What’s Blocking Your Sales? with Jeannie Spiro

Emily: Hey friends. Welcome back to the Aligned & Unstoppable Podcast. I am joined by a very special guest, Jeannie Spiro. And if you don’t know, Jeannie and I are doing a two-part series.So, the first part about the energetics and your business was recorded on her podcast. And the second part, which is what you are here for right now, is here on mine. So, we’re going to be talking about sales, someone asking for the sale or not getting all the pieces, so we get those sales to come in.

And on her podcast, we got to talk about like energetically what’s going on, why are you blog, what’s going on with you? So, I definitely recommend you go check it out. We will have all the links right in the show notes for you and then, welcome Jeannie! Jeannie is a business coach. She is a speaker and she is my new friend, so please give her a warm welcome. And Jeannie, the name of your podcast as well, so they can come get it.

Jeannie: Absolutely. It’s a Midlife CEO Podcast, so thanks for having me.

Emily: You’re welcome. So, let’s start like, how did you become a business coach? And I know we got to chat a little before the recording of like the history in health insurance. Gosh, that was serious. Wow! You’ve gone in so many different directions, but I’m going to pass over the mic to you to give us your background.

Jeannie: Absolutely. Well, once again, thanks for having me here. And I’m so excited. And to talk about that energetics and business and sales and launching and then to go a little further here, it’s just so fun. We’re having some fun here.

But I want to say that really, I have to go back in time. I will go back, I had no idea what I want to do with my life, absolutely no idea whatsoever. And I ended up going to the University of San Francisco right after college. And when I got there, I thought, well, I still don’t know what I want to do, but here I am. And I remember for the first two years, I loved speech communication. I love studying people’s speech. I loved interpersonal skills, and I loved just kind of watching people’s energy in the sense of like when they get on stage and how they would perform. And also just like listening to communication and all of that. But I was extremely shy and I wasn’t really I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life, and I didn’t know what skills I really had. But it was a really good observer of people.

And at some point during that process, I started to think, Well, I remember I had a speech impediment when I was young, and so maybe I should become a speech therapist. So I got it in my head, follow my intuition right back to study that over at the University of Rhode Island. And I got there and I realized I was not a good student in science. And I didn’t really like speech therapy. What I still loved was communication. I still loved like I loved trying to figure out like how to get better at it and all of that. So anyway, my first class in college was a business communications class. Like when I was really like, really starting to see that maybe I could do something with this. And I thought business, this would be really interesting, but I didn’t even know what I would do. And I didn’t get marketing. I hadn’t didn’t have anything other than speech communication.

So I took my first job, which was as a tour guide, and I got good at speaking. And then I took my actual first official job, which was working for a health insurance company. And I was like, I don’t like this, but I’m doing it because I have to make money. And the long and short of it was for a long time I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I just knew that I was pretty good at speaking and I was pretty good at reading people. And I didn’t mind getting on stage. I didn’t mind sharing a message. I didn’t mind being uncomfortable in front of other people and eventually learned how to sell. And I learned how to sell one on one and one-too-many and all of that. And so I started building on my business skills throughout my career, which I fell into. And I didn’t even really want to be in because, again, I didn’t know what I wanted to be when I grew up and I just did it. And I ended up going to work for an entrepreneur who ran a small company. And it was my first taste of entrepreneurship, like really, truly like running a small business. And I thought, Huh, wonder if I could do this for myself. And so in about, so about 2010, I started my first business and it was coaching.

And I just really thought, you know what? What if I could take all these skills like the speaking, the sales skills, what I was learning with working with small businesses, and all the back-end stuff that I knew about some of the product development work that I was doing and some of the jobs and training and negotiating, I was like, I could teach other women what I know. So I naively started an online business in 2010 alongside the job. And it grew and grew and grew. And the thing that I figured was easiest for me was selling like I didn’t have any problem. Everybody kept complaining, like, I don’t know why I can’t get clients. And I’m like, I don’t know why I can, but I could. And so it blossomed and blossomed until finally in 2013, I was there’s a long story to it. But ultimately I ended up making the leap. And then the first year I was out on my own, I truly did not know how to run my business without having a job, so I had to figure out how to make the business succeed. And it took me about a year, year, a little over a year. And once I figured out what to do, I never looked back. So that’s a long story of it.

