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As I promised in my last email, today I’m sharing with you 7 of the ways I ‘sell’ in my business- without feeling gross, like I’m forcing people into buying, or like I’m selling my soul.

1. Stop selling, stop talking.  Listen instead and ask questions- it’s literally that simple.

WHY IT WORKS; People like to feel connected to you in order to buy from you. Especially if you’re creating an ‘expensive’ service like photography. The easiest way to foster that connection?

LISTEN. That’s it. A clever psychological trick, for some unremembered reason why, it works for me every time.

You simply listen to what your client is saying when discussing their requirements, instead of trying to ‘sell’. The best thing is, there is nothing easier than that.

2. Be Presumptive.

I have ALWAYS ended any kind of conversation or interview by assuming I’ve got what I wanted. So I simply ask – great! when would you like to book in for? or great, when would you like to get started?

WHY IT WORKS; it shows confidence, control, and leadership ie, it communicates to your clients it’s already a done deal and that you’re so confident in what you do, why would they look anywhere else? It takes confidence to do this, but look at it this way – what do you have to lose?

You aren’t going to lose the client by assuming you have the booking, as if they want to book you they will go ahead and tell you the answer you want, and if it’s a ‘we will let you know’ that opens the door to a follow up email from you if you don’t hear back (usually, you will).

3. Stop talking – this time about your prices. You don’t need to explain them, why they are priced as they are, or anything else.  In fact don’t even mention the price until asked- and when you’re asked, simply state the price and that’s it. Nothing more needs to be added.

WHY IT WORKS; apparently women use 7 more words to explain something than men do- and one of the things we often explain or WORSE! try to apologise for! is our pricing. But by explaining it you actually give your clients reason to question the price- why do you need to explain it? You don’t see a pair of Jimmy Choos priced with an explanation next to it as to why they cost that much, or a VW camper, or a bag of coffee beans, or anything really. Because to those buying them, they’re worth it. So are you, and you don’t need to explain further.

4. Use your email list. But don’t SELL. Build relationship first, always- this is where 99% of people go wrong when using their email list / newsletter as a marketing and sales tool.

If you for one second come across as only using your clients inbox as a pitching opportunity, you’ve lost your client and your opportunity.

Done right, and you’ll be able to literally send a single email and receive a ton of money in the bank as a result- which you do by running an offer or promotion, creating a product or an upsell, or running another type of launch or referral program, or new service.

5. Don’t discount. You devalue yourself by doing so. In fact, remove the word discount from your vocab.

You can of course, run OFFERS and PROMOTIONS instead- these are not the same as giving a discount.

I shot a wedding a few years ago at a massive discount to my usual rate- I gave in to a begging letter for a bride who seemed entirely lovely. More fool me when the bride turned out to be a complete NIGHTMARE.

WHY; when you run offers and promotions, YOU are in control. When you agree to a discount, you’re essentially agreeing to somebody else’s valuation of your work, and choosing your salary for you.

There is a big difference between the two. Stay in control of your business, and if you want to run a discount, you do it based on your control and your comfort- and never word it as ‘discount’. Offer is better.

6. Get someone else to sell on your behalf. Create a referral or affiliate program for anyone who refers and recommends you, not just clients; industry contacts, your network, even friends and family.

You need to approach this with care as you’ll want to think carefully about who can best represent your brand and business-

everyone advised me to put my books and courses on to clickbank for example, where affiliates will blog about and sell your products for you- but I refused as I genuinely care about my clients and want them to know that I am behind and care about my products, not give them to someone who only cares about making a quick buck online.

For that reason I run a 50% affiliate program for my Shining Lights members– I know that if they love the program they’ll be likely to refer it anyway, so I know these people are the ones I love working with – those who genuinely love what I do and will refer me – and everyone wins as they get a nice monthly payout just like I do.

Plus, it’s another income stream for my members and diverse income streams are key to success in a crowded industry!

What incentive scheme can you plan out and who can you invite? Who would care about and represent your work + brand?

WHY IT WORKS; there are no better salespeople than those who already love you and your work. Reward them kindly for the referrals they would most likely give you anyway.
7. Remember what you’re selling for. We tend not to focus on selling as creatives, because it seems to feel so money-orientated- yet the reason we need to sell is so we can continue to enjoy the LIFESTYLE we want, which ultimately means freedom to enjoy MORE creativity and joy.

