Expand Your Fempire Podcast #114 Transcript

How to Achieve Your Best Month (and YEAR) Ever in 2023

Welcome to Expand your Fempire with Caterina Rando, the podcast for women in business on a mission. Sharing ideas to support you to grow and thrive. Now here’s your host, Caterina Rando.

[00:00:00] Caterina Rando: This is Caterina Rando, and I am blissing to be with you for another episode of the Expand Your Fempire podcast. My friend, you are going to want to grab a notebook. If you’re driving, you’re going to have to listen to this again, because this is an info-packed, very important episode.

[00:00:47] Here we are talking about a topic that I have taught many times that has supported women entrepreneurs to double, triple, and even quadruple their monthly revenue, because our hot topic today is how to have your best month ever.

[00:01:08] I am blissing because I wanna let you know that you have the opportunity to join me and many of the other amazing women in our thriving women in business community to participate in the Best Month Ever Challenge. In January, we will be doing four week best month ever challenge.

[00:01:36] And you, as someone who listens to the Expand Your Fempire podcast, can participate and expand your fempire and have your best month ever. Use the code “podcast.” And guess what? You’re gonna get a VIP discount to come for a very low price of only $147, and I am sure you are gonna get your investment back, not only tenfold.

[00:02:07] Also, it is gonna support you to have your best month and really your best year ever. That’s why we’re doing it in January to support you to have your best year ever, and I hope to see you there. It is via Zoom. These are live calls. You will see my smile on the screen. I will see your smile on the screen, and we will support you to have your very best month and year ever. Bing, bing, bing.

[00:02:43] Caterina Rando: So you know who I am, but I’ll just give a quick introduction and we’ll get started right now. I support women to build their Fempires. And I do that with using speaking to grow your business, group programs, retreats, and, this year, really focusing a lot on supporting women with sales. Before COVID, one of the things I did is that I used to teach a class called, “How to Have Your Best Month Ever.”

[00:03:12] And then once the COVID hit, we put a lot of focus on thriving at sales for everybody, because sales is what drives your business. And as you know, I say that there are five things that are your job: Speaking, Selling, Serving Your Clients, Strategy, and Self Care. I want to take you through the 10 steps on how to have your best month ever, because this is something I have a lot of attention on and I want to support all of you to have your best month ever.

[00:03:44] So, one of the things that happened when COVID hit is that everyone was stressing, “Oh my gosh, what’s going to happen with business?” Well, guess what? A lot of my clients have had their best year ever. Many had their best months ever during COVID. I just had my best month ever in many years, and I’m blissing over that. And I want to tell you what I’ve done, what my clients are doing, that you’re going to want to embrace right away.

[00:04:13] First thing. Know your numbers. Right now, do you know your best month ever? I’m hoping that you do. And if not, then start to track. We want to know our best day ever for sales. We want to know our best week ever for sales, and we want to know our best month ever for sales. And the more we pay attention to our numbers, the more the numbers are going to improve. We know that, right?

[00:04:39] What we focus on improves. But if you don’t know what your best month is, well then you’re probably not trying to beat it, because you don’t know what it was. Right? Let’s have your best month ever.

[00:04:51] Now, here’s why you want to know your best month ever and your best week and your best day: because you want to know, how many calls does it take? How many conversations does it take? Really what we’re talking about here is not online sales selling your online course, just automated sales. I’m talking about talking to people.

[00:05:16] Because most people will not make a substantial investment without a conversation with you. Yeah, you might sell a workshop, you might sell a $97 something even a $197. So do you know? Because I can tell you right now: my best week ever, my second best week ever, 26 sales conversations and 28 sales conversations.

[00:05:39] Now, by the way, you might say “Caterina, that’s a lot of conversations.” This is why you want to have a team, because if you don’t have time every week to talk to people, then your business is not growing and scaling. If you’re fooling around with your own website, if you’re fooling around with Canva, if you’re your own marketing department, then you’re not having enough time for selling.

[00:06:01] And let’s make a very important distinction: marketing is letting the world know you exist. Social media marketing. Sales is inviting someone to be your client. And hopefully, before you invite someone to be your client, you’re doing one very important thing: you’re building influence. Because nobody buys from us until we have built influence. And in psychology, there’s the law of familiarity that tells us that the more people see our posts, they see our pictures, they hear our name in a conversation, they show up at our events, the more they know us, like us and trust us, even when they’ve never met us. I hope you all are embracing the influence equation before you’re inviting people to buy.  The influence equation is visibility plus value plus consistency equals influence. Visibility plus value plus consistency equals influence. So hopefully you’re not inviting people into that sales conversation until you have built influence with them.