But I sort of like to think of myself as this example of a woman who was like, I figured it out at midlife. I didn’t know what I wanted to do most of my life, but I started following these things that I was good at and piecing it all together and said, How can I blend it together in a business doing something that I love and get to do it? What I think is this really rich chapter of my life. So that’s why I have the Midlife CEO.

Emily: I love that story. And you know, you also share with me that you had been doing speaking events as your sort of vehicle to sign other programs. And then when everything sort of shut down during the pandemic, you had to make a serious shift. So I think and I was saying on your podcast that, you know, a lot of people would take that and say, well, I guess I can’t do this business anymore. But you didn’t. You took that, you were inspired by that. I’m sure you had to do a lot of introspection and in our work to really innovate. What else can I do with this?

And I know from your story is that you realize that it can’t just be this one thing. It can’t just be this one funnel that brings people in this one way. We have to create other opportunities that maybe we can still have this thing, but there can be other things that are going on as well. So how did that decision come about for you when you had been speaking on stages and that was your jam for so long?

Jeannie: It was. And there were a few other things that I would also say I did sell in other ways. Obviously through sales conversations or discovery calls, I was not nearly as effective at selling by email. In fact, the mutual friend that we have, Sage Polaris. I had hired her and I said, can you please help me with enrolling more people from my mailing list to come to my live event? Because this is an area that I have not really done as well with.

But you have to kind of remember my experience was, I was always good at selling 1 to 1. I had to sell and have long-term relationships with people and eventually sell them. When I was working in health insurance. I could sell from the stage, I could do all of those things. But one area that I wasn’t really good at was selling by email or copy. And so I loved using speaking mean events as one strategy to fill my programs and it became my thing. It was good, it was easy. I loved doing it. I enjoyed it. It was an experience and it was like the one thing I relied on.

And so fortunately I had the experience before the pandemic of working with Sage, and she helped me find my voice and helped me figure out how to learn how to sell through email. And I was doing it like by event that year I sold spots into my program, which was like, oh my God, one of my program into my event. And I was like, this is working. Like, wow, I can do this too. And then we had the pandemic. I couldn’t have live events. I could still have conversations with people, and I still had a really healthy email list. And it was like, all right, what am I going to do now? And that’s where I leaned into that. I also leaned into some of the other strategies that I’d already been using, which were more simple sales strategies, like without even using sales pages. And I just thought, all right, I’m going to use all these different other methods to figure out a combination of sales approaches that I can use in my business without events. And that’s what 2020 taught me, that I didn’t have to have an event to be able to keep enrolling people into my coaching programs and masterminds.

Emily: Yeah, and I want to just encourage people to hear what you’re also saying, which is, hey, I wasn’t great at selling in this one way, so I hired somebody to help me to get better at the thing versus saying, Oh, well, I’m terrible at social media, I’m terrible at email marketing and then therefore I can’t use it, period, done.

You went and found a solution. And also you’re seeing that there is so many different ways that you can get. Innovative and creative and have a little more fun with it. It doesn’t have to just be this one way and you’re using these new skill sets to develop into other things. So, you know, I think that we have to use as an entrepreneur. We have to have that skill to be able to go, okay, well, I’m not good at this, but I can do that. How can I strengthen this or hire someone to help me with this? So to fill that little area for me, it’s really smart.

Jeannie: Thank you. And I really realized at that point for myself was I, I wanted to develop an area not only for… you know, for the success of myself. It was like, how can I learn something else in my business I don’t already know how to deal?

Maybe I could get good at writing copy. Maybe I could use this strategy to be able to enroll people into my coaching programs with one or two emails as opposed to a massive launch. And so became this whole idea of what’s possible as opposed to, Oh, I can’t do that, or I only did that. I think the thing that we can do as entrepreneurs and you said this too, is how can we go stretch a little bit beyond what where our comfort zone is and be innovative and do some things that might be a little bit out of our comfort zone so that we can achieve what we want. It’s not being afraid to try.

Emily: Yeah, I agree. So you are obviously a master at sales and you love sales and you know, whether it is one on one, whether it’s a connection call, whether it’s a live event, whether it’s an email, you got a pretty good handle for things. So people come to you, for help, for advice when things are not looking so great for them.

