Sales Training Part 1: How to Move Money Into Your Bank Account
There’s a lot of confusion out there about how to make money and use effective sales strategies. So many entrepreneurs are doing all the wrong things — and are working twice as hard as they need to be and making half as much as they could be.
So I decided to do an article series on sales training — starting with this one — the basics.
The only way to move money into your bank account is to ask for it. Asking for money happens during a sales conversation.
So the key to making more money in your business is doing more sales conversations consistently.
A sales conversation is defined as a conversation in which you ask someone to pay for your product or service. You say your prices, payment plans and ask for the credit card or sale.
This is not to be confused with:
A connection conversation — this is a conversation in which you connect with someone for your business for any reason — but you don’t actually ask that person for money.
Often connection conversations will lead to sales conversations over time. When you meet people at networking events or business events, you usually swap business cards. If you notice that the person may be a good referral partner or client for you — you’ll set up a time to have a conversation. This type of conversation is a connection conversation — namely because you aren’t selling to this person — you are connecting with them.
If during the connection conversation you notice that the person is interested in your services — you’ll set up a separate conversation that will serve as a sales conversation.
There are two major categories of sales conversations:
Selling One to One: Selling to an individual person or organization.
- This includes:
- Selling to individuals
- Selling to corporations and organizations
Selling One to Many: Selling in front of a room or on a webinar or video.
- This includes:
- Selling in front of a room
- Selling from a stage
- Selling from a webinar
- Selling from a video
One of the biggest problems for entrepreneurs today is that they aren’t spending enough time learning the skill set of sales. Each of the types of sales above requires training.
And without specific training, selling is like bumbling around in a foreign country where you don’t know the language. It works sometimes, but most of the time you have no idea what’s going on.
If you’re out there, totally nodding, thinking, I really need to learn sales — we got you — let’s have a conversation. Just click here and send us an email.
In the meantime, keep reading this series — as it’s going to give you a great place to start.
Speaking of starting:
My rule of thumb in sales training is that you should be having 3 sales conversations a week.
I know. I know. You’re probably saying, “But Monica, where are all the sales conversations coming from?”
Namely, from Revenue Generating Activities where you position yourself as an expert. For a list of all of those activities — please see my Marketing Calendar Free Gift here.
And while we are on the subject of doing those sales conversations, you also want to track one other number: Conversion rates. Take a deep breath here — really breathe. I know I’m NOT sugarcoating here. But I also know that if you are one of my readers, you want to know the exact steps to making money — without the fluff.
And this, my friends, is the heart of it all:
Conversion rates: Your conversion rate is the number of sales conversations you need to have to convert one new client. For example, if you need to have 5 conversations to get 1 new client, then your conversion rate is 1 out of 5. If you need to have 8 conversations to get 1 new client, your conversion rate is 1 out of 8.
You want to start taking notes online during all of your sales conversations each month using an online tool, such as Less Annoying CRM. Give a tag to each person you have a sales conversation with that month — like “Sales Conversation July 2019.
At the end of the month you bring up the tagged sales conversations for that month and see how many conversations you had and how many of those conversations turned into sales. That is your conversion rate.
This number is crucial in letting you know how much work you need to do exactly to get your next 3 clients. Here’s an example:
Getting 3 Clients in 30 Days
For now, if you don’t know your conversion rate, let’s call it 1 out of 3. For every 3 conversations you have, you get 1 new client. Therefore, to get 3 new clients in 30 days, you’ll need to have 9 sales conversations this month.
Ok, let’s review this sales training:
- To move money into your bank account you need to ask for it — aka sales.
- A sales conversation is different from a connection conversation, and you need to be doing 3 sales conversations a week.
- Track, tag and take notes on all of your sales conversations each month to determine your conversion rate.
- Use that conversion rate to dictate your goals. If you sell to 1 out of 3, you’ll need 9 sales conversations to get 3 new clients.
In the rest of the series, I’ll be going over more effective sales strategies and how to shift your mindset to fall in love with sales.
My wish for you as always is to go out there, make tons of money and make this world a better place.
Don’t miss my weekly money healing and sales videos in the FB Group — if you haven’t joined yet, hop on over there now.