[00:07:15] Okay. So that’s the first thing: know your numbers so that you can beat your numbers. And then step two, get committed. Are you committed to having your best month ever? And when we talk about commitment, what I mean is, have you made a decision? Because one of the things that I see and one of the things I hear, and I was just in a clubhouse last night with some very successful entrepreneurs and they were reiterating something you hear me say all the time, which is “successful people make decisions quickly.” When you make a decision, now something shifts. Now something is happening to support that to happen.

[00:08:00] So now that you’re committed, then you’re going to have to make some changes to clear some space for your best month ever. Because step three is for you to get clear on how many of what equals your best month ever.

[00:08:22] So what is your best month ever? For example, if I wanted to have my best month ever would be pretty high. Our best month ever would be $84,500, would beat my best month ever. Okay. So that means I’m going to have to sell this many luxury retreats. This many February Thrive at Sales. This many March Thrive at Sales.

[00:08:46] That’s the calculations. Do you know your calculations to have your best month ever? And if you don’t that’s okay. Let’s make February your benchmark, March will beat February, April will beat March.

[00:09:03] Okay. What we’ve discussed so far. Step one: know what your best month ever is. Set that goal. Step two: get committed, make a decision. Step three: get clear on how many of whatever you need to sell to have your best month ever. Meaning if you have your $500 class and your best month ever was $5,000, then that means you have to sell 11 of those to have your best month ever. Okay?

[00:09:32] Next thing, my friends, you want to know, how many sales conversations does it take you to get a sale? And you only know that by keeping track of your conversations, you only know that by paying attention. Okay. I had 10 conversations this week and I got four clients. So that means I have a 40% close ratio. Do you know your close ratio?

[00:10:03] I had a lovely conversation with a lady. She came to a workshop last week. First time she ever came to a workshop, she said, “Caterina, I want to work with you.” I didn’t even know it was going to be a sales conversation, but before I got off, she had signed up for the February Thrive at Sales. So that’s what we call an instant client. One sales conversation, bing bing, the sale happened, okay?

[00:10:28] But you all know that there’s four kinds of clients. There’s the insta client, which takes one conversation. They meet you, they like you, bing bing, you make a phone date, you have a client. That’s awesome. We love that. But there’s those other three categories of sales conversations. There’s the slow cooker. Right? The slow cooker takes up to three months, three to six months, really to get started. They come, they meet you. You got to build influence. Maybe you have a conversation, they’re not ready to get started right away. You got to keep them engaged. That’s going to be the slow cooker, and that’s okay. We love the slow cookers. Then there’s the super slow cooker. The super slow cooker is taking up to a year to get in your fountain.

[00:11:15] By the way, my friends, for those of you who have not been with me before, I like to call it a sales fountain and not a funnel. Why? Because it’s more feminine first of all. But also because we want people to come in and we don’t want them to leave like a funnel. We want them to go round and round and round for life. That’s what I want for you. And part of the way you have your best month ever is to have your clients that keep coming back. But still you need that time set aside to have those conversations. But here’s my point. You want the insta clients, you want the slow cookers, you want the super slow cookers, But there’s also the super, super slow cooker. And this is the potential client that takes more than a year to get in your fountain.

[00:12:08] I had a conversation last weekend with a lady. My friends, six years before she was a yes. And by the way, I’m going to tell you a little bit about this conversation, because I want it to be a model for you. One of the things I tell my clients that I want to make sure that you have going on for you is I know the dates of everything that I am offering.

[00:12:34] So when she said to me, this is last weekend “Caterina, this sounds great. And it’s not the right time.” Well guess what? I said “okay, well, February is too soon. No problem. This is when we’re starting in March, March 22nd. This is when we’re starting in April.” So I know the

[00:12:52] dates, they’re in my head, because then I can sign someone up now and give them service now, even if they’re not ready to get started with a program for one or two months. Now, if you don’t have your dates for the rest of the year, I am sorry for you because that is impacting your sales.

