagine their objections will be and then how do I address that in my own thoughts, in my own belief? Every time I do that I get more certain about my offer and then I communicate it with a different level of energy. I sell it with a different level of clarity. It just lands better to other people.

That’s all people need in order to say yes, and buy is they need to know that whatever they’re getting is going to be worth the money they spent and they’re going to have a great experience. And the way that they experience that is it just seems to be simple and clear. So let me give you an example. I was watching Shark Tank and this guy was selling this bread that was gluten free or something. And no one invested.

And while he was arguing with them it finally came out and I don’t remember exactly what he said but he was like, “The reason this bread is so amazing is because of this, this, this and this.” And Mark was like, “Why isn’t this on the package? Those three reasons should be on the package. That’s your selling point.” But he hadn’t done enough in his mind of what the Sharks were doing, which was arguing with him and giving him really hard feedback. He hadn’t imagined that enough in his mind and then answered those things ahead of time.

So he got caught with his pants down in the shark tank not knowing those answers, not being prepared. And then he didn’t have the slogan that would have sold it to all of them. As soon as they heard it they were like, “Oh yes.” But it was too late at that point. And the same happens with consumers.

Ryan: Yeah, I’ve been practicing this phrase with our members of the 1% recently which is that conviction creates markets. That oftentimes we look at the marketplace and we’re looking at data. And we say, “We’re selling gluten free bread, that’s a good product to sell.” And I also noticed that there’s these trends where if it’s made with rice flour then it’s going to be a better product.

And so they use the marketplace data to give themselves conviction and it’s not enough because there’s all these doubts about other people doing it better, or being ahead, or being cheaper, or having funding, or what have you. But when you’ve got conviction and you say, “No, my gluten free bread is made with coconut flour, and it’s sweetened with allulose.” I’m just making this up but if you have absolute conviction about that, there’s something about that conviction that creates confidence in the consumer and the customer’s mind.

And then they all flock to you because you’re the one with the certainty that you get the best result for your customers. And that creates the market. The example that I use is Dave Asprey talking about mold free coffee. Mold free coffee was not a thing before he stood in front of a podcast and said, “This is important.” And he believed it and then Bulletproof became a $1 billion brand.

And it sounds to me what you are doing is creating the certainty within yourself so that when you go to sell something you have the conviction that gives your customers that confidence to buy. Is that a fair summary?

Stacey: Yeah. Let’s just think about it. If you’re selling an information service, product, or something on a webinar. There should be nothing that someone asks you on a webinar that you don’t know the answer to, or you’ve not already been prepared to be asked. When you’re selling anything that a customer could ask you that would throw you off, nothing. But you have to imagine those things ahead of time and solve for them in your mind. And then there’s nothing but conviction.

To your point talking about a lot of people going out and looking at what’s in the industry and letting the industry inform them about their own conviction or their belief. The problem with that too is it limits you to what’s already out there. So you can’t be a disruptor. You can’t come up with something new and incredible, and amazing. The reason I created a $10 million business in such a short time is I created something that wasn’t in the industry. No one was offering to help coaches sign their first client. Everyone was helping them make a 100K or your first 10 clients.

So I created something that was so simple for people to believe they could that it felt like a hell yes for them to say yes to it because they believed, well, I could get one client. Yeah, I mean I can’t believe I can make a 100K, but I could believe I could make one client. Or the fact that I lead with results. It’s so simple but no one was going out saying, “Make money as a life coach.” That’s my podcast, Make Money as a Life Coach, the most simple result possible. And no one was saying, “I will guarantee you results. You either make 2K or I’ll give you your 2K back.”

No one was saying that and now I’m teaching in the industry that is not really seen is the idea of it’s our job to get our clients a 100% results a 100% of the time. That’s our job. And everyone in the industry’s been saying, “Well, you can’t possibly get them results because they have to do the work.” And I go around telling people, “That’s such an excuse, stop it right now. The only reason they hire a coach is to help them get results so that’s their expectation.” But no one’s saying that in the industry.

