789: Simple Sales Strategies to Overcome Your Fears and Make More $$$

0:00Decision-based content is where you create content where it's designed to move the audience to a greater level of commitment to the offer, but even to themselves to realize that they need to make a big shift in their life to see a transformation. Hey, my name is Jenna Kutcher, and I am obsessed with all things business, marketing numbers, and helping you to navigate both the messy and the magical seasons of this thing called life. I'm a small town mama who took a$300 camera, grew a successful photo biz, and now I work from home and run a seven figure online business. I teach you the tried and true secrets to building a career you adore.

0:38Shy away from the real talk? No way. Money, hardship, growth, loss, and marketing are all topics we discuss here. Think of this as your one-stop shop for happy hour with a gal pal mixed with business school. Pull up a seat, make sure you're cozy, and get ready to be challenged and encouraged while you learn. This is the Gold Digger Podcast. Is there anything worse than creating a new offer and sharing it with the world and only hearing crickets? Like I get it. It is honestly the most disheartening thing that can happen to you as an entrepreneur when people aren't excited to hit the buy now button.

1:12You know, your business changes lives. So why don't they? You need to learn how to turn your presentations into profit machines. My guest today is amazing at helping you understand how to sell with confidence. Colin Boyd is not a stranger to the Gold Digger podcast. He is an international speaker, a trainer, and a coach. He has been running his speaking business since 2017. And my favorite thing about him is that he is obsessed with helping coaches and entrepreneurs and course creators sell from stages in a non-pushy and in a non-sleazy way, whether it's through social media, live webinars, a networking event, or anywhere else you can talk about your business.

1:55He keynotes at conferences around the world on topics such as persuasive communication and selling ideas. And last year he came on the podcast and taught us his conversion story formula and you guys loved it so much. I was so excited to invite him to come back on the show. Colin's zone of genius is helping people turn every presentation into a money making machine. Whether you're posting on social media, speaking at an event, hosting a webinar or going live on Instagram. To learn more about what Colin is teaching, go to jennacutcher.com forward slash stage. He has an upcoming free class all about how to sell from a stage, no matter what stage it is.

2:33That's jennacutcher.com forward slash stage to save your seat for Colin's upcoming class. Now, in the meantime, you are going to hear Colin's best tips for selling without being salesy or slimy. The same advice he gives to some of the biggest names in the world to design presentations that convert into paying clients. I cannot wait for you to hear these tactics from Colin. So welcome on back, Colin, to the Gold Digger podcast. More to do is less time and an infinite number of tools to keep track of. Gold Diggers, do you ever feel like doing business has never felt harder? Well, the good news is you don't need a miracle to hit your goals.

3:12You just need HubSpot. Their all-in-one customer platform can make growing your business so much easier. Imagine this, high quality leads, fast closing deals, wildly happy customers and more benchmark breaking quarters. It's not a miracle. It's HubSpot. Visit HubSpot.com to get started today. That's HubSpot.com. Okay, Colin, you and I both know that there are people listening to this episode who are skeptical of this conversation, because they are thinking I do not have a quote, stage to sell on. So before we get into the nitty gritty of our conversation today, can you help us understand what you mean when you say a stage and give us some examples of places entrepreneurs are selling from, including a stage, even metaphorically?

4:03Yeah. So for me, a stage is any space where your audience can engage with you in both a visual and an auditory experience. So those two modalities combined together is a stage. So for example, for me, there's two contexts. There are virtual stages. So a virtual stage is a webinar where you're doing a presentation, you're engaging with the audience, asking questions, all that sort of stuff. A video could be, so if you're running an evergreen webinar, that for me is a virtual stage. Virtual events, which have become huge, obviously, over the last couple of years, we run them all the time. And then there's in-person stages, which is like a keynote at a conference or a workshop or some sort of in-person summit.

4:49So for me, they are the contexts. Now, there are some sub stages, which could be like a podcast in a sense, like that's kind of a stage. But I would say for me, if we go from the pure sense, my specialization of the conversation I want to have today is very much around if you're running a webinar, any sort of presentation, like, you know, it's not for absolutely everyone. I actually think that there's definitely something within people's hearts where they feel like I really want to present. I want to bring my message to the world and I want to do, it could even be a live stream, but it's anywhere where you're presenting your ideas and people can visually experience you and verbally engage with you.

5:34That for me is a stage. So that kind of sets some context. So if anyone wants to use that type of stage, that's what this conversation is going to be about. Okay. I am here for that. Cause even I, I'm like, I don't really speak on a lot of stages. So like, what does this mean? So I do have a lot of virtual stages. So I am in buckle up. Okay. So one of the things that I would love to talk about is thinking about the key elements of like taking something that's just a presentation and turning it into a moneymaker, like a moneymaking machine even. So what strategies or techniques do you recommend for someone who's already going to be presenting, but to kind of add a little bit of strategy that can really drive some results for them?