[00:13:14] Right now as I’m enrolling for Thrive at Sales, I’ve already got six ladies signed up for March. I’ve already got four ladies signed up for April. Why? Because I already had those dates on my calendar.

[00:13:27] And to tell you about this conversation, when she said to me, “Hey, Caterina sounds great, not right now.” I said to her, “Well, hey. How about March? How about April? How about May? Would any of those months be good? And would you like to hear my irresistible invitation to make a decision today?” Did y’all hear that?

[00:13:51] “Would you like to hear my irresistible invitation to make a decision today?” By the way, this is another super tip. I never tell anybody the invitation, what I’m offering them, until I ask that exact question or a similar question: “would you like to hear how I work with my clients? Would you like to hear about the program? Would you like to hear how I can support you?” You always ask something before you give them the full report.

[00:14:21] Everybody that is a super tip of super tips that I’m hoping that you are embracing, that you’re writing down, because this will transform your sales conversations. I am anti-script. I am anti-pain points. Women, especially if you’re selling to women, they like to talk about possibilities. They also get defensive or gnarly when you talk to them about pain points when you don’t have massive influence with them and you can’t necessarily judge that. Okay?

[00:14:52] Another question I use earlier in the sales conversation is I say, “Hey, tell me about you. Tell me what’s going on with you and tell me what you want to be going on, or tell me your plans for this next year, what you want to accomplish.” That way, they’re telling me what they want to tell me. And of course, I’m listening attentively and listening between the lines for any openings or, or what I would want to share with them. Also, another thing I often do on a sales conversation is I tell them what I see for them. If I’m seeing something even bigger and better than they’re sharing with me, because one of the things that is your job as a coach is to hold a bigger vision for these people than they hold for themselves and share that on a sales conversation.

[00:15:45] So I just want to tell you a little bit more about this conversation with my super, super slow cooker. So I said to her, “Would you like to have my irresistible invitation to get started today?” She said, “Yes.” I said, “Well, guess what? Even if you don’t start the class till April or May, as soon as you sign up, I get to start to serve you.”

[00:16:04] And then I told her what else she gets with the class. She gets the monthly networking, she gets two events a month we promote for her, she becomes part of the VIP group right away and everything else that we do. Plus I said, “Hey, if you sign up today, you can have more months to pay for it.” That’s another bonus. And then I said to her, “By the way, if you sign up today, I’ll give you half an hour one-on-one coaching session, just me and you. And we can do that right away to boost your sales immediately.” So you’re always looking for, what can you do to make an irresistible invitation. To force a decision. Because one of the things that I want to make sure everybody’s aware of, there’s only one personality that makes decisions quickly. And you’ve all talked to people that it’s like, they talk to you 50 times, they’re happy to talk to you, but they’re not making a decision.

[00:17:03] We want to look for what can we do in a conversation to create urgency and get them to that yes, because we’re making it irresistible. So those are some of the things that I do that I want to encourage you to find the equal for you. And by the way, when I said to her, ” do you want to hear my irresistible invitation?” — super tip alert, super tip alert– I said, “I’m only going to make this invitation once. And today is the day.” Because believe me, I’ve talked to this lady 10 times, at least over the last six years, she’s come to several workshops. Okay, I love her, she’s a great match for our community. I’m blissing that she signed up. But I wanted to say this is the only time I’m going to make this decision to force the decision. But of course, I say it with love. I say it with my cape on, okay?

[00:18:00] And by the way, this was last week, so she also got the January price. Letting people know that the price will go up is also something else that creates urgency. That’s another super tip for you.

[00:18:14] I do believe that yes, you have to be patient with Mary, Jane, or Sheila, but overall I do not feel that patience is a virtue, my friends, for sales, because that feels a little bit reactive to me and we have to be patient with individuals. And what does that patience look like? I want to debunk right now, something that many sales trainers say. They say, “Okay, you call so-and-so and they’re not ready to get started. And then you say to them, ‘Hey, would you like me to call you in three months or six months or a year?'”

[00:18:52] Okay. Are you kidding me? That is not how to do it. Now, you might make a phone date with them for a month or three months, but your job when somebody is a “not now”, your job is to build more influence with them. In fact, I like to say whenever anybody says anything that equals I’m not signing up today, that you take that you put it in your Star Trek universal translator. And it translates into: “You need to build more influence with me before I’m ready to buy.”