So if I use the industry to inform me about what is a great offer and how I should be selling it. I would be just like every other dime-a-dozen business coach out there. Instead I’m making $10 million because my offer’s so unique and so different. Because I chose to find what is missing in the industry or what is unique to me and then believing it enough to keep offering it and figure it out, figure out exactly what do I need to say in order to get yeses.

When you don’t have conviction in your offer, and you don’t get the sales you want. The answer is always, back to the beginning, I don’t have the right offer, so I have to change my offer. Instead of, so there’s two decisions when people aren’t buying, change my offer because it’s not the right offer. Or figure out how to say it in a way that’s more clear, more compelling, more irresistible.

Figure out what I haven’t said, what haven’t I addressed, what’s the language that’s going to bring this offer to life. And you’ll spend your time doing two very different things with those paths and one will make you a lot of money and one will make you mediocre money if not any at all.

Ryan: That’s right. I’m experiencing this myself, where I wrote a book called 12 Months to One Million. My entire schtick is building a million dollar business. People who do the work build million dollar businesses. I have hundreds of case studies of people who have built million dollar businesses. But it’s a big belief to say, “I’m going to go out and build a million dollar business.” And so I’ve been running up against that myself and when I have been testing my languaging on saying, “Alright, let’s just get you your first $10,000 launch.”

You don’t even have a product ready yet. We can presell it, we can do these free marketing tactics. Then there’s less of a belief that needs to be overcome. But I’m going through the exact transition you’re talking about right now, where no, it should be a million dollar business. No, we have all this proof for it. I don’t want to go down and go into the entry level stuff about getting people over those hurdles. So I’m experiencing that myself where I know you’re right. And I’m feeling some resistance up against that.

And I know a lot of people experience this too where they may be selling a physical product that is higher priced than their competitors. And they’re wrestling with, I know this is the best for my customers, but that data over there says that other people who are selling less are going to make more money. So what do you work with your clients and students on in those early stages when they’re building that bridge of beliefs? How are you working with somebody to actually coach them into conviction?

Stacey: So let me first say, if this seems a little crazy town. The thing that’s really helpful to know is that most people already know what the results have gotten them with changing up things within their offer over, and over, and over. You already know how that pans out. We don’t know how it pans out particularly yet with creating conviction for your offer, creating belief in your offer. So you could give yourself a timeframe, a year, I would say at least a year, a year of being willing to only work your mindset and that will go right into my segue of how I work with my clients.

So in 200K to make their first 200K, I call it a simple offer. And then when they get into my Two Million Dollar Mastermind we call it a scalable offer. But I make them choose all of the components of their offer. I don’t make them, I tell them to choose the components of their offer so maybe it’s for example with mine, 200K Mastermind, it’s $25,000. It’s a six month mastermind. And then I have the process for it. And we don’t change any of those things. That’s the game.

So when they come into the mastermind we have a live event. And at the live event we call it a C sheet but it’s a circumstance sheet, we call all of these things circumstances. And they write it all down, these are all my circumstances that are neutral, that aren’t going to change for the next six months. And then the only thing I’m allowed to change is my thoughts and my feelings about it, that’s it. And then we go to work every single day, every single week in that mastermind, everything we do. They do peer coaching calls, they get one-on-one coaching calls with a coach.

And everything is geared towards finding every ounce of resistance, objections that they have in their mind or that they imagine other people have, which is really just your own thoughts, when you imagine what other people might say. And then we go to work to clean all of that up. And yes, I also have a sales background, so I teach them a lot of things like thinking about your best client when you’re talking to them and only thinking about them. So many people are selling to the people who don’t want their product or offer or are really hard to sell.

Simon Sinek calls them laggards, the people that would be the last people to buy. There’s a lot of arguing that happens in people’s marketing, arguing with the people who are never going to buy, instead of talking directly to the people who are thinking about buying and just need the yes to be easy. So I teach them things like that. But for the most part for six months straight they go into a container for the first time ever where they’re just not allowed to change things to try to get a different result, other than their brain.

When you make that deal with yourself, I’m not changing anything but my brain, that’s the only way to see what those results will be like and it’s always gangbusters.