So I know, you know, my audience, they’re all, you know, coaches and healers and leaders and female entrepreneurs and aspiring entrepreneurs who might get stuck with sales. And, you know, there is definitely areas where we’ve had great podcast episodes on different techniques or talking about maybe the sale problem isn’t the sale problem, but it’s something else. So what do you see the most commonly coming up to you like with your client tell? What is the number one thing that people come to you for when they get stuck and they’re not making the sales that they desire?

Jeannie: Oh, okay. So a few things happen, so I’m going to talk about it from the person who’s got something that they’re selling already or has sold.

Usually what happens is they’ve sold it a couple of times. So let’s just take that example, someone who’s got something that they’ve created and they’re passionate about and they’re selling it. And maybe one or two sales have come in and they’re like, Great, I’ve validated this offer. And I’m like, Yes, you have. The problem oftentimes as they come to me and they’ll say, I don’t know how to bring more people into this. I don’t know what strategies to use to bring more people into this program. And I’m stuck. And what’s the best approach to take that’s going to work for me?

And there’s a variety of choices. And so what happens oftentimes is they’ll try like all these different things, and then they get frustrated because they’ll say, Oh, I didn’t get more or this didn’t work, or I still don’t feel like I like this approach. And so some people will also come to me and say, well, I’ve tried to sell by selling from the stage and I don’t want to have another event. So what’s an alternative to keep enrolling more people into a program that I have or a program that I have that I only have a few people in and I’d like to have more. What are my alternatives?

I don’t want to do this anymore or this didn’t feel like it worked. And I’m going to say I’m using the word feel. It didn’t necessarily feel good to me or I didn’t enjoy it. So I really like to work with my clients in that situation to find what works for them that they like. That’s going to be enjoyable for them to do. That’s not going to be a grind because truthfully, we can do things that like I can tell you right now, Emily, go out and have a live event and you’ll be like, there’s absolutely no way I ever want to do that. And I’ve said, that’s the only way of you doing it. And you’re like, I don’t want to do it. You’d say you do it, but regrettingly, right? But your heart’s not in it.

But if I said to you, go ahead and launch your certification program, get that out there and do it through a series of, you know, masterclasses or webinars or something like that I can do. And then I’m like, great. Like it’s just like energetically what can you connect with? So a lot of times it’s people will come to me, they’re like, I don’t know what the right strategy is. It’s going to work for me. Other people will come to me and they’ll say, I’ve tried everything and this is still not. Working and I don’t know what’s going on. And oftentimes I find is it’s just unpacking all the information because a lot of people who are online already, it’s not like we just roll out of bed today and we’re like, well, we’re going to have we’re going to launch this.

We’ve been learning for a little while and we’re overwhelmed with strategy. And so then what I’m doing is helping them create the right strategy that’s going to work for them and then a process to get to what’s going to help them live, launch it, and then selling it if they want to, on-demand or not on demand. But, you know, through more of an evergreen process. Yeah, but it’s it’s really finding what works for them is sort of the first part of all of this.

Emily: Yeah. And it really is individual because some people you know, are really great storytellers and email they love to write in their emails are well received versus some people maybe are prefer to be on the stage or prefer to have an event or maybe kind of a webinar or something else that you may have to go with, what their strengths are, what they’re more naturally inclined. What would you say to somebody who’s not had any experience with any of those things ever before in their whole life? And they’re like, What do I do? How do I tell my thing?

Jeannie: Yeah. So the first thing that I always want to think about is I like people to learn how to sell 1 to 1 first.

Emily: Yes, I will do that. I’m glad you say that, too.

Jeannie: Yes

Emily: Before you can open up to like a gazillion people, I feel…

Jeannie: Right! So if you can’t sell 1 to 1, you can’t sell one too many. And so oftentimes what happens is if someone is not selling anything at all, I will challenge them to talk to as many people as they possibly can and tell people it’s more like I have this offer. And who do you know who might need this. And be in conversation and practice conversation for about a week and they’ll resist it, but then they’ll come back to me like I’m just getting good at talking about it. I’m like, that’s exactly what I want you to do first because you probably don’t have the language around your offer, right?