[00:19:28] I’m hoping everyone heard this, because people , especially women, they never say “Well, I’m not sure if you can help me.” They’re not going to say that. They never say, “I’m not sure about your program, if it’s gonna be of any value.” They’re not going to say that. What they say is, “I don’t have the time, I don’t have the money right now.” or, “I’ve got too much on my plate.” whatever it is. Take that, whatever they say, my friends. Believe me, I’ve heard all kinds of things. You take that and you translate into, “You need to build more influence with me.” Because I have seen this work.

[00:20:03] I cannot even count how many times a lady says to me, “Caterina. I can’t afford that.” And what do I say? I say, no problem. Come to my next workshop as my guest. Okay? I invite her to come to my next workshop at the end of the next workshop, she’s signing up. Why? Because now she saw the massive value that I had to bring. She feels that I could support her. And now, somehow, she’s finding the revenue that she didn’t have before. Because before, she wasn’t going to say, “I’m not sure if you’re worth that price, honey.” She’s not going to say that. She’s going to say, “I can’t afford it.” But if I keep building influence with her, then as a result, she’s going to become that slow cooker or that super slow cooker. It takes time for people. Remember situations change. Life situations change, business situations change. People’s revenue situations change. And as a result, if you have done a good job of keeping them engaged, they are going to come to you when they need what you have to offer.

[00:21:10] You know I talk about, it’s not about teaching stuff. It’s not even about people implementing stuff. It’s about them moving towards mastery on whatever it is we’re teaching. And mastery does not happen in a three-week course, in a nine-week course. The Thrive at Sales class that I offer is nine weeks. I’ve got several ladies this year that they’re in what we’re calling Sales Mastery, which means they get to take that class as many times as they want this year, because they know nine weeks is when you start to learn stuff, but then you’ve got to implement, you’ve got to upgrade, and you’ve got to master all of these skills. So this is very important for everybody to recognize. If you’re just teaching and then you’re moving on to the next students, I’m sorry for you. Because we need to have that masterclass also so that they can really master whatever they’re focused on that we’re teaching them.

[00:22:07] And then the other thing that I know is important to you and is important to me, and we do a lot of it around here, is cultivating community. Right? Women love community. If your clients are women, you want to look at how can you cultivate community through your business? And if you are not doing that, run don’t walk to do that.

[00:22:30] Because you want your clients to keep coming back. And one of the ways you do that is by doing these important things I’m going to tell you right now. You provide them, of course, education, but you also provide them ongoing support and ongoing guidance. And you provide them a structure. Like we have monthly networking in our community. First Monday of the month at 5:30. That’s the structure. Okay, then you have, for whatever programs, you have your regular calls. That’s a structure that cultivates accountability. And accountability creates more focus and more momentum for your clients. Let me say it again. A structure that creates accountability, gives them more focus and more momentum.

[00:23:17] Now here’s a couple other things though that you may not think of that I’m going to tell you is your job. It’s also your job to provide encouragement. It’s also your job to provide opportunities for celebration or recognition. And it’s also your job to cultivate community. Why? Because we’re all just big kids. And what I mean by that is, where else do people celebrate in their lives their business success? Well, hopefully they celebrate their business success in your program, in your community.

[00:23:56] Okay. So my friends, and just to recap step one: know your revenue numbers, what is the best month ever? Step two: get committed, make a decision. Step three: know how many of X you need to sell to get to that Y number of best month ever. Number four: okay, so here is important, my friends, I planned for a 25% close ratio. So what does that mean? That means if I need to have 10 sales, I better make sure that I get 40 sales conversations on my calendar.

[00:24:34] So the next thing is, Step Five, is you got to block out the time for when you’re going to talk to people. Because guess what? If your business is thriving, which I’m hoping it is, then you don’t got a lot of time. You’re serving clients.

[00:24:51] Remember the five things that are your jobs: Speaking and teaching, Selling, Serving your clients, Strategy, and Self- care. And if you don’t have time for selling, then you’re not going to be able to have your 40 conversations, right? Because also remember that some clients are going to take two conversations or three conversations. They’re not all going to be insta.

[00:25:16] And you also need time for what we would call, this is moving into step six, is reach outs. Reach outs are inviting people to have a conversation with you. And let me say one of the things that I’m encouraging all my clients to do, and the ones that are doing this are talking to more people.

