S2E5: 3 Steps to Rock Your Transformation-Based Sales
Welcome to Women Rocking Business, where we are here to help you rock yourself, rock your life, and rock the world as a woman entrepreneur, because the world needs you and the time is now. I’m Sage Lavine, CEO, trainer, unretired, camp counselor, and best-selling author of the Hay House book Women Rocking Business. We’ve had the honor of serving over a hundred thousand women entrepreneurs around the globe, just like you, who are here to do more, be more and have more by giving your gift to the planet. So let’s dive in.
Sage Lavine
00:00:44
If you know that you’ve got a skill up in sales, if you know that sales is something that you’re learning to embrace even more to go out there and grow your business to the next level, this is for you.
One of the things that I always tell my clients is that sales is really representative of the transformation you provide. When you stand in your transformation and you understand how to stand in the transformation, then sales becomes a by-product of you being a strong mentor, and you don’t have to focus so much on selling. You can focus on the transformation you provide and grow your business into the tens and tens of thousands, the millions, in the way that myself and so many of my clients have done. Because for women entrepreneurs, we don’t want to go out there chasing business. That’s just not why we got into this thing in the first place.
Sage Lavine
00:01:25
We want to go out there and change lives and make a great living while doing it. So let’s talk about this transformation based selling concept. Let’s talk a little bit about why transformation, I believe is the best vehicle into an authentic selling environment. Here’s the thing you guys, you can let the transformation that you provide, do the heavy lifting for you. Okay? This is not about convincing people. It’s not about controlling people. A great example of this is that several years ago I had my first 500 person event. It was a live event. I’ve actually had several of my colleagues come out of the woodwork this week and ask me about this event and ask me for some tips on how we’re able to do these multi-day events and turn 25 or 30% of the people at the event into year long clients.
Sage Lavine
00:02:18
A big part of our event. success at Women Rocking Business has been the transformation we provide. So first of all, you guys can rest in the transformation you provide. This 500 person event that I did a few years ago. It was my biggest event ever. I was terrified and I was a mess for the event, but the event ended up being our most successful event ever.
So I got the lesson loud and clear that it wasn’t about the exact words I said at the event. It wasn’t about the exact content I taught it. It wasn’t exactly about how I laid out the offer or nailed the selling conversation.
Sage Lavine
00:02:58
It was about the transformation that I was providing at that event. What happened before that event, you guys, is that I had been online dating for the first time and I made the mistake of going out with this guy, like the Saturday evening, before my event, my event started, I think on a Tuesday, that means set up day is Monday. That means 36 hours before I’m setting up for my event, I’m going out on a date with a brand new guy. Don’t do that by the way. When you’re going into leading something big, give yourself like a 72 hour buffer, where you’re only putting yourself in environments where you know you’re going to be loved and safe and appreciated. Like don’t put yourself in situations that could go south because this date was so bad.
Sage Lavine
00:03:43
This guy was actually yelling at me over the dinner table. I ended up having to leave, toss a bunch of money down on the table, get in my car. He ended up like hopping in his car and following me. So by the time I woke up the next morning, I was so stressed out about my event and the fact that the date had gone so poorly that I had gotten a sore throat. “I can’t get sick. I can’t get sick. I can’t get sick.” Well, of course I got sick for my biggest event of my career.
I remember walking onto the property of the conference that we were hosting thinking, “Oh my God, this is, this is the worst day of my life. I’ve got, you know, I need to make hundreds of thousands of dollars at this event. I just hired two new full-time people in my business. This is where we make all our money. You know, this is, we’ve been preparing for this event for months.” You know, beating myself up, stupid me for going out on that date.
Sage Lavine
00:04:28
Right? First of all, I’m not a robot. You’re not a robot. Don’t beat yourself up for stuff.
I’ll never forget. One of my head trainers came waltzing up to me. Once she found out that I was sick and she looked in my eyes, she’s like, “This ship is not sinking.” The transformation part of the event is that about halfway through the event, I ended up having this coughing guttural fit, like, like horribly guttural, coughing fit. Of course I couldn’t turn off my microphone because it was strapped to my face and I was wearing a dress and my DJ didn’t turn it off in time. I caught my breath and looked out at the audience and I said, that’s C zechoslovakianfor, “I see the God in you.”
Sage Lavine
00:05:11
Everybody started cracking up and then I just stopped. I was like, you guys, “Who here is terrified of body breakdown, who here has pulled back in your business because you’re afraid of burning out your body or your body breaking down?”
We had the most authentic conversation as a group of women in that sort of 30 or 40 minute chunk of time. You know, I made the offer for my program and my team put me to bed that night. They sent me off to get a massage and then they put me in bed at like seven o’clock and they led the evening session. I had never not led the evening session after the offer. I used to cling so tightly to my events and they were successful, but something had to happen to get my little fingers off of the control button of that event.