6:21Yeah. So first off, what I want people to realize is that they only need one high converting presentation to scale their online course to the moon and back. They only need one. And I see this happen over and over and over again. In fact, I just got off a conversation with one of my students, her name's Lindsay. She's like a Midwest town mom. She's got a young son who's actually got disabilities. And she said to me, she was like, Colin, I don't have much time. And she said, but I followed this process, which we'll go through today in building a high converting presentation. And she said she delivers this presentation.

6:59It's the same presentation. She delivers it once a week. And she went from doing like a couple of thousand dollars a month to, she said she's doing over$30 ,000 a month now, working part-time in her business, doing this same presentation over and over again. Now she finds new audiences. I get that. But she's like, Colin, it's the same presentation. I didn't believe that I could actually just do the same one. So just to set the scene for everyone, because sometimes people get overwhelmed. They're like, oh my gosh, I've got to create new presentations all the time. You don't. And I know even for you, Jenna, we've had many conversations about your webinars and things like that.

7:35You know, probably tell me if I'm wrong. Yeah. They're probably pretty similar presentations every single time related to the one product, right? Totally. I mean, we literally do the presentation once a year and it's an iteration of the last version of it, just with updated stories and stats and data. Yes. And so this is what's cool as a foundation for people before they get overwhelmed is to realize you just need one, one great presentation, right? That's the mountain we need to climb. Yes. So the question is, how do we take a regular presentation and turn it into a money-making machine? Well, I think everything starts with the offer.

8:15So when you think about a presentation that sells, as opposed to a presentation where you're just generally teaching content. The first thing you must do is you go to your offer. And the question I like to ask is, what are the things that the audience must believe about the offer and about even the context of what you're teaching in order for them to say, yes, this is the right next step for me. So, when you're designing a presentation, the mistake that people make is they go into their course for their content. So they go, okay, I'm going to run a webinar. I've got this webinar coming up. It's going to be 60 minutes or 90 minutes.

8:57And they go, what's the coolest stuff that I can teach from my course in this webinar? And if the audience really likes it, then they're going to, and they'll say, oh my gosh, I just got this for free. Imagine what I get when I pay. Does that make sense? Like this is one way of thinking. Now, the problem with that way of thinking is that it leads to a lot of overwhelm. And because what happens is if you give too many steps and practical actions in a training, the problem is that the audience is not yet committed to the outcome. And so what happens is the audience hears all of this cool content and you give them all the how-to, all the practical things.

9:46And the audience just feels really overwhelmed. And then this is what they say at the end. They go, they say, Colin, Mike, Jenna, whatever your name is, they say, this is so good. Just give me six months to get through every single thing that you've given me in the last hour. And then I'll come back and I'll consider your offer at the end. And so the problem with this is that it's information-based content as opposed to decision-based content. And so decision-based content is where you create content where it's designed to move the audience to a greater level of commitment to the offer, but even to themselves to realize that they need to make a big shift in their life to see a transformation.

10:32And so one of the big shifts is going from just teaching content and then whacking an offer on the end of it to going the offer is the beginning and working back and going, what is the content I need to put in place where the audience by the end goes, this offer aligns directly with what we've been going through this whole presentation. And it just makes total sense. And I love you, the presenter. I love the content. Like, let's go. And that's a totally different mindset. Let's be real. As business owners, we know a reliable connection isn't optional. I've had my fair share of slow and lagging internet.

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13:10Sign up for your free trial today at shopify.com slash gold digger. That's shopify.com slash gold digger. Go to shopify.com slash gold digger and make this black Friday one to remember. Oh my gosh, Colin, you were like living in my brain rent free. Last week, I was watching a friend of mine's webinar. It was like her first webinar after having a kid and you know, she's getting back on the saddle. And I literally sent her like a 10 minute long voice message after because she did ask for feedback. And I was like, you gave so much stuff that like people need to take action on before they can decide.

13:45And like, it was great content, but like, again, and I literally was saying what you were just saying. Cause I think, you know, everyone wants to like do the big wow factor, but I love what you're saying where it's like, they haven't bought into the commitment yet. They have to understand the what and the why before they even approach the how. And so I think that that's so powerful because we as creators get so excited about like the features and the bells and whistles. And it's like, we haven't even taken a minute to like, make sure our audience wants those features or cares about those features or is willing to invest in those features.