But in planning our money goals and sales targets we forget and lose focus on our reason for doing this in the first place.

Remember WHO you create for, and the lifestyle you want, and the IMPACT you want to have and leave your clients with – I use a vision board to help remind me of this on a daily basis- to remind yourself of the bigger purpose.

WHY IT WORKS; This ultimately leads to increased confidence in being able to communicate what you do, which is ultimately what smart sales is all about anyway – offering help and solutions to those people who want what you’ve got.

Want more help? I’ve created this free checklist for you to download and print. It’s a checklist of daily sales activities you can do – ideally you’ll want to do all of them, but even if you can do just a few you’ll be taking steps to change your business profits and make more sales.

Print and pin it somewhere where you’ll see it and tick it off daily for increased motivation, focus, and to keep you accountable to your sales activity and business growth.

Download it here.

I know a lot of you love my motivational / confrontational style posts, and the reason I write so many of them is because I know, after working with hundreds of clients this year, that motivation and mindset is the BIGGEST thing preventing you from moving forward.

BUT you also have to have a little strategy know-how in place to actually go out there and make it happen. It’s mindset and motivation, ALWAYS, and then after that come the systems and strategies you need to support your goals.

So after the success of this post on the practical step-by-step to achieving your money goal, I decided that I would create more strategy-based posts for you.

Starting here with this I’m talking about something that SO MANY creatives seem to struggle with!

Social Media. Specifically… getting people to notice you on Facebook.

(side note; all of my strategy posts are best digested with a notebook and a coffee. You’ll want to take notes as this contains ACTIONABLE STRATEGY that you can go and implement right away. If you’re just going to skim read it, it probably won’t have much of an effect). 

How To Stand Out On Facebook

Social media and in particular, Facebook- can be pretty sucky if you’re using it for business.

First, you might not be entirely sure of the ‘rules’ of using it for business, so you post a mixture of your work blended with your holiday and kid updates.

Second, you get frustrated that your posts seem to have barely any reach. It seems almost impossible to get Facebook to work for you unless you pay for ads, which also don’t appear to work either.

Third, you kind of wish social media hadn’t been invented because it basically serves as a very easy way for you to disrupt and destroy any creative thoughts in your brain and instead turn it into some rapid processor of people’s meals, nights out, and verbal disorders instead.

Anyway, if you want to get noticed on Facebook- and I’m talking Facebook here because let’s face it, everyone is on Facebook- if you want to understand how to use it properly to actually grow your business rather than just gain the odd few likes and shares here and there, there are some things you should know.

How To Use Facebook To Grow Your Business 

It’s not enough to show off your latest work.

People get bored by this and see it as spammy and you trying to sell things, (unless you are already famous and then they will want more).

But you are trying to sell something! That’s the point of having a business page, right? Right. But it can’t be so OBVIOUS! Nobody likes to feel sold to. So stop using your page purely to sell what you do.

Remember the old storytelling rule, Show not Tell.

You want to get people interested in who you are as a person, because when they connect with WHO YOU ARE, they will naturally want to know more about WHAT YOU DO, because what you do is a part of who you are.

But again, and here comes the confusing part, you can’t just talk about yourself the whole time, because again that comes across as spammy.

Nobody likes the person who just talks about themselves.

So don’t. Instead, create dialogue with your readers. Even if nobody responds, it’s more interesting to read updates from a person / page who genuinely seems interested in YOU, rather than someone just spouting off into the facebook black hole along with everyone showcasing their holiday / friends / puppy / baby.

Ask questions. Be interested in your audience’s viewpoints and lives. And be GENUINELY interested.

If you’re not, you’ll come across as fake. I was recently pretty impressed with one of Gary Vaynerchuk’s facebook threads; he had hundreds of responses and every single one had a reply.

Admittedly these might have been completed by a VA / robot, but they sure sounded genuine. Either way he cared enough to make sure everyone at least felt they were being replied to, and that’s a big deal for someone with so many followers.

Can you do the same? Actually care about your audience EVEN IF they are NEVER going to turn into clients?

