You love what you do. You know you make a huge difference to your clients. Most days you even recognize fully the value of your projects and services. But you wish it was easier to fill your course. You’re tired of stressing about hitting your sales numbers. Honestly, you hate sales just a little bit (maybe a lot).

Today we’re diving into two components of the Mama CEO Methodology: money and mindset.

For our business to make money, we need to sell … but we hate sales or think we aren’t good at it or feel awkward having sales conversations. What if we could change our mindset around selling? What if we could start to actually like selling? What might that do money-wise?

Learn to Love (or at Least Like) Sales

I talked with sales expert Erika Tebbens about some of her favorite tips for people who don’t like having sales conversations. Erika has been selling for over 20 years and, weird as it sounds, she loves it! She knows how to sell in a way that feels easy and relaxed, and she’s taught lots of people in different industries how to sell successfully too.

She walks us through these 3 ways to love sales more:

Treat it like a friendly conversation

Think about talking to a friend. Instead of worrying if they’re going to say yes or feeling like you have to prove yourself, think about talking to a friend. You want it to feel natural.

Instead of launching into a sales pitch, start by listening. Listen to what the person really wants and needs. Listen to what they are struggling with right now. Their needs should steer the conversation.

Build the relationship and focus on value

Things shift when we focus on relationship building. This doesn’t mean that we don’t try to close the deal, but if you approach the whole conversation as building a relationship and giving value it changes the dynamic a lot. What problem does the person have? How can you solve that problem? When you do that, you bring value to the conversation. Think about being your potential customer’s professional problem solver.

Always follow up

Once you get into that friendly conversations and get used to focusing on value, don’t stop there. On more than one occasion, the lack of follow up has led to a lost sale. On the other hand, great follow up has brought me to yes.

Make sure you have a system for follow up, whether it’s a fancy CRM or a reminder on your phone or a sticky note on your calendar. Follow up can make or break a sale—and even if you don’t make the sale with the follow-up, you add value that might help you get a referral or a sale down the line.

You can listen to the Mama CEO Show with Erika for more examples of how to put these tips into practice.

And if you really want to elevate your sales skills, don’t miss:

• Erika’s free webinar: Confident Conversations, Friday, May 11, 2018
• Erika’s upcoming course, Sell It, Sister!