And you’re not expressing the benefits, you’re not expressing the outcome, you’re not expressing what truly can happen, the transformation that can happen from this, the more you talk about it. The better you get at expressing it. And then you also want to do it on video. And that’s what I’ll tell people. Get on Zoom and watch people and you can see if people are connecting. Like if I said to you today, Emily,  I want you to buy a brand new moped and it is red and it is going to go fast. You’d be like what are you…What? Like what? Why do I need a moped? It’s like. But I feel like I’m using it as a kind of silly example.

But that’s sometimes what happens. It’s like how our brains absorb it, and we’re like, I don’t know what you’re saying. I don’t know what you’re. What is this that you’re offering? It sounds like it could be working. But what happens is oftentimes in sales, I see it like this is it’s almost like you’re speaking two different languages and the person can’t even understand what you’re saying. So when you’re having a hard time selling something at all, I always go back to that simple exercise is like, is this clear? Is what you’re offering makes sense to somebody else? And then the other simple thing is would you buy your own offer? Like if you looked at your copy and you looked what this is? And I’m like, truly, would you put money down on this and take yourself out of like that, wanting it to happen and say, does this convince you to buy that?

Emily: Yes.

Jeannie: So what I often will do is I end up kind of funny in the way I do this. But when people come to me and they say, I can’t sell this offer, I imagine that I’m a buyer immediately. I’m imagining that whatever it is they’re selling to me. And I look at it like, would I buy this? And I will tell them I will not buy this or I will buy this and here’s why, or here’s what you need to tell me in order for me to buy this.

So immediately, when I’m working with clients, will imagine that whatever they have to sell is something that I might want, but they can’t. They’re not convincing me that I need it and I need to work with them on convincing me or explaining to me why they should.

Emily: Yeah

Jeannie: It’s usually not the features, although there can be some massaging around it. So there’s a few things though.

Emily: Yeah. And it’s so funny. So would you buy is a great thing to ask and I think people do get caught up in you know their thing that they created they know the most about. But sometimes the simplest thing is like, well, is it like a live thing or is it like a recorded thing, is it a course, is it a book? Like we actually as a consumer have no idea what the heck you’re explaining and talking about. You and your own mind have this whole vision, but like you haven’t actually articulated what the thing is that you are selling.

Jeannie: Yes

Emily: And, you know, I think that can get really complicated because we do live in a time where a course could be a place that you go to a class in a classroom. It could also be an online course that is taught live, that you have to take quizzes. It could also be something that you just sign up for you can do at your own leisure. So like, which one is it? How, how do I digest that? And, sometimes I can’t articulate that clearly enough. And I think this goes back to like getting people to help you with the things that you’re not very good at.

I always like to create whatever the sales page or the offer is and flush it out with my team. And then after I flush it out my team, we’ve kind of got the wheels in motion. I’ll reach out to some of my friends and say, could you just take a look at this? And like, where do I have holes and gaps and questions? Do you have what comes up for you?

And even to go back to the conversation about number one, like just talk to people there, I think there’s this like, I don’t know where the rumor started, but like people who sell well, like people assume that they just like, open their mouth and then people just throw money at them. And I always go through a launch process, which is I’d teach people and to say, like, what conversations did you have? Who did you talk to? What was the result of that conversation? And I can’t tell you how many conversations I have whenever there is an enrollment are open period. Sometimes what people think a sales conversation is, is “Hey, Jeannie, I have a thing. Do you want to buy it? Okay, No, alright, bye.” And they didn’t want to buy it.

Jeannie: I know, I know.

Emily: It’s not a sales conversation the way that I would have.

Jeannie: Or they think it’s like a consultation conversation/coaching session or whatever it might be. And it’s like, no, no, no, no, wait a minute. You just that’s not the point of this thing. It’s not like strategy in here or coaching in here.

Emily: Right.

Jeannie: I do want to say something else that I do that I think is another practice that I love even before using a sales page. Because I also work the same way. Like once I get it out of my head and then I see it and I see the copy and it’s there, like I think we’re both seasoned enough that we can go and look at and be like, Oh, I see what’s missing, or we know who to ask to say what’s missing that I haven’t communicated.