The point of your page isn’t to ‘get clients and bookings’, although most people seem to think that it is.

It needs to be about your MESSAGE – why you do what you do, why you care. What is it that you truly want to share with the world and what is the reason behind it?

That is what people resonate with. Genuine human stories, opinions, passions and emotions.

And when they resonate with your message, it’s only a short step away from them becoming clients and supporters of who you are and what you do.

And it needs to be about building RELATIONSHIPS. Often your social media is the place people first discover you. What do you want them to know about you, how do you want them to feel, when they first arrive on your page?

Do you want them to feel sold to, given a pitch? Overwhelmed, underwhelmed, not sure what to do next, bored? Obviously not. So give them what they need. Make them feel at home, familiar, comfortable, inspired, invigorated.

Why your Facebook ad isn’t working. 

There’s a horrible taste on the breeze at the moment.

I can’t quite define it, but it’s negative and dark and leaving broken fragments wherever it touches.

It came before the Paris attacks, but even stronger now.

Relationships around me right now are breaking, fragmenting. My own came quite close to losing something precious.

But more – others.

Messages in my inbox of despair. Help me.

Judgements made.

Self-righteousness.

Fear.

Death of feelings, emotions.

Confusion. Knowing which way to turn.

Knowing which way is right and wrong.

Things that once felt good, now feeling uncomfortable and like they no longer fit, glass slippers shattered.

Yet at the same time – this energy appears to have a double edge. Because all negativity has to come with positivity, right.

God, nature, universal law-

After darkness comes light.

and even in the darkness- beautiful breakthroughs.

Revelations.

Growth.

Understanding.

Change.

Hope within the heartache.

But what to do if right now –

You are experiencing the darkness.

Loss, lack, fear, hopelessness, sadness, grief, confusion, despair.

How do you move past that to focus on things that seem almost irrelevant.

‘Business’. ‘Clients’. ‘Dreams’.

How do you move towards these things, when all of a sudden your wings have been taken from you and you feel more like crawling than flying?

When society is breaking down, relationships are breaking down, business is failing, YOU- feel close or possibly are breaking down, you aren’t quite sure.

1- Decide where you want to be. I realised recently that some people  – despite on the outside appearing to be enlightened about so many things – life, wealth, society, creation, reflection- lacked something far more essential – real Love, compassion for others in their own quest for inner realisation.  When did we lose it? When did who we are become MORE important than what we do?

I know, concretely, that I want to sit on the side of the fence that doesn’t perpetuate negativity, claims it for it’s own purpose, concentrates on deletion and erosion. But instead I want to aim (even though I will always fall) to see light, growth, and LOVE – for others.

When you know where you want to be – how you truly want to live out your everyday reality – then you get to erase a little of the confusion about how you should feel or act. Once you start to erase the confusion, it’s like lifting a little of the cloud which hangs over everything you do / say / create / think.

Where do you want to be?

2- Forgive continuously. I experienced real hurt this weekend when someone I had been working with for the best part of a year suddenly deleted me from Facebook and stopped replying to my messages, literally within minutes. I invest my heart and soul into almost everyone I work with, to the best of my ability, and I am deeply invested in both their personal and professional journeys.

So I was truly gutted when this happened, not to mention confused. But because I had previously decided where I stand on the negativity swirling around right now, I chose instead to not focus on the hurt and instead chose to send love, light, and positive vibes to that person, and forgiveness. That’s not me being pious or holier or better than anyone else, it’s just how I chose to cope with it in a way that left me feeling positive, not sitting in a hole feeling sorry for myself.

but forgiveness is one of the hardest qualities to possess and to use, especially if you’re not quite ready to forgive. Let’s be clear – forgive, does not mean forget. It’s ok to NOT forget, but try to forgive, and I think so many of us think we have to expect others just to MOVE ON – when actually, hurt lingers- and that is ok.

3- Forget, just for a minute, the big dream. We so often beat ourselves up if we aren’t massively over achieving in EVERYTHING, we forget to celebrate the small wins properly, we forget that when things seem overwhelming that it is ok – just for a minute- to not focus on making a million dollars, or having a six fig business, on having a dream life, or living out a dream day.

When shiz really hits the fan, it can be hard to even put one foot in front of the other, let alone think about anything else.

