For the HeartBased Solopreneur, the sales process is a journey of discovering an obvious alignment between the prospect’s vision for their life and the service you provide.
To achieve this alignment, there are 3 things you must know or be profoundly clear about.
1. The Service You Provide
The more unclear you are about the service you provide, then the more true alignment is impossible. You have to know what they are aligning with. The clearer you are about the problems or obstacles that you help people in solving, the more obvious it becomes whether they are facing those particular issues.
One problem can be equivalent to fifteen other problems. Are you aware of what those problems might be? Helping your prospect understand how solving the initial problem can also solve the other fifteen problems can greatly increase their perceived alignment with your solution. This can be a pleasant surprise for the prospect. While they may have initially thought that you could only help with one issue, you are showing them that your service can actually solve many problems. Yes, this clearly also raises the perceived value of your service.
2. The Prospect: Pain & Desire
Pain is where they are and where they’ve been. Desire is the potential of where they are and where they can be. If alignment is going to happen, then we need to understand the reality of the prospect’s situation, along with the sincerity of where they’d like to be. Naturally, the obvious gap for alignment is to understand how the service can or will help them bridge this gap.
Pain is necessary for the transformation and decision-making process. It is what gets our attention and alerts us that something needs our attention. One reason why we fail to make meaningful decisions that lead to meaningful transformation is that we hide from the pain or avoid being deeply honest with ourselves about it. The alignment process includes helping the prospect see this pain more clearly, which creates a space for them to make a heartfelt decision to finally do something about it. Deeply understanding this pain, and how it prevents them from achieving what they know is possible, presents an opportunity to create a deeper alignment with you, and your service.
Desire is the opportunity to acknowledge and honor the real opportunity. The more we can bring clarity to the desire, making it practical and possible, the more your service is perceived to be in alignment with the prospect. Just as the painful problem has fifteen sub-problems, the solution (which is a decision) has fifteen other solutions that come with it.
You are bringing clarity to the gap between pain and desire, and bringing clarity to how your service is a bridge that supports their decision to transform.
It’s important to keep in mind, as I will continue to emphasize, that you’re not selling yourself or your service, but rather you’re selling a decision. You’re creating a space that assists the prospect in making a decision that honors their life and the opportunities available to them.
3. The “No’s” are “Yes’s”
Objections can be a funny thing. As someone who offers a service (salesperson), it’s common to fear people saying “no”. We often interpret “no” as “this service is not for me”, but what people really mean is “I don’t yet see the alignment”. It’s possible that there isn’t alignment, but this should be discovered early in the process. In fact, if I sense there isn’t alignment, I won’t even extend the offer of my service.
If I see a genuine alignment, then it’s my personal duty to help them see the alignment as well; even if they are saying “no.”
Look, they came to me looking for a solution. In some way, they are asking me to be honest with them. Therefore, I’m going to do what I can to help them find that solution. Part of what comes with being a “coach,” or someone who supports another to transform, is to hold a space that helps someone be more honest with themselves. What keeps us stuck in life, either making no progress, slow progress, or regressing, is a lack of self-honesty. We are masters of making excuses as to why we avoid taking the appropriate risks that help us grow.
The opportunity here is to understand why their “no” is actually a “yes.” In many instances—and I do mean many— the reasons and excuses I hear about why they can’t buy now are the very reasons why they should buy now. My job is to help them see that. What I’ve discovered from my personal experience and in the experience of supporting others, is that if something is important enough, then we will find a way. So, if I’m not finding a way, then it’s simply not important enough. This could also be, I’m hiding from how important it is because if I really see it, it would require me to take a risk.
Here’s a simple example: Someone is experiencing dissatisfaction with their job because it doesn’t align with their heart, and they feel unable to fully enjoy life and be themselves. They discover a genuine desire and realistic opportunity to become a heart-based solopreneur. To do so, they need proper training, but this opportunity requires some risk (investment); as will every other opportunity in life. However, their objection is that they don’t have the money or time. The fact that they lack the resources to invest in themselves and their vision, while stuck in an unsatisfactory situation, only underscores the importance of the opportunity. This realization should inspire a “holy-shit” moment.
To look at it practically, “I’m given the opportunity to learn and grow into an experience I see as possible. I have two choices: I can retreat back into my comfort and deny myself the opportunity while hiding from what I fear, which is also hiding from my desire. Or, I can investigate how this could be possible.”
This example comes from the many experiences I’ve had with people telling me they “can’t afford something,” only to end up finding a way because they saw how important it was and how it aligned with their desires and goals. The same goes for me. There are numerous examples where I was given an opportunity, and I thought it was beyond my current reality, only to later discover that the opportunity was waiting for me to make a decision about how important it was. Once I made that decision, I found a way to make it happen.
That’s it for this Sunday’s Letter to Solopreneurs!
Naturally, I’m diving much more deeply into these topics and more, in my annual group training program for HeartBased Solopreneurs; for… the courageous ones, who are ready to take their life and business to the next level.