But oftentimes what I’ll do is I have my clients put together a very small PowerPoint presentation and I’ll ask them if they’re asking like, Do we have the basic points in this very small PowerPoint presentation that you could pitch this offer to someone in a PowerPoint. And if I gave you six slides and you put your information on these six slides and you had to sell through this process, could you do it? And everyone’s like, Oh my gosh, no, I couldn’t possibly do that. I’m like, Yeah, you can. You basically need to have one slide that’s going to tell what this program is, who this is for, what this is about, right? And so I walk them through this really simple process. And I and what I end up doing is I review they pitch to me, you know, loom video, and then I review it and I say, this is what you’re missing. This is what you’re missing. This is how to refine it. And so I’ll just take whatever offer it is and I simplify it, and I just work them through this process to see how they can improve selling it to me and then going out to someone that they know and then selling it to them.

And usually we have people who are interested in what we’ve got to offer already and then presenting it to them without a big song and dance and all of that. But like, hey, I’ve created something, would you be willing to watch this? And it’s really, really effective. My clients who do this, who are struggling to get to struggling to sell or sell something, it’s a little bit different than someone who’s got like a sales strategy problem, right? It’s like, how do I get the thing selling? I kind of go back to basics with it.

Emily: Yeah. And you mentioned earlier that you sometimes have people who come to you and you say, is this a like a people problem like, you have more leads coming in or is this a strategy problem? And that’s a really interesting way to discern what is the problem here. So do you find that those are kind of like the two branches that you see the most?

Jeannie: Yeah, Oftentimes. Oftentimes. So I was speaking with a client today and she has this amazing program. And I know that it’s validated because she’s got a lot of people who bought it. And so I’ll ask the simple question like, have you had any sales conversations or discovery calls? She’s like, I’ve only had a few. I’m like, okay. And so have you added anybody to your mailing list lately, or have you been out speaking lately? Or have you connected with more people who know about your work?

No. And I’m like, okay, so the same people are seeing the same offer over and over and over again. You need… You don’t have enough leads, so it’s time to expand who knows about this offer? You’ve got to bring more people into it.

Now you can spend all the time you want in trying to convince the same people on your mailing list what you’re doing. But if you’re not bringing more people onto your list and I think this is just basic math, if you’re not doing it, you’re not you don’t have new people knowing about it. So I, I can tell oftentimes when there’s a problem with someone sort of, but this often happens when someone changes their program and switches the price or their features in it, they sometimes run into a sales program on something that they’ve or sales problem and something that had been selling before, because sometimes they get in their head or right, like they’re like, Oh no, I can’t sell this anymore. It’s now too expensive.

And I’m like, Yes, you can. Let’s get we got to work through it. It’s an amazing offer. You’ve changed it to optimize it. Now let’s move you back into conversation around it. You might not have as many yeses, but we change in some purpose. And so sometimes I have to go back to look at what’s shifted in your sales process or in the way you’re pitching or making your offer. I get really analytical about the whole thing.

Emily: I really like that.

Well, and this is something that comes up a lot in my IEA Certification, the Integrated Energy Alignment Certification, because, you know, we are bringing in people into the program who are either coaches or healers or they aspire to have a new career doing this work, and we’re training them from the energetics to the business side of it.

And part of the tagline is that we have a profit guarantee, and the reason why is because, we are encouraging them to start with free sessions and then we literally require them to begin charging money at a certain point in the program. And then a third time or a second time, I should say, then they have to increase their prices. And the reason we do that by design, because out there in the real world, in your business, you likely should be increasing your prices from time to time. And when you increase your prices, there’s a huge energetic opening that comes in as well.

And so for folks like me who do energy work, what you see happening is that you’re serving at a certain level and maybe, let’s say it’s energetic work that you’re doing because that’s what I do. And when you feel that nudge to increase your prices, let’s say you listen to it because you’re smart and you listen to that nudge and you increase your prices and then you go, Oh, I’m a little bit worried. I don’t know. But then you sell it. What instantly happens in that session is you’re like, Oh my gosh, how did I become so open? I’m picking up on ten times more energy. The energy is moving.

My clients are getting better results through the work that I’m giving them in a short amount of time. They’re coming back more. They’re sending more referrals like, Whoa, I should have probably increased my prices sooner.