So, do that then.

Because for that day at least, all you need to do and think about is putting one foot in front of the other. And that’s ok. If you’ve been knocked for six what’s the point in trying to reach for something that feels so utterly unbelievable right now all it does is leave you feeling even more overwhelmed and in despair?

If something doesn’t feel truly good or right to you- don’t do it! You don’t HAVE to continuously PUSH and challenge yourself. Sometimes you NEED to indulge and tell yourself that actually, it’s ok, just for now, to be where you are, and then take baby steps toward the next slightly better feeling emotion or action. And then the next, and the next, and the next, until you’re back on level ground and ready to fly again.

4. Have everything. But in contrast to the above. For those of you NOT going through MASSIVE negativity but perhaps just that unsettled feeling that comes along with seeing others around you breakdown, or going through hard times or just feeling slightly off balance –

Something that has been really frustrating me lately has been my health. Probably like every other Mother out there, I put EVERYTHING before my own needs when it comes to my health. My kids, my business, my marriage, my home, walking the dog – all comes before self-care.

Yep, some days I don’t even shower and my hair is the biggest fan of dry shampoo that you’ll ever meet.

I know, right.

Don’t mention the E-word. We live two minutes from an on-site beautiful luxury spa and gym and do I use it?

What do you think.

And so this growing frustration at having all of my life together APART FROM THAT MOST IMPORTANT OF THINGS – has led me to this realisation –

I didn’t believe I could have everything.

I don’t believe I can have EVERYTHING – killer business marriage kids parenting house AND my health too????

Holding myself back and LETTING instead, the feelings of frustration and resentment and that NEGATIVITY grow and fester and start to affect other things!

I can’t work in the afternoons because I’m too tired. I binge on caffeine because I need more energy. I hide myself in shapeless clothes and lose a ton of confidence in the meantime which then effects my marriage because I don’t feel super sexy. I torment myself with thoughts of cancer which runs in my family yet I do NOTHING other than eat organic to try to prevent it.

I know, right? Crazy.

When all I have to do is get my ass to the gym or at least out walking the poor dog, but yet I haven’t been able to do it because I don’t believe I DESERVE it all!

And this is the thing.

Happiness? which, by the way, is a productive emotion which we can USE in our business and life as a positive energising force which propels us forward, in the same way negativity holds us back and causes stagnation –

Happiness comes when we choose to have it.

I’ve chosen not to exercise because I didn’t believe it was possible to have EVERYTHING I ever wanted. Thank you, Media, for perpetuating the myth that only SUPERWOMEN can have it all, not just normal people like us. Like you have to be permanently exhausted / a bad parent / trying to always hold everything together / if you have it all.

And now I am choosing to believe that we can have everything we want. It’s what I preach after all, so now it’s time to put it into practice.

And so often then,

This negativity that is lingering around?

It sucks to realise you have invited it to come in, or to linger.

So what is your limiting belief right now that you are holding on to? Do you truly believe that you can have it all –

The relationships

The business

The abundance

The health

The happiness

The whatever else it is you desire

WITHOUT having to compromise somewhere else?

Do you really BELIEVE it is possible for you, or – just like me- do you believe that SOMETHING always has to be broken in order for something else to really WORK????

Like there HAS to be darkness, somehow?

And maybe there does.

But if you believe you can control and limit it

Then you get to choose how much it affects you, how much it affects your business, how you get to respond, and you effectively get to perform damage limitation on your own business + life.

At this time of year, when we are counting our blessings, that is today what I am thankful for – that despite the darkness, the quite frank STORMS of utter BS and helplessness raining around us right now, however bad it gets –

We always get to choose light, even if it’s just a crack to begin with.

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Want more help in your creative business?

Shining Lights is DOUBLING in price in less than a week – AND all content from 2015 is being removed to make way for 2016 content. So you will only get access to the current resources – including the 48 Hour ebook book, Defeat Procrastination!, ALL of my Film Photography Revolution bundle, Vision Is Art mini course, not to mention all trainings on how to find and book your perfect clients, how to create multiple revenue streams for your business, perfect SEO bundle, how to create more hours in the day + LOADS more-

you will only be able to access this if you join before Dec 1st.

Join Shining Lights, here.