Ryan: That’s beautiful, Stacey. And you mentioned that you had this goal of selling 50 people and it took a whole year of trying. And then you blew the goal out of the water. And you got to this point a year later where you sold a 100 of them and the only thing that changed was that you had been coaching yourself for a year. So how is Stacey version two a year into coaching herself, different? And how is she showing up differently than Stacey V1 who hates her offer and is trying to negotiate with herself to go back to how she knows things will work?

Stacey: Yeah, that’s such a good question. And this is good for everyone to hear who is in the midst of selling a product or an offer that isn’t working. There is the time that you spend in your business, let’s just say a whole year. There is a time that you spend in your business where if you are realistic. And you kept a time journal where most of the time in your business and in your brain when you’re working your business is you not believing in your offer, being resistant to it. Thinking about the haters or the people who don’t want it.

Or the fact that no one’s buying, fearing that no one will ever buy, all of that, being very uncertain about whether you’re going to make money and if you know how to sell it, telling yourself you’re not sure if you’re going to make x amount of sales. You don’t know if you’re going to hit your goal, all of those things. Then there is another potential year, and this was this year for me, that was the first year, I made 2.5 million that year. That was the first year where I just got to work because the belief was there, and I didn’t have to work on it anymore.

So everything I did from that moment on was just actual work. It wasn’t fighting with my brain every single day. And the core belief that I had that will be helpful for everyone to have is that what that taught me that year is that I could sell any offer to anyone at any price point. So I was coaching with a colleague once and this colleague was like, “Well, I don’t know if my clients will go from one-on-one to group. They’re these type of people and they want one-on-one attention,” and blah, blah, blah.

And I looked at her and I go, “Listen, do you know what my clients buy from me?” And she goes, “What?” And I said, “Anything I fucking sell them.” And it was that level of conviction, not that my 2K for 2K is literally the best offer ever. But I know that whatever offer you give me, and I do this for my clients all the time. I’m like, “Give me your offer, I’ll sell it. And you’ll tell me what your offer is, and I’ll sell it better in 30 seconds having just heard it than you’ll sell it this whole next year.” Because my belief is that I could do that with anything now.

I did it with 2K and I started with this is a stupid offer. So I just know in my brain I can do that now in my whole body with any offer at any price point to anyone. So when you believe that there’s not one second of your working hours that goes to questioning, and resisting, and being confused and wondering, and not knowing. It’s just solid full force massive action to sell your offer and that’s the difference.

Ryan: That’s so beautiful because I think a lot of entrepreneurs learn how to write copy to outsell their doubt, or they learn to run ads to outsell their doubt. Or they work extra hours to try and overcompensate for their doubt. And so they do all of these extra things that are band-aids over where they don’t believe. And what I’m hearing you say is that for a full year of you running this offer, you had those resistant points come up, but you were knocking them down one by one by just changing your thoughts about them.

And then in year two when you go to write copy there’s no more of that ick that you’re trying to outdo. It’s just like here’s the offer, motherfucker, take it or leave it. And here’s why you should take it. And then you go to write an email, or run an ad, or do a webinar and there’s none of that gunk that is coming up the pipes while you are delivering the sales pitch which just makes for a better sales experience which is going to be the thing that increases your conversions.

Stacey: Yes, okay, can I give you a really great tool for everyone listening that I have my students do that will blow everyone’s minds if you actually do it. It’ll maybe sound like a good idea when I say it. But if you actually do it you’re going to be like, “What?” Alright, here we go. If you sell on webinars, you can do this with copy too. But it’s really great if you sell in any sort of video format is I tell them to watch the webinar back and at every point where something feels weird or they do something weird, when they say words to ask themselves what they were thinking when they said that.

Ryan: That’s painful.

Stacey: But this is what Brooke used to do with me. She would watch my webinars and she would, you know Brooke very well, she was very blunt. So she would be typing while she was watching it. And she would be like, “Stacey, why did you say this? Don’t ever say that again.” And she’d be like, “Oh my God, I’m so bored.” She would just comment her thoughts as she went through the webinar. And then I went, “Let me do that. Let me go and watch that.” And so I would watch my students and then they would say stuff, I’m trying to remember some of the things they have said.