[00:25:35] And just like we said, you want to block out any workshops for the year, you want to block those out. Any trainings, any group programs, you want to block those out for the whole year so that you can enroll people in them. Because if you don’t have a date and a topic and a price, you can’t sign somebody up. But as soon as you do, you can put someone in that workshop, in that class, whatever it is. But the other thing I want you to block out for the year is time to talk to people. And even right now, you might not have hardly anything on your calendar. Well, I want to encourage you to have time blocked out every week to talk to people for sales conversations.

[00:26:15] Now you can move those times to another day if you book a speech or something exciting comes up, you want to be out of town. But guess what? If you don’t block it out, then other things will get in there. And you have to make a decision, remember, our decision making is very important for this. How many conversations do you need?

[00:26:36] Again, and I encourage you to start with a 25% close ratio. Maybe you get a 50%, maybe you get a 70%, but start with the 25% and then monitor it to see what it really needs to be. Maybe you don’t need 40 for 10 sales. Maybe you just need 20, but you don’t know that if you’re not paying attention and you’re not tracking it.

[00:26:58] If you don’t know, I have a place in San Francisco, Thriving Women in Business Center, where we used to hold live and in person events. I am doing everything virtual, all my events. We did our summits virtual, our two and a half day summits. And I love doing virtual events and I love doing virtual speaking.

[00:27:15] It is much more challenging to get the follow-up conversations. Because when we’re live and in person, I like to use what I call the clipboard strategy, which is having all the times on a sheet that I’m available, and then I pass it around the room. And the beautiful thing is people have to make a decision whether or not they want an appointment before they pass it to the next person.

[00:27:38] And I have seen this work so well because I’ve been in a room where I get a 90% sign-up for a call with me, because it forces the decision and that’s what sometimes we have to do. And I want you to keep this in mind in your business as a guiding principle. What can I do to force the decision? Now, of course, it’s a very elegant way to do it. It’s there’s no really force involved, but it does evoke a decision before they pass it to the next person. But in a virtual world, I was like depresso in the beginning because, “Oh no. What am I going to do?” But here’s what I do. Now, I don’t do this at my one-hour workshop. I do it at my three-hour training. So I do a one-hour workshop that invites people to a three-hour training.

[00:28:21] Super tip alert, super tip alert. When we take a 10-minute break before the last hour, I send a personal private message to anybody in the chat whom I would like to book an appointment with. And I don’t put my calendar link because I don’t got a ton of availability and also that makes it harder for them. I would say something like, “Hey Sheila, I would love to have a follow-up conversation with you, and is Tuesday at 2:30 or 3:30 better for you?” And that evokes a decision. Again, my friends, we have to evoke that decision to get those calls on our calendar. And as a result of that, I get a very high response rate. So while everybody else is enjoying their 10-minute break, I’m working to get those sales conversations and it works very well.

[00:29:18] Now, the other thing I do because maybe sometimes people don’t see it, right after that three-hour training, I am sending a private message to Facebook or LinkedIn, depending on what platform they’re using more. And I’m sending a private personal message, saying, “Hey Sheila, thank you for coming. I would love to have a follow-up call with you.” And here’s what I say –super tip alert– to discuss the workshop and answer any questions you have and talk about next steps. This gets me a very high response rate. You got to do it immediately after if you weren’t able to use that strategy and get the calls during the training.

[00:29:58] Now, that means that you have to block out that time for sales conversations after your training. This is really important because — super tip alert, super tip alert– I never schedule a workshop if I don’t have time the next day for sales. So you’ll notice these days, I’m doing most of my workshops on Thursday so that I have Friday for selling. And when you block out your workshops for the whole year, when did you put it on the calendar? It better be a day that you have time the next day for sales and you want to block out that time for sales. This is part of sales strategy. Calendaring is a big part of strategy, and I’m hoping that you’re embracing these super tips we’re discussing for sales strategy.

[00:30:47] Now, they’re still going to get that blanket email that’s gonna have, you know, any follow-up resources and it’s also going to invite them to a conversation, but you have to make a personal invitation for people to have a conversation with you. That’s what gets them on the calendar. And by the way, let me say this. I do a lot of reaching out on Facebook and LinkedIn and the weekend is a great time to get calls on your calendar. I just got some calls on my calendar today.