Sage Lavine
00:05:56
Are you picking up what I’m down? Because I woke up refreshed for day 3. Of course, I had a room full of 500, like female coaches, consultants, healers. The whole back table was full of supplements that people were bringing to my team to see if I wanted to take throat sprays, no sprays, all the things. I was better within like 24 hours. But I woke up to the third day of my most successful event ever. We did over a million dollars in sales and my team couldn’t believe it. They made up a song that day that was like, “That’s how we make millions of dollars.”
They were so pumped and it had to do with me letting go of control. It had to do with me actually standing for a bigger transformation in the room, standing for a more human way of building business, that body breakdown isn’t what’s going to completely derail us.
Sage Lavine
00:06:50
You know, having an authentic conversation in the room where I was standing for women moving forward toward their dreams, whether they caught a cold, whether they, you know, felt a little burned out and needed to spend a couple of days resting up. We’ve got this one life, and for me, that event was realizing it wasn’t about the content. It wasn’t about how I delivered the offer, the success of that first seven figure event…It was about a transformation that I created space for in the room. When you create the container for transformation and write this down, you stand for what people want. You know, I knew the women in that room wanted a business that was more on their terms and they all saw me go to bed at dinner.
Sage Lavine
00:07:35
That was for some of them and their little evaluation at the end of the three day, “Seeing Sage go to bed at dinner was the most transformational moment of the event for me.” She didn’t feel well and her team led that evening session. It was an awesome evening session. I want a business where I’m not in charge of leading every session. Therefore I would like to study with team Sage and Women Rocking Business.”
It was like the things that I actually didn’t do spoke even louder than the things that I did do. So I just want to really put a stake in the ground for you, realizing that you don’t have to be perfect when you show up to do these trainings that are warming up your clients. You don’t have to convince anybody.
Sage Lavine
00:08:16
This is way more about giving people what they say they want, right? Listening to them rather than what you think they need.
Okay, rockstar. If this content is resonating with you, and if you see yourself speaking, taking the stage, building an online speaking business in the future… I’d like to invite you to take my Speaker Superpower Quiz. It’ll just take 2 minutes. Whether you’re a visionary, a truth teller, a motivator, or a nurturer, I’ll send you a bunch of business growing hacks based on your speaker superpower, so you can take a deep dive into your superpower and really learn how to leverage it to rock the stage and find your clients online. You’ll get my favorite tips to use all 4 speaker superpowers to grow your speaking based business, grow your confidence as a leader and make an even bigger difference on the planet leading both virtual and live stages. Just take the free 2-minute quiz at www.womenrockingbusiness.com/quiz. That’s www.womenrockingbusiness.com/quiz. I cannot wait for you to discover your speaker superpower!
Sage Lavine
00:09:30
The other thing that we do when we’re creating these types of experiences where people get to come and sample what we do, and, you know, we offer our services is we always apply something called the learning cycle.
The learning cycle is literally like how people learn. I used to be a high school science teacher, so I was always studying like, how do young people learn? How do people actually learn? Psychologists have done a lot of research and they found that people don’t learn by just listening to you ongoingly. People’s attention span is going to be somewhere in the range of like 20 to 40 minutes, maybe 60 minutes max, before they actually need to kind of express and integrate what you’re teaching them.
Sage Lavine
00:10:15
Write this down. The learning cycle is step 1 to evoke, step 2 to express, step 3 to make meaning, and step 4 to integrate.
When we say evoke, that is you’re teaching. You’re evoking people’s brains and their learning capacity with the content that you’re teaching. So you’re evoking through your content, but rather than shoving so much content at them that their eyes glaze over, you’re then giving them a chance to express. So again, the learning cycle is four steps. Number 1 evoke, number 2 express, give them a chance to express whether they’re commenting in a comments thread, going into a Zoom breakout room on a virtual event, having a chance to jump into a small group, if you’re leading a live event or do some kind of a partner share, right?
Sage Lavine
00:11:08
These are all opportunities that you can give your students to express what they’re learning. Maybe you just taught them about online dating. Now they’re going to hop in with a small group and talk about who their ideal partner is, right? To actually express what is that they want or what they heard you teach about finding your mate online.
Then number 3, make meaning. That is the moment where you’ve got to open up the space for your participants to come back together with you and interact around the content, right? Once they’ve had a chance to express, even if it’s just by leaving a comment, they’ve got to actually be able to come back and reweave with you in order to make meaning of what they just learned.
Sage Lavine
00:11:49
A great hack to setting up an environment that prepares people to invest in themselves and to say “yes” to an offer and to say “yes” to a sale. A great hack is to create that transformation by not just giving people content, but giving them a chance to be evoked, to express, and then to make meaning. I see so many beginning entrepreneurs make the mistake of putting people into breakouts to work on something, and then right after they’re done with that, they go to break. Don’t do that. You got to bring everybody back together and share what did they get out of those breakout rooms? What did they get out of that partner share?