But just really silly things like, “Don’t worry, it’s really worth the investment,” or something. And I’m like, “What were you thinking when you said that? That’s just so strange.” And it reveals to you all of your thoughts, but you could do that with your copy too. You can read a sentence and be like, “What was I thinking when I said this sentence?”

Ryan: And my guess is that the subtext behind those weird points is some level of doubt and they’re trying to outspeak the doubt.

Stacey: Yeah, or they’re just speaking a thought from their brain, and they don’t even realize it.

Ryan: I remember working with a client who showed me a squeeze page and he was selling services, done for you services. And the squeeze page was his entry level piece of where people were finding him. And I told him, “I heard the words that you said, but what you were communicating was please, oh please, oh please, opt in.” And he said, “Yeah, okay, I can see that.” And when he sat down and watched it through my eyes he saw that. So in the back of his mind is running the story of people aren’t going to opt in, they’re not going to trust me.

I need to tell them why I’m amazing. I need to convince them that I’m the expert on this. And so he’s talking around all of those thoughts and doubts. And what I’m really hearing you say is that when you identify those, and you clear them, or you coach yourself into a different level of belief that just doesn’t show up anymore. And so the person that shows up is a completely different person. And it almost, almost doesn’t matter what you say because you’re showing up with a different level of conviction about your offer.

Stacey: Yeah, it literally doesn’t matter what you say. This is what will happen when you have cleaned up and when I say cleaned up, means you’ve addressed all of your own objections and all of your own thoughts that don’t feel good about your offer. When it hasn’t happened, let’s say you’re on a webinar or you’re writing copy. You’re doing something but your brain is screaming at you the whole time, whether you’re aware of it or not. So it makes it really hard to be present with someone else. So this happens a lot on consultations too.

So I don’t know if your people do one-on-one actual consultations but if they do, this happens a lot. It’s really hard to hear the other person when your brain is screaming at you the whole time. So when you do this work what happens is your brain goes blank. It’s clear, it’s like open wide space. And what that open wide space does or allows for you, is to pay very close attention to what’s happening. So when I do a webinar I have rehearsed it at least five times. I’m not wondering what’s coming up next.

I’m so well versed in it that all of my brain space is paying attention to the comments so that I’m addressing them throughout the webinar because I have the attention span to do so subtly just in the way I’m talking. I’ll pick up something, I’ll see someone ask the question and I’ll store it in my brain to answer it three slides later. And it seems like it’s just part of the pitch. I have that ability to do that because my brain is clear because I’m not freaking out about whether people are going to buy, I just know they’re going to because I’m so sold on my offer.

Ryan: Stacey, the way that I’m hearing this is I feel completely in flow when I’m on stage and when I’m on stage I’m well-rehearsed. I know exactly what’s coming up in three slides. And I even know, I’m looking at the clock of how much time I have. And I’m editing my presentation with a different part of my brain because I’m so in flow and so well prepared. And I don’t have any doubts about what I’m delivering, I know it’s exactly what that audience needs to hear.

And the way that I’m hearing you describe this process is that you are able to prepare and coach yourself in any sales presentation to have that amount of flow and conviction that I have when I’m on stage. And I’m telling you, I’m buying whatever you’re selling if you can get me into that state all of the time because I live for those moments. So what is the process for bringing that amount of clarity and conviction into whatever it is that you’re presenting, whether it’s a webinar or a podcast for goodness sake?

What are you actually practicing on a regular basis in order to show up in that way? Because I want exactly that experience of life.

Stacey: First of all, it’s everything I’ve already said. Doing that work, I’m creating a couple of new offers now for my business. And I will literally not launch them until I have gone through every possible objection in my own mind to that offer. When I say ,coach yourself, or, sell yourself, or believe and have more conviction in your offer I don’t believe in mantras. So I don’t believe in just stating out loud something you want to believe and saying it over, and over, and over. If you don’t believe it, it means nothing.

