Many people believe that selling someone something means forcing them to buy a product or service from you. Someone who is against this idea is Annette Pieper who is lovingly known as the Badass Business Chick. Annette is a business breakthrough specialist, author, speaker, podcast host, trainer, and CEO of the high-impact success training firm, Vision 2 Reality Training. She gives light to the sales journey and the three places where people are in the business on this journey at any time frame. Annette helps interpret the sales journey while pinning down the biggest mistake people make when marketing their business.

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The Sales Journey with Annette Pieper

I am excited to have my guest, Annette Pieper. Before we get to her, I want to remind you all to go over to www.PromoteProfitPublishQuiz.com and find out where your platform stacks are and where it needs to be. Annette Pieper is my guest and she is lovingly known as the Badass Business Chick. She’s a business breakthrough specialist, author, speaker, podcast host and trainer. She’s the CEO of the high impact success training firm, Vision 2 Reality Training. She has over twenty years of coaching, consulting and training expertise. She is the author of the upcoming book, Conquer Success Mountain Like A Badass and the co-author of the bestselling book, Step Into Your Vision. She has helped thousands of people across the globe build profitable businesses, live with greater purpose and have a huge impact through her powerful programs. She’s able to show small businesses how to triple their leads, double their sales and find an additional $10,000 to $50,000 in annual revenue without spending a dime on advertising. Welcome, Annette. It’s great to have you.

Thank you so much. I’m so excited to be here.

Tell us a little bit about what you teach about the sales journey.

It’s important for people to understand the sales journey. We all think that we go out, we market and we sell. There are three places that people are on in the sales journey at any time frame. You have future buyers. Those are the people that are maybe thinking about buying something somewhere in the future. You have soon-to-be buyers who are researching because they’re deeply considering purchasing something. You have the now-buyers. Those are the people that are ready to buy right now. It’s important as an entrepreneur to understand that buying journey so that you can create messages and target people no matter where they are on the journey.

There are so many people who create a sales and marketing journey, especially digitally where it’s like, “Here’s an email, now buy something.” They don’t understand that there is a psychology behind those people who want to buy now that you can convert and those people who you are going to nurture and separating those people who are looking for drive-bys. They’re never going to buy a thing. Can you share with our readers how to interpret the sales journey?

When you think about the sales journey, you’ve got to figure out where you’re going to find your clients. Most people, they’re targeting people that are ready to buy right away. They lose all of those potential people that are coming down the pipe at some point in time. They’re not nurturing those possibilities or those leads. My interpretation of the sales journey is you’ve got to be able to tap into all of those places along the journey and be nurturing to those people who aren’t ready to buy yet.

Even letting go of those people who aren’t giving indications that they’re going to buy because I know so many people who spend their time convincing someone that they need to buy their product. Once you’re in that position of convincing, you’ve pretty much lost it. It has to be natural.

When you have to convince someone to buy what you have to sell, the relationship is going to be tainted. The customer is not going to have a great experience because they weren’t ready to buy and then that reflects poorly on your business. They may give bad reviews to you, then you’ve got a whole another mess to try and clean up. It’s crazy how many people feel they have to force the sale on someone. I used to work for a mentoring company where I was the coach and they have a sales team that did the sales. There was not a good qualification process for the people that they were selling. It was like, “How much space do you still have on your credit? How much credit do you still have on your credit card to buy the program?” People would come and they would be disgruntled. They want their money back. They get their money back. One of the reasons I left the company was because it was just out of integrity for me. I want to work with people that are ready to go. They’re motivated. They want to get a business going. They want to change their life. They weren’t coerced into working me. I want them to be a participating person in that coaching journey and not feel like I have to hold their hand or drag them along. That’s draining.

Isn’t that what’s wrong with our industry? Those people who are like, “Let’s rush to the back of the room now and everybody will buy the product I sold.” There’s a lot of chargebacks. There’s a lot of disappointment. A lot of those programs aren’t meeting people where they’re at. It’s a one-size-fits-all. “Give me $25,000 or we’ll set up a payment plan if you don’t have it all available now.” It’s more about the money than helping the individual. What’s the biggest mistake people make when marketing their business?

They’re targeting the now-buyers only. When you think about the sales journey, less than 1% are now-buyers, everyone else’s somewhere on the sales journey. They’re doing research. They have it in their mind that they want to buy. When all of your marketing targets that 1% now-buyer, then you lose out on 99% of people that can be prospective buyers in the future. Maybe with a little nurturing, they’re ready to buy. Maybe with a little more education about what you do and your expertise, they’re going to be ready to go or later on in the journey. Maybe they’re thinking about starting a business now or whatever it is that you’re servicing them on. Maybe they’re thinking about it and later on, they hop in but because you’ve nurtured them through your marketing, then you’re top of mind awareness.

You’re the one that they’re going to go to because you’ve been educating them. You’ve been showing them that you’re an expert in your market. You have what it takes to get them to where they want to go, to solve the problem that they have or help them get the result that they’re looking for. One of the things that I teach to my clients is how to create those systems so that you are nurturing that 99% that aren’t ready to buy right now while also having the tools, skills and confidence to sell the 1% who are ready to buy. Another problem is people have the marketing in place, but they haven’t learned the sales skills or gained the confidence to make the sale. There is still that negative energy around selling rather than serving these people that want what you have to sell.

Sales Journey: Engaging to your potential customers is where you show them that you can solve their problems.

What’s the greatest challenge small business owners have when it comes to growing their business?