Jeannie: That’s right.

Emily: That’s what happens at the end of it. But at the beginning of it, when you go from I’m doing a free thing to now I’m doing a paid thing, we always see resistance in our students and it’s just that you’re selling the same thing on this side and on this side, but on this side. Now all of a sudden, there’s an energetic exchange of money.

Jeannie: Exactly. Yeah.

Emily: And I love it. I get so lit up about these conversations because when you’re doing transformational work, you’re doing something that can be esoteric and in tangible. And so from the very beginning, with their practice sessions and throughout, you’re really getting into the nitty-gritty of what was it like before and after your session? What would that transformation you have now, 30 people you’ve worked on? What are the common threads? Why are they all coming to you?

And then we’ve had students who said like, like she’s a forensic scientist, she’s not from the healing field at all. And she started to notice people who came to her were stuck in perfectionism and they were needing to come back into themselves and start to be kinder and gentler to themselves. And through her work, she was able to help them to address their perfectionism and to be more gentle and kind with themselves. And so it’s like, that’s the transformation. You need to know who it is and what the problem is and what’s in it for them. Just tell me that’s all they want to know at the end of the day. Like, what am I going to get out of it?

Jeannie: It is exactly what they want. And you know what I think what you’re saying is so true. And also what I noticed with a lot of people is that they get so nervous and so attached to this. What are people going to say? And they’re going to say no.

And what happens is, is when you don’t have a lot of leads coming in and you’re you’re at a stage in your business where you’re trying to grow, all your eggs are in these baskets and it becomes so like you’re just like managing these eggs, making sure that they don’t break right, because you’re like, Am I going to have more eggs? Is the chicken I’m going to lay more eggs.

And so, like what I always like to look at it like is like, yes, you need to be looking at this as a it’s a multiple pronged process. It’s like you’re creating something. It’s amazing, which is one of the things I help my clients refine or create. Right?

And then you’re going to need to sell it. So you’re going to pick your sales strategy and then you’re going to need to bring more and more people in. So it’s not that you’re going to have only a few eggs in your basket, and if they all crack or you eat all of your eggs, then you’re not going to have more. But that’s what I know happens a lot, is like you’re afraid you’re not going to have more opportunities to and you do. And when you know that what you offer is something that’s transformational, that makes a big difference, that really can support other people, it’s kind of like, well, let me move into this. How can I get more people to know about my work? How can I get more people to be invited to be in this?

And I actually look at it, as it’s an opportunity to work with each other, right? It’s an invitation. And I, I don’t sit here like, ever forcing anyone to ever work with me. I’m like, this is an opportunity for us both to work together and have an experience together. And the experience that many of my clients get is an empowered experience on the other side, empowered to learn how to attract clients or learn how to sell their programs, create something incredible and to make money.

And so I know that I’m in a space when I go into a conversation or when I sell from the stage or whatever it is. I know I go into this ownership space and this empowered space of I’ve really gotten good at masterful what I’m doing. And I feel really confident that what I have I can transfer to somebody else. And yes, money is going to transfer in the process, but I get to give that person that opportunity to be able to be, you know, to step into another skill level. So that’s how I look at it now.

In the beginning, I certainly didn’t, but that’s what I want my clients to look at is like, What is it that you’re doing that you can move into empowering somebody else in what you know or what you do or support them within that transformation? Instead of it being, well, I do this and they’re going to give me money. It’s like, well, energetically, what are you going to be doing here? You’re exchanging something here.

Emily: Go slowly. And I mean, like I said, like more, more energy does come through when you are raising your rates.

And the other thing that you mentioned is that people kind of look at, well, what if people don’t buy? What if people don’t buy? What if they can’t afford it? And I also like to look the other side of that coin. And I know for myself, I don’t know how you feel about this, but if there are certain things that I would like to have, let’s say it’s a business coach. Well, if you are $20 for two months of coaching support, I’m going to presume that you’re terrible if it’s $20 for two months of support. That’s a very low amount of money.

Jeannie: What does that saying?

Emily: It’s saying, you’re probably not going to be that good. And I look at it, too, like we have these chain massage places that you can have a subscription membership for like $39 a month. Well, I know what I’m getting. I’m getting a brand new student who’s out of, you know, just out of school who’s not really so good with what they’re doing. So they’re kind of getting the hang of it, but I am getting a backrub, so I’ve got that going for me.