But what I mean is asking yourself questions and making yourself answer in detail very specifically to address every single thing you could imagine, every question that would come up, every reason why someone wouldn’t buy. Very meticulously, a whole paragraph, being very clear on what the answer is to that. That is the first part of the work. The second part of the work though that I will say is I spend a lot of time coaching forward as well meaning really getting myself to the state where my offer feels irresistible. Where I’m so excited to go out and sell it.

Excited is not the right word, I don’t like people selling from excitement, more like convicted, what you said, compelled. Where I have to get this in the hands of people. I have to write this email. I have to write 26 emails in one sale sequence. I’m the queen of writing a million emails because I’m like, “I’ve got one more thing to say. I have one more thing.” I never run out of things to say because I’m thinking about everything they’re thinking, and I endlessly want to address that.

And when I’m thinking about them and I’m sold on my own offer all that’s left is all of this content and all of the sales material to just get out of my brain and onto paper, or a podcast, or a webinar, or a stage as fast as possible.

Ryan: Yeah. What I realized as you were saying that is there’s something that’s different in my thoughts when I show up on stage to give a keynote versus when I do a webinar. So that means that I’ve got thoughts about my selling process. It means I’ve got thoughts about my offer because I don’t show up with the same amount of conviction or confidence when I do a webinar versus when I’m on stage.

Stacey: Well, have they already bought when you’re on stage?

Ryan: Not all the time, no.

Stacey: Interesting, yeah, so you have to figure out what’s different.

Ryan: What are you processing there? You’re seeing something?

Stacey: I was just thinking, I think that we always with people who have already bought from us we assume already that they are all in. Our thoughts are they’re all in. So when we present to them we’re presenting to our most friendly audience so we’re in our most confident state. Because we believe everything that they’re taking in, they want to take in. Or even if you’re on stage and they’re in the room, your subconscious is able to at least bridge the gap that they want to be there. They’re digging what you say.

They took a time investment or a financial investment to be there so you’re in your most friendly audience, your most accepting, easiest to sell audience. Versus when you’re out in the world you’re interacting with people who might be like, “This webinar was a waste of my time” and say it in the chat. You’re just not interacting with your most friendly.

Ryan: But it goes back to what you said earlier about assuming or just speaking to the person that is ready for you and not trying to get the laggards who are saying, “WTF am I doing at this webinar?” If you know or you believe that you are speaking to the people who need what you have then (a) you don’t attract the laggards and (b) you’re speaking directly to the person that responds well which means that you’re holding their attention most of the time.

Stacey: A good visual for everyone to kind of think about. I actually did this on a webinar once. I drew a 100 stick figures and then I highlighted 10 of them. I filled them in with all black, 10 of them. And I said, “There’s a 100 people and out of a 100 people 10 might be your best clients. The people who are ready to say yes to you who are digging everything that you put down. Or the people who are going to naturally walk in and be attracted to your packaging on the store shelf.” There’s 10 of them out of a 100.

Our brain is trained to focus on the 90 people who are not interested and speak just to them. And we have to train our brain to only see those 10 people and only think about those 10 people. And expand our awareness of those 10 people to where it feels like those 10 people are a 100 people. And we only speak to them, we only create things for them, and they become our entire reality. But when you’re failing, when you’re out there trying to sell your product and you’re failing, all your brain wants to think about is those 90 people who are saying no, there’s the rub.

That’s where you have to get in there and that’s the difficult hard work. I learned this pitching when I was selling ShamWows or mops in Walmart. And I would get 100 people at my little stage, and I would have 20 minutes to sell them. And there would be people there that would be hanging on every word I’m saying. There would be people in the back crossing their arms and going, “Where is it made, China?” And heckling me. And so if I focused on those people, if I let them get to me, if I let them create an emotional response for me I would sell nothing.