14:20So I love it. Yeah. And when you think about it, it's, if you give too much actions, too many steps at the front end, what happens is it actually does your audience a disservice because I know there's probably stuff coming up in people's minds, where they're saying, so you don't give any value. And that's not true at all. In fact, if you think about some of the greatest speeches of all time, like Martin Luther King, I have a dream. Did he give practical steps? He didn't go through practical steps. He commanded a vision. He brought people into an entire mindset shift in terms of how they would see society in their world.

15:01He didn't go through like, we need to do this step and this step and this step. So the value is not just in steps. Value is actually found in a transformation of people's minds. And so what we must do is rather than just doing steps, because you can do some steps, but rather than just doing all the how-to, we need to actually shift people's minds to get ready for a greater level of commitment to the offer or whatever it is. And so it's almost like taking off the handbrakes in people's minds. They have all these resistances of like, I'm not good enough. I'm not ready. I haven't done enough. All that sort of stuff and all the fears that gets in their way.

15:43And if you can take those handbrakes off, get them to believe in themselves, get them to believe in the product and get them to believe in you as the creator. Those three things create commitment to the next level. Yes. Oh my gosh. I couldn't agree more. You know, it's so interesting, Colin, because I feel like something fascinating happens when people shift into selling. And I think that a lot of people can serve rather naturally. It's not as scary. They can create content around serving and things like that. But there's just something in our wiring that the minute we go to sell, it's like something happens.

16:20We seize up, we get clammy, we talk fast or like all these different things. And so can you talk to me about some of the mistakes that people make when they go to sell online? Because I think we see them all the time. And I think that people are so afraid of doing them that they don't even do anything that leads to results for them. Yeah. Well, I think about it like this, you know, Jenna, even for you and the listeners, have a think about someone who has made a transformation in your life and someone who you've actually paid the money or you've given a significant amount of time for, or someone who has, you know, maybe it was a book you read.

17:02Maybe it was a course you did. I know for me, I think about different mentors in my life. And if I didn't have them in my life, I wouldn't have built our multi-million dollar business. I wouldn't be living in the USA. I wouldn't be at the level that I'm at. I wouldn't have the life that I have if they hadn't of made an offer to me and essentially created a space for me to commit to myself to see a greater transformation. Now, here's the kicker. The kicker is that you are that person for your audience. And so just as much as you've experienced transformations from other people's books, courses, experiences, you are that person for your audience as well.

17:47And so when we think about selling, rather than think of it as, oh, I'm just asking people to do something they don't want to do. think of it as you're holding a sacred place for the right person to enter and commit to themselves and see a transformation that they already want. And so rather than trying to think of it as the pushy, you know, kind of car salesy, sleazy, manipulative experience, it's not that. It's this experience of going, if this is something you want to create in your life, then I'm holding a space and have created a process for you to experience that transformation faster, easier, and to be quite frank, a lot less expensive than it would be to work it out yourself.

18:37And so if you resonate with me, you resonate with the content, then I'd love to invite you into that next step. The energy is an attraction-based energy rather than a pushing-based energy. I love that. I resonate with that so much. And it's so fascinating to me because there is something and it's not like a men versus women thing. But I think women just like, we've all been sold to like marketers love us, right? Whether it's wrinkle cream or this new contraption, we need to keep our kids busy and not mess them up. Like we are constantly being sold to. And so I think that we just have this like negative experience with feeling like targeted without feeling heard or seen.

19:18And so I love how you position it as like selling as a service, because I do think it just shifts the energy and the intent. And for me, even I look at selling as like an invitation without like strings attached. Like if you RSVP know you feel no guilt, like that's okay. Like all I want is people to be confident in the choice that they make and not let other factors in their life, make that decision for them. And so it's so interesting because shifting that relationship with selling really does allow you to serve people at a higher level, make a bigger impact. And it does like actually give you results, but it also gives the people who invest with you results.

20:01And I think that's just such a huge pivot that a lot of people need to make mentally first. Yeah. And I think that, you know, if you're selling online courses or you're selling coaching or even products, you have to realize that essentially you are in sales. Yeah. But it's more how you do that. I was just, I had just hosted an event recently and I had a lady walk up to me. Her name's Verena. And she walked and she said, Colin, I need to share something with you. And I was a little bit scared because I wasn't sure what she was going to say. But she started to well up in her eyes. And she was like, Colin, I just wanted to say that when I came in to your world, she was like, I had this goal of hitting$100 ,000 a month.

20:43And she was like, within eight months, she's hit it. She went from like 20 ,000 to 100 ,000. And she was like, I just want to say, Colin, you have freaking changed my life. And I just want to let you know that I wouldn't have experienced that without building this presentation. And for me, it just reminds me of like, that's why I do what I do is because when the right person comes into an experience with the right offer, their life can never be the same. They truly see a transformation. I think everyone needs to keep that in mind of that. When the right person comes in contact with your offer, it's a beautiful experience of service.