However, at this point, I am only interested in working with people who are highly skilled, highly intuitive, can hold an energetic space, can help to transmute some of the energy and the stress. They might also be like experts in various modalities, and I am more than happy to pay a premium to receive the best session. And so what we’re discounting when we’re only looking at how many people can afford us is we’re discounting people who are saying, I want to pay a premium for a VIP experience. I’m wanting to pay a premium so that I can get my best results faster. I want to work with you one on one so that I can get the most and get off into that next transformation. I don’t want to be part of a group and pay less. I want number one the most. So I think we oftentimes don’t think of who is out there in that kind of regard as well.

Jeannie: We don’t. And another part of this I don’t want to forget is that we. Oh, now I am forgetting it.

But, what I really think is important is that sometimes what I notice for myself is when I am hiring someone, I am hiring an expert in something that they’re doing, and it’s because I can’t figure it out. So just like what you were saying and what I’ve come to realize is that I’m not a generalist in business coaching. I’m actually a specialist in what I’ve mastered and what I really know.

And so I’m really good at saying I am not your social media business coach, I am not your SEO business coach. I use relationship marketing and speaking strategies for lead generation. I’m like, If there’s anything that you want to do outside of that, I’m going to tell you, you know, go and do it. But when it comes to speaking, I know how to do it. When it comes to selling, I know what to do and how to do it.

I’m not a copywriter and I don’t write. So I’m really good at owning what I do. I’m really good at saying I’ve helped clients get to millions of dollars in their business, and I’ve helped clients make their first $10,000 per month and I’ve done everything in between and I can own that. And that is my truth. I can’t say I’ve taken anybody $2 billion and I would never would say that. And that’s not my zone of genius. Right?

And I think that that’s another thing is like own your genius on what you’re good at. And a lot of us can like say we’re really good at many different things, but when we narrow it down, it’s even better. It’s sweeter, because then, yes, we can say, I can claim that this is what I’m really great at. And that’s what I want people to really own it too, because then you get confidence in being able to sell what you’re doing and then you design programs that are like around your genius and you can be confident in that too.

Emily: Yeah, And I think, tracing back to the conversation you said about having lots of conversations with people. In those conversations that you have with people, they’re going to hear your message and your expertise and your genius in a certain way to them. It’s really nice to hear.

This is one of the first ways I learn how to remarket and rebrand myself from just doing hands-on therapy to opening up an online business and be able to do instead of 1 to 1 going to one for many and opening up that coaching opportunity is that I asked people, you know, if how they would describe my work to a friend and hearing other people describe your work sometimes is like they’re giving you the keywords like, Oh, I like that word. And when I first started, I was like, Oh, I’m giving people clarity. Oh, I’m a clarity coach? I think that’s something cool, right? Like and you’re just hearing the words coming back to you. Oh, you clear the blocks. Oh, you give me that next level. Okay?

Like you’re hearing the words coming back at you, which can also fuel how you speak of yourself. Because, you know, oftentimes, especially people who do esoteric things, Gary, I compare it to being like a mechanic and they’re like, I use tarot cards and I use Reiki and I used EFT and you’re like… They don’t speak that language, so stop talking about the tools you use, please, and think about it like a mechanic.

When we take our broken car into the service shop, you don’t go through the garage with them and go, why are you using that diagnostic tool? And what wrench, what size wrench do you think that’s the wrench that you should use? And then like, how long do you think it’s going to take? How many more miles can I like? No. You go sit in the waiting room with a good book and you just wait until it’s done and they go here your car is better now. And so that’s when you have to look at of like, are you trying to give them every single one of your stupid diagnostic tools that they don’t understand because they weren’t trained.

Jeannie: No

Emily: Or can you just say, like, here I can provide this resolve for you, Just take a step.

Jeannie: This actually brings up something kind of funny because for a long time, you know, I had a business. Obviously, you did, too. You were working in the offline world, right. And then bridging to the online world. And so people it’s kind of like, I don’t know, like in Harry Potter world, I think of like the muddled muggles. And so it’s like people didn’t understand when I moved in to have an online business like, what are you doing? And still to this day, people don’t get it.