But if I did not engage with them emotionally or mentally at all and I stayed focused on even if it was just one person in the audience nodding their head the whole time, yes, yes, yes. If I focused on them there is so many people that are just waiting to be sold. They’re kind of on the cusp, I would sell to not just the person who’s nodding their head the whole time, but all the people on the cusp as well. So it was either the heckler or me, we’re going to turn all those cusp people, we’re going to sell them, turn them on to our side. And it’s just where my focus went, that’s it.

Ryan: And there’s almost always a one, there’s almost always a 10 that is responding if you’ve done the work of preparing directly to that. And I’m feeling convicted as you’re saying that about how much attention I give to the 90 people. And I’m curious for you, how does this show up in other areas of the business? You have a very successful podcast, you run ads to bring people in, so outside of a sales environment like a podcast, piece of content, how does this affect how you show up in that type of a setting?

Stacey: It’s a good question. The things that come to mind immediately are that I see my clients do when they have funnels. I don’t really spend a ton of time and energy focusing on the data. I just focus on who’s buying and is that working for us. That’s a big one is just I don’t get really caught up. Someone’s always asking me, “What’s a good conversion rate?” And I’m like, “I don’t know, are you hitting your numbers?” There’s no set conversion rate in the industry. I’m like, “Maybe it’s 4% are buying but you’re hitting all your goals so it’s probably fine, just focus on the 4%.”

Or if there’s like our team says, “There are 83 people who have looked at the application and not filled it out.” I’m going to be like, “Okay, so what do I need to say to those 83 people? They want in, they’re just not over the edge so what do I say to them?” I feel like that’s where – I don’t know if that answers your question but that’s where most of my brain goes is just I don’t get lost in what things mean and guessing what they mean. I just think about the people who are on the cusp of buying and how do I push them over.

And even if we see a drop off at a certain point of our sales page, I look at the copy and I’m like, “Okay, so what was I thinking when I wrote that and what are they thinking when they read it that’s making them drop off and then how do I fix that?”

Ryan: I really admire that amount of personal responsibility. And the way that this is hitting me is I have a relationship in my personal life where we’ve dealt with some conflict, and I just decided to look internally at how I’m creating the situation rather than what the other person is doing. And it really has shifted the relationship where I no longer factor in how the other person is responding. I factor in, what did I say that triggered something and how can I adjust this? And taking total personal responsibility.

And it’s created a lot of healing in that family relationship. I’m hearing you sort of do the same thing with your copy and your sales approach which is, okay, these people aren’t, we’re not converting here. They’re not dumb. They came to the sales page which means they want it. Where can we clean something up so that I can communicate the conviction that I have? And my question was about how you show up in content and podcasting. And what I really am hearing you say is that you’re not getting lost in the numbers of downloads.

Stacey: I have no idea how many downloads we have. I could not even venture you a guess.

Ryan: You are more showing up with the question of is this working for our business? Are we turning these clicks into customers? Are people resonating with the business message rather than, are they downloading this episode? And that hits me because my worst time in business has been when I get caught up in the download numbers because then I start editing myself from numbers rather than editing myself to help the 10 people who are responding to my message. And I’m hearing you say that you just double down on the 10 and everything else takes care of itself.

Stacey: Yeah. And I think that that’s true, I can give you three other examples now that I’m re-understanding your question. So for example, with my podcast I might get a couple bad reviews. I’ve gotten a couple that are really bad.

Ryan: Oh yeah, I agree, yeah.

Stacey: And I just bypass those. And then I make myself read 30 that are amazing and I’m like, “That’s what I’m going to do.” The same is true for if you get negative feedback from clients. I always make my team tell me the exact number because they like to say, “Everyone’s thinking this,” or everyone [crosstalk].” And I’m like, “How many people?” And they’re like, “Four.” We recently had 11 people that were very unhappy with us and our business. And I’m like, “Remember that we serve 4500 people right now.”

So 11 out of 4500 we could focus all of our time and attention and solve problems for those 11 people and make a bunch of process adjustments and we can accommodate those 11 people, or we can think about the 4500 that are super happy and amazing, and loving everything we do. And then the same is true, even in my business I recently a year ago had, or less than a year ago had some employees that came, and they were really unhappy. And they had lots of really useful things to say.