Sage Lavine
00:12:30
To bring their voices back into the big group and so to weave everybody back together as an important part of the transformational container, that your setting to really be able to give people the confidence to invest in themselves through your services.
Then number 4 of the learning cycle is to integrate. That’s where you might give people a little action step. What are they walking away with? What’s something they can go post inside of your social media group, or, you know, a little plan of action that they can be working on that integration time for themselves is step 4. Evoke, express, make meaning, integrate. When you create those kinds of learning environments, you’re creating a transformation.
Sage Lavine
00:13:14
People get to see smell, taste, and touch their greater potential. When they can touch their greater potential, they can feel what it would be like to be with you for the next part of the journey. Right? So it sets up the selling environment better than anything else I know to tell you, to lean into providing a transformation for people, and then letting people know what is next setting up your offer by really being sure that your offer solves a different problem than the problem that you solved when you’re getting to know them in that original training, that video training or that mini event, where you’re getting people some great information, and then letting them know that there’s an opportunity to take the next step with you.
Sage Lavine
00:14:05
I have clients come to me all the time and ask me, “How do I not over-give and these video trainings and these events, these speaking engagements, how do I not over-give?”
I think we’re asking the wrong question. I think when we can design each session of content that we’re giving people in alignment with an actual learning cycle where we give them some information and then we give them a chance to express and make meaning of what they learned and then we let them know what the next step is…. We don’t have to worry about giving them too much. We just have to be aware that people can only learn 20 or 30 or 40 minutes worth of content before they need to be able to interact with the information.
Sage Lavine
00:14:48
Then, when you shine the light on what’s next for them, the people who are ready to invest in themselves to get to the next level are just going to be a natural “yes”. So instead of asking, “how do I not give so much?” What if instead, your focus was on the outcome of the next step.
If you teach people how to start online dating, that’s great, right? Here’s how you kind of start online dating. Here’s how you set up your profile. Here’s a few of the different sites that you can use. For those of you that really want to find your mate, you know, I’ve got a program starting. It’s a 6-month program where we’re really going to go through and we’re going to actually clear out any bad dating experiences that you’ve had in the past, right? Because I’m not the only one. And we’re going to really get clear on what your vision is for your next relationship. We’re going to get you a sorting process so that as you’re going out on these dates, you know, what questions to ask and you know how to sort through these candidates, and then we’re going to help you really become so magnetic within yourself that you can’t help but attract your ideal mate, not the same person you’ve been dating over and over again, but the person that you’re now meant to attract.
So can you see how I just set up a program? If I was a relationship coach, I set up a program that has an entirely different set of promises than maybe a webinar I was doing on how to get started online dating.
Sage Lavine
00:16:14
So stop worrying about whether you’re going to over-give or not. Pick a topic, give as much as you can on that topic, and then make sure you position your next step, your offer, your program, whatever service you’re offering next. Position that as a solution to the next problems that people are going to have, because inherent in any problem that you solve lies the next problem. So your job is somebody making offers and someone who’s focused on transformation based sales is to simply shine the light on what people are going to need next.
Sage Lavine
00:17:02
I hope this was helpful and be someone who cares more about the transformation of your clients than you care about the sales.
That’s my invitation to you because when you stand for the transformation and when you genuinely care about your people, the sales are going to follow. That doesn’t mean blow off the offer. It doesn’t mean wing it. It means when in doubt, focus out. I love that my friend Jeanna Gabellini says that. Make it about them, make it about how much you care about them, what you want for them, the vision that they have, that you can help them achieve. Transformation sells you guys. Life is about growth. We’re all here to grow. We’re all on this planet for just a moment. You know, we just get to wake up in these bodies with this consciousness, just for like this precious moment.
Sage Lavine
00:17:43
Transformation does sell. It really does. We all want to grow. We all want to transform. People grow and transform when they sign up for your webinars, your video challenges, your events, and they grow and transform even more when they take the next step with you. Yes, put the offer and the other pieces into place up underneath what you’re offering and your business is going to be extraordinary. Keep signing that light because your clients are out there and they’re waiting for you. They’re not just waiting for someone like you. They’re actually waiting for you. Thank you for being the very best part of Women Rocking Business. Love you so much. Bye everyone!
Sage Lavine
00:18:23
You’ve been listening to Women Rocking Business. I’m Sage Lavine. The next step is to join our private Facebook group. The Women Rocking Business Sisterhood and introduce yourself over there for the real and vulnerable conversation of what it really takes to launch and scale a business you love in that Sisterhood group. We have each other’s backs, each other’s sides and each other’s fronts. This is true collaboration. So go grab a seat in the Sisterhood because we can go so much further when we go together, you’ll find a link to the private Sisterhood group and do our upcoming events in the show notes.
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