That’s two things. First of all is the marketing aspect, languaging, research, finding out exactly what is the number one question that your prospects have. What’s the number one problem that they’re dealing with right now that they need to be solved? In marketing, I teach a four-part approach, interrupt, engage, educate and then offer. Your interrupt is like your headline. It’s the first thing that people hear or see in your marketing materials. Your elevator pitch, what they see on your webpage, that headline that interrupts their thought process because there’s so much noise going on and we’re so caught up in our hitch. You’ve got to have something that interrupts that thought process that makes that person go, “Wow.” You’re saying, “Listen to me. I’ve got something to say,” but it’s what they need to hear.

Engage is where you show them that you can solve their problems. That’s the sub-headline. That’s the second thing that they hear or read and it answers that question, “Yes, here’s the result that you want. I have it here.” Then you educate them on why you’re the best person to give that to them. Your knowledge, also educating them on how you can help them because the headline and the sub-headline are little snippets. The things you want to educate them are on why you are the best person to do that, what your skill levels are, what your background is and what it all entails. Then you make the offer and you’ve got to make that offer so compelling that they want to say yes.

One piece is the marketing. Another part is sales, networking and following up. Networking and following up is a pet peeve of mine because I go to so many networking groups and no one ever follows up. Sometimes I’m slow to follow up but most of the time, I am following up. That’s where I get most of my business from, is I’ll follow up. They say the fortune is in the follow up and I see a lot of people go into a lot of networking events, but they never take advantage of that follow up, which is where you build the relationships, having that inner confidence and those sales skills to be able to have a sales conversation with someone. I talked to so many people that I asked, “What’s your sales script? How do you script that conversation?” “We just wing it.” “What’s your results?” We’re not getting the results that we want.”

Our results are like, “We winged it.”

I spent years winging it and it never worked well for me. I had to learn sales. I’ve spent so many years learning sales and now I teach them as well.

That is so cool. I have a networking event that I go to five times a year. The last time I was there, they taught a class on the last day on how to follow up because that was one of the biggest pet peeves of many of us that were there. These people give us their cards because we have snap circles where you’re only supposed to give a card if you’re truly interested. You give them a call and you never hear from them again. It’s wild, that whole thing around follow-up. What’s your best piece of advice that you can leave our readers?

My best piece of advice is to hire a coach. If you are running a business, don’t do it alone. Get somebody in your corner that can guide you through the process. Figure out what it is that you need. Are you in the foundation building stage? Are you ready to scale? Are you wanting to up-level? Do you need branding help? Do you need marketing help or sales help? Find that coach that you resonate with, interview. If you’re not sure of the person and your question, then interview several coaches and make sure that you are hiring the right person for you. Let someone help guide you through the process of growing your business. Otherwise, you spend years wasted trying to figure it out on your own when someone that has been there and done that can shorten your learning curve and help you through that process.

I’m even going to take that one step further. Ask them for referrals. Ask them for people you can talk to that have gotten results. Everybody puts the results on their website, but this is the internet age. When you’re not quite sure, “Are those people real? Have they worked with them? Are they friends?” ask for real people like, “Can you give me the names of three people that you’ve worked with that I can talk to?” Sometimes you find some nuggets in there like, “Maybe this isn’t right for me.” The interview process has to be in-depth and most people don’t do it because they feel like, “This is such a great fit.” They’re feeling it with emotions instead of their business sense. What do you think about that?

That’s very true. A lot of people, they might be in a frustrated stage and that coach just might say the right thing and then later on, it might not be a good fit. Any coach is going to give you referrals to call because they want to make sure you’re the right fit too. I know from years of coaching and training for another company that to bring in a client that’s not a right fit for you as a coach is an energy drain. It takes away the amount of time and the energy that you could be serving someone that is a right fit for you. The coach wants to make sure that you are a right fit if they’re a great coach that’s operating in integrity because they don’t want to have to give you your money back down the road or because it wasn’t the right fit. Always ask for referrals.

That’s great because there are coaches that are new to the industry who don’t understand that and they don’t get that. If you take on somebody who isn’t the right fit or doesn’t finish your program, that’s going to reflect on you. They will never ever go out into the world and say, “I didn’t show up.” It’s always going to be, “She didn’t teach me. He didn’t do this and that.” You always have to keep that in mind when going through and figuring out who it is that you want to bring on board and who isn’t. I’m sure we both had those energy sucks that we learned early on. Can you tell us where can we find you and do you have something free for us?

You can find me at AnnettePieper.com. That’s my main website. I also have a video series that I’d like to give you to help you generate all the leads that you can handle. You can find that at BadassInBusinessAcademy.com/guidedtour. There’s a video you can watch right away and then you could opt in to get four videos as well.

Thank you so much for being on. It’s been a pleasure.

You’re welcome. I had so much fun. I love sharing my knowledge and expertise with people.

Important Links:

• Annette Pieper
• www.PromoteProfitPublishQuiz.com
• Step Into Your Vision
• http://BadassInBusinessAcademy.com
• @AnnettePieper – Twitter
• @AnnettePieper – Instagram
• https://www.Facebook.com/ItsAnnettePieper – Facebook Page
• https://www.Facebook.com/Groups/bbbm/ – Facebook Community
• http://BadassInBusinessAcademy.com/MyGuidedTour/ – Four video series to teach how to generate all the leads you can handle

About Annette Pieper

Annette Pieper, lovingly known as the Badass Business Chick, is a Business Breakthrough Specialist, Author, Speaker, Podcast Host and Trainer. She is CEO of the high impact success training firm, Vision 2 Reality Training. Annette has over 20 years of coaching, consulting and training expertise, is the author of the upcoming book Conquer Success Mountain Like A Badass and co-author of the bestselling book Step Into Your Vision.

She has helped thousands of people across the globe build and grow profitable businesses, live with greater purpose and make a huge impact through her powerful programs. She is able to show small businesses how to triple their leads, double their sales and find an additional $10,000 to $50,000 in annual revenue without spending a dime on advertising. Helping others transform in business and in life is one of her greatest passions.

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