The couple of people that came to me, I ended up meeting with every single person on my team and saying, “Hey, listen, tell me all the things you would never say to me, tell me all of the things. And I’m going to just write them down. Tell me all the areas we’re not measuring up. Tell us where you don’t love working. What are the reasons? I want to know everything that you would never tell me.” And I wrote everything down and then I went, and I made all of these changes for the people, I did speak to some that were my ideal people.

They were like, “There’s no problems and this is the way I think about it.” And they were so amazing so I used them in my brain to think about if I had an entire team of those people how would I train them and onboard them better, thinking of them? Not the people who were complaining to me but the people who were the best versions. I took their criticism, but I applied it to the people who were really all in with the company. And then within six months our entire team culture had shifted, it’s insane right now. We have, all of the people working for us are so incredible, so amazing.

The people that didn’t want to come along with us left, it’s so hard to do that. We want to focus on the people who are complaining, the people who are unhappy, the people who are not buying. But focusing on the people who are happy, who are buying, that’s always going to create more of that. And then it creates such a different energy in what you’re writing, how you’re selling, how you’re leading, everything.

Ryan: So it’s not that you weren’t willing to make changes, you made changes for the best people, not for the 90% that don’t pay attention or in the case of your team members, the handful of people who had complaints. You went to the best people and said, “Where could we be better? What are all the subconscious things that you don’t tell me? And let’s correct for those so we get more people like you and keep them.”

Stacey: Yeah. And I think it’s really helpful to just, this is the way I navigated it because I was getting all kinds of responses. The ones that were negative that when I heard them I was like, “Yeah, I could see that that could be true. I’ve had that sneaky thought too. I have had that concern.” So if you have someone complaining about your offer for example, if they hit you with something that you’re like, “Yeah, I’ve been ruminating on that too.” Then just fix it. If you’re like, “No. I am very clear on that. I’m very clean on that. I feel really great about this answer.”

You will not have a negative emotional response or any kind, just feeling negative about it if it’s just not true for you. The feedback isn’t useful. It’s most useful when you’re like, “Yeah, I can see that. That feels true.” One of the comments was, “We’re just thrown to the wolves. You have these processes but there’s no way of walking us through them. We’re just supposed to learn on our own. And it’s really stressful.”

And I was like, “Yeah, that’s been a thought of mine is we need to create a training program, so I agree with you.” And that just takes removing your ego and being humble.

Ryan: My last question for you Stacey is, when you’ve identified that thought that you were thinking when you were writing the copy, or when you’ve identified that piece that you know is a limiting factor, what’s the process that you do to change that thought or to practice the muscle of a thought that I smore useful?

Stacey: I think first of all just awareness is everything because here’s what will happen is people will see that they’ve written something or said something from a thought, they can find the thought. And they’re like, “I see I did that.” But there is a gap between seeing I did that and believing that’s the actual thing that created the result for me. Because a lot of times my clients will be like, “I can see that, but I don’t think that that’s the reason I didn’t make a 100K. I see that it contributed to it. It was part of it.”

And usually they think it’s 10% of it instead of 90% of it. So the work is that gap, that’s the biggest amount of the work. So I always ask myself, on a scale of one to ten, how much do I believe, 10 being the most that this is the actual thing that created this result for me? If they didn’t buy, how much do I actually believe that this thought is what created it, or this belief system is what created it? I start there and I make myself say why. Why did I rate it, if it’s a seven, or if it’s an eight, why, why not a 10? What would it take for me to get to a 10?

Because if you don’t actually believe that your belief is what’s creating the money then you’re going to go solve for all the other things first and you’ll just barely touch on it. And you’ll be like, “Well, I sat down and wrote down why I think this is better.” Or I did a little self-coaching and asked myself some questions and then I got up and never thought about it again. Versus for me I’m going to be thinking about that when I’m showering, when I’m putting makeup on, when I’m feeding my baby. Not in a hustly way but just in a way where I’m being so aware of where else is this showing up?