21:26And in fact, it's service on the next level because if you think about it, you can only get so much results with people for free. Because if you think about everyone in listening to this, I want you to think about where do your best transformations come from? Do they come from your free content that you do on Instagram? Like did people write and say, oh my gosh, this quote changed my life? Or does it come from your courses or your coaching? And they say, oh my gosh, this changed my life, right? It's always your courses or your coaching. You get nice comments on Instagram, but it's the courses, it's the offer that truly sees people see a transformation.

22:03And so, keeping that in mind, I think keeping that in the forefront when you actually make an offer on a webinar or on a live presentation or anything, it just makes you feel better about making the offer and realizing I'm not trying to get 100 % conversion. You know, that's not the goal. The goal is to find the right person and that they would join and see a transformation. You know, it's so interesting to Colin, because I feel like after, you know, I've done webinars for nine years now, almost a decade. And I used to like be terrified of them. Like I prepared myself like I was going to war, like like food needed to be stocked up.

22:42I was going to be on all night if the tech gods got me down. Like it was it was intense. It was intense. And that was how I learned launching and it did not resonate with me and my personality. And now I get so excited because when I get on there, it's so amazing to see even the shift of commentary and questions and things like that. Like serving through a presentation is getting inside the head of the person who's watching it. Like where it's almost like they're like, get out of my head. Like you're answering the questions I have. You're hitting the objections that I thought you're telling stories that I can relate to.

23:22And it's such a beautiful thing because I am so unapologetic about selling my offers at the end, because for so many people, they're, they're sitting there waiting. What is the next step? And we have this line in my business of like no dead ends. Like when you listen to a podcast episode, I don't want it to end and have you be like, okay, well now what? Or when you get to the bottom of a blog post, I don't want you wondering, okay, well now what? And it's like no dead ends. And so what's so beautiful about presentations is you get to present, you get to help people start to understand things. They might not buy on that training, but guess what?

23:59Six months from now, a year from now, two years from now, they might be one of your most confident buyers. And so it's recognizing that you're planting seeds, but you're also serving the people who are literally waiting for you to tell them the next step and they are ready to take the next step. And I think it's just like, I don't know, to me, it feels so awesome. Like it's awesome. It's exciting. It's fun. It's not draining. Like it's, it's all of those things in one. It's just, I wish more people felt that way about it. Yeah. And it's influence at scale. Yeah. Because rather than just one-to-one conversations, which are great.

24:34And sometimes you might want to do what I call a soft sell, which is you just go to a book, a call, right? To book a strategy session or clarity session, that's totally fine. But when you do it on a live presentation, whether it be a webinar, virtual event, in person, it's influence at scale. And there's something unconsciously accepted about a stage. And that is that if you are the one presenting, there is a level of authority, believability trust rapport that you automatically just get by being a presenter by being someone who's presenting something it's almost like the audience goes if this person is confident enough to get on to host a webinar to get on a stage and actually talk about this stuff then they obviously know what they're talking about now obviously you do have to know what you're talking about but But there are a lot of innate, unconscious kind of acceptances that happened in a stage.

25:31And this is why for some people, they might think, oh, they look at you, Jenna, or they look at myself and they go, oh, you speak on stage because you guys are market leaders in your niche. But the truth is, is that you just said to me, you've been running webinars for nine years. When you first started running your webinar, did you have tens of thousands of people on there, Jenna? No, no, no, no, no, no. I was lucky if I had hundreds. Yeah. I had like 20 on my first one and then like 40 and then 50, right? And so the cool thing is, is that you start with where you're at and then it just builds.

26:06You declare to the market by bringing that leadership on a virtual stage or a live. You declare to the market by putting a stake in the ground and saying, I'm going to influence this marketplace and be a voice. And then you move towards market leadership. It's not the other way around. Yes. Oh my gosh. What if somebody is listening to this and they are thinking that like, I'm not you, Colin, I'm not you, Jenna. Like how can someone become more confident in selling and showing up online in doing a presentation? Yeah. Well, I think, you know, first of all, you've got to realize what's going on in your mind.

26:43Like Jenna, you just mentioned that coming into webinars previously, you know, it was like you were heading into war. Now, the interesting thing is that the war is probably mostly happening between your two ears. It's happening in your mind. And so, for me, when I first started speaking, I was so nervous. I would shake so much that I would have to grab, I would have the microphone in one hand. I'd have to grab the microphone with two hands to try to stop my hands from shaking and like throwing the microphone on the audience, right? Yeah. And then I'd stop my hands shaking and my leg would start to shake.