And so I really narrowed it down after such a long time of like trying to hear my family members try to describe what I do. And I’m like, I help people make money, I help women make money, and they’re like, Wait, what? Online? Like, that’s all that’s what you do. And I’m like, Yes, that’s right. But that’s really ultimately, that’s what I’m doing. And for the longest time, I kept trying to say, Well, I teach this or I do this or I’m doing this. And they were like, I don’t get. Right. But we get so sucked into we have to have this beautiful copy, incredible language. And at the end of the day, I just narrowed it down like, I want to make sure that absolutely anybody understands the end of the day, really empowering women to make more money in their business.

And that’s so I can tell my husband, you can tell everybody. And it’s really kind of funny because now I actually my best friend said this to me recently. She’s like, my husband didn’t even know how to express what I was doing for the longest time. And I said, mine didn’t either. And now I just tell him, just tell everybody that I help people make money. And he’s like and I listened to him say it.

And, you know, that’s one of the things it’s like we overcomplicate. How we are explaining our offers. We overcomplicate saying who we are. We’re trying to be all fancy. And it’s like this copy language. Sometimes it’s almost like you can’t even hear it because. Or it sounds like everybody else.

Emily: Yeah.

Jeannie: And it really, at the end of the day, we want the results, we want the transformation, and we want an expert to help us through that.

Emily: So yeah. Exactly. So this is this has been a really fun conversation. Thank you for having it. I really love a good opportunity to talk about sales and I’m sure it would be super fun to have some case studies that we can like play with if people have a problem and go, okay, where are you blocked in your energy and what’s going on with you getting like we’re we can like tag team for fun one day. We could do like maybe like some sort of like a live together or something.

Jeannie: Yeah. An Instagram live sometime, they be awesome.

Emily: That’ll be really cool. Maybe we’ll do that when this episode comes out, right? So you can tell people how they can connect with you, work with you, and otherwise just love on you somewhere after this episode.

Jeannie: Thank you. Thank you. Well, a couple of ways.

So the first is that I invite everybody to go on over if they’re looking to generate more leads in their business. I love this one strategy, which is using speaking as a strategy online and offline to generate more leads in your business, because I think one too many marketing is great. So I have something called the ultimate Speaking Lead Generation Starter Guide and how you can start attracting leads in that way. It’s on my website, jeanniespiro.com/guide and you can learn more about what I do in my business at jeanniespiro.com/.

I work with people in a couple of different ways. I help them design signature talks that allow them to convert more clients into their programs and services. And I have a program called Revenue Makers Mastermind to help women ultimately make more money in their businesses. And then I also work with individual clients and what I call like a Sales Optimizer Program. And I look at how we can optimize or sell and attach a sales strategy to help them sell what it is that they’re working to sell in their business. And that’s all over at jeanniespiro.com/.

Emily: Great. Thank you so much.

Jeannie: Online, You might see me dabbling on Instagram.

Emily: All right. We’ve can connect with you there on your website site. Grab that guide and hey, reach out and say hello on Instagram. I always like to encourage my listeners, you guys know, take a screenshot, share your Instagram stories, tag me and your stories tag Jeannie. We’ll have all those links in the show notes.

Let us know what was the most like breakthrough AHA that you had from this episode? Did you learn something about what you need to start doing or maybe stop doing about your sales strategy? Do you realize this is a lead problem or is it like my offers kind of just not fleshed out enough kind of thing? I would love to hear from you always.

You know, it’s always interesting and inspiring when I see your DMS and your reviews on iTunes. Just knowing that we’ve made a positive impact in your life really makes the world of difference to me. I know me and Jeannie are avid podcast host. We love doing what we do, but you know, we do it for free. And the way that you can sort of give that reciprocity is those positive reviews. So make sure that you go over and listen to my episode on Jeannie’s podcast, say it again, Midlife?…

Jeannie: Midlife CEO Podcast.

Emily: Midlife CEO Podcast. Go download that episode, leave us a nice review over there and do the same over here on my podcast, Aligned & Unstoppable. Thank you so much for being here Jeannie, Thank you! Everyone who’s been listening have an awesome rest of your day and take good care.

Jeannie: Thank you.