Let me see all the other places that I’m finding this. And getting just so clear on how that is the thing that is creating the result. Once I know that and once you know that your brain just lets it go. Brooke always used to say, “If you were punching yourself on the face but you really saw that you were the one creating the bruise you would just stop.” You would just stop doing it.

Ryan: When you can see how painful it is to think that thought, and when you know that it’s a 10 out of 10 that is restricting you from achieving what you want, and you’re really clear that that’s the thorn in your hand, you just pluck it out. When you’re a four out of 10 clear you’re just like, “I’m pretty sure I don’t have a thorn in my hand, I’m pretty sure that I have carpal tunnel. So I’m going to go carpal tunnel searching.

Stacey: Or I have a thorn in my hand, and I have carpal tunnel but I’m pretty sure carpal tunnel is what’s creating the pain.

Ryan: Yeah, so you allow yourself to see and experience how that thought is restricting all of the flow that is in you and then when you see it you’re just like, “That’s gone, I’m done with that.”

Stacey: Yeah. The thing that I want to say before we get off here just to make for everyone to hear that I think I do above par for a lot of even coaches in the industry who study this work and far above anyone who has never coached themselves. Is I allow myself to take as much time as it takes. So we sometimes when we approach this work feel very entitled to – I had one launch that went bad and then I had another launch that went bad, and I should be over this by now. I have been working on this thought. I worked on this thought for a whole week.

And I’m like, “But would you give it a year? Would you give it three years?” I teach my clients this idea of the three year plan. It’s essentially just how much money you’re going to make for three years, broken up and how you’re going to sell the things. And then what you need to do from where you are now at the end of the year three, what have you done and what needs to change. And then you work backwards, you start on those things immediately in year one because it’s really going to take three years to do it.

We always think it’s going to take less time than it does. So I always tell them, I give them that concept. So I give myself even for my goals, I give myself enough time to accomplish them. So if it takes me a year of failing at an offer, I still have two more years to accomplish my overall goal. So I remember telling someone, I went from 10K to 25K in my offer which is a pretty significant price increase. And I remember saying that I worked on believing in that 25K before I sold, being completely sold myself and being willing to get more no’s at 25K than at 10K.

I got to that place before I started selling it and it took me four months. And I remember a coach telling me, “Why did it take you so long?” It made me realize, they aren’t actually doing that work to actually make it permanent in who they are as a deep self-concept shift and how they’re showing up that will actually create millions of dollars for them. If you’ve never done it then it does seem like it would be much quicker than sometimes it is. So you just have to be willing, are you willing to take four months to work on one thought that’s destroying your webinars?

Or that one thought between can I really take these people from zero to a million in 12 months? Can I sell that to them as a simple idea or concept? Could you take a year to work on your beliefs that would get you there?

Ryan: Yeah. And I think when people become okay with it taking that long, it no longer takes that long. It’s this resistance to it needs to be fast, I need to see rapid transformation/ And then they beat themselves up and introduce doubt when they bump up against hurdles rather than just allowing the change to unfold. Stacey, you are a badass. I so enjoy our conversations. Where can people dive into your work and start practicing this? Because I think a lot of people are listening to this and are like, “Okay, got it, I need to practice this.” Where can someone start to practice?

Stacey: Perfect. So I want to just preface this, I do work exclusively with coaches. So I prepare people for that because the terminology and the way that I speak is going to be all geared towards coaches. But we have tons of people who listen to my podcast. So feel free, it’s free and I do not hold back on my podcast. It’s Make Money as a Life Coach and then you can also find me on Instagram @staceyboehman and staceyboehman.com. But the podcast is where if they wanted to start, that’s where.

Ryan: Stacey, such a joy hanging out with you. Thank you for being here on Capitalism.com.

Stacey: Thanks for having me.

                                                                                                                  

Hey, if you are ready to make money as a life coach, I want to invite you to join my 2K for 2K program where you’re going to make your first $2000, the hardest part, and then $200,000 using my proven formula. It’s risk-free. You either make your 2K or I give you your 2K back. Just head over to www.staceyboehman.com/2kfor2k. We’ll see you inside.