[00:31:17] And the other thing is, as a woman in business, as an entrepreneur, on Saturdays, I don’t hesitate to do a couple of sales conversations because people are very relaxed. I’m happy to do it. Now that’s my life, because I got no boyfriend, I got no plants, I got no pets. No, I got a couple plants, but no pets. And so, you know, my life is that way. For some of you, I know you have weekends as sacrosanct that you don’t talk to anybody.

[00:31:45] But I’m going to tell you something. I was very blissing today to have a conversation with this lovely lady that I didn’t even know was going to turn into a sales conversation. And by 12 noon, I have a new client. So, you know, sometimes people say to me, “Caterina, how do you stay motivated?” You know what motivates me? When I sell something. It blisses me. I’m hoping that it blisses you, too.

[00:32:07] So we’re going to keep going. So we just said, step five: set up your success schedule, which means blocking out time for conversations.

[00:32:15] Step six: you got to put together your plan for how you’re going to get all of these potential clients. The shortest distance between you and a full client base: you ready for it? It’s very easy. Speaking, networking, and referrals.

[00:32:32] Now I’m not saying don’t do your launches, et cetera, but you know what? A lot of times launches don’t go the way people plan for them to go. I just talked to a lady today she’s had a launch, she spent $7,000, she thought she was gonna make a ton of money, she made almost nothing. I’ve heard this so many times and this is why I’m recommending speaking, networking, referrals.

[00:32:57] Now, when you speak, you want to invite people to come and spend more time with you. Why? Because the more time people spend with you, the more influence you build. Did everybody hear that? The more time people spend with you, the more influence you build. So when you speak, don’t make a big offer, make a super easy offer, come and hang out with me. Now, if I go speak, I don’t invite them to my one-hour free thing. I invite them from a speech to my three-hour training. And it depends, it’s regularly $47. Sometimes I charge them $27. But in certain communities, if it’s a community that I’m in all the time, like I’m in the PolkaDot community, then I’m going to give it to them at no cost.

[00:33:42] So keep in mind that you’ve got to figure out how you’re going to get these potential clients. Well, this is why speaking works so well. This is why workshops work so well, especially now you don’t even got to leave your house. Nobody else has to leave their house, which means that your show-up rate is way better than live and in person.

[00:34:07] Now, even if you have a 50% show-up rate, and I will tell you that that’s about average, that’s a lot better than when you are live and in person and it takes a lot more hours to get that many derrieres in chairs. Now it’s a lot easier to get smiles on the screen. And I’m hoping that you are scheduling your monthly free thing on a regular basis. Rinse and repeat, grab and go. Have a standard operating procedure to have a plethora of prospects. Do you want a plethora of prospects? I want you to have a plethora of prospects and this is why speaking, networking, and referrals are so powerful. But when you’re networking, you still got to build influence. When you’re getting referrals, you still got to build influence.

[00:34:54] Yesterday one of my clients referred somebody to me. She said, “Hey, this lady would love you, she needs to be part of your community.” I had a conversation with her yesterday. Did I try to sell her anything? Absolutely not. Because I have no influence. The person who referred her has influence. So what did I do? I invited her to come to my workshop.

[00:35:13] And sometimes I invite people as my guests. Sometimes I give them a discount code. It just depends on my mood. That’s the truth. Because sometimes I feel like, if I give it to them for free, they will be an insta-yes. Sometimes I feel like I want them to make an investment so I can see that they’re willing to make an investment, even if it’s little. This is again, back to strategy.

[00:35:39] So right now, because I’m very focused on my Thrive at Sales program that’s nine weeks. We’re doing another class in March. By the way, let me say, even though the class is nine weeks, I don’t got to wait nine weeks to offer the next class. I’m focused on my one-hour free thing that we then invite them to join the class.

[00:35:59] Now, what I’m doing though, is I’m paying attention to the numbers. So for example, I did my free thing a couple of days ago, we had 46 people, I think pre-registered. So that’s indicating to me that there’s plenty of people that want to come. If it starts to be like 20, then I’m noticing, well, maybe I’ve saturated the market a little too much with that topic and I’m going to call it something else. You can do the same topic if you’re getting the response. I’m getting a great response. So I’m doing the same topic. If the topic does not get the numbers I want, then I’m going to do a different topic. But because I’m still trying to fill my Thrive at Sales class, it will be related to sales. Like maybe I’ll do this one, how to have your best month ever, right? Because I love this topic.

[00:36:49] Now I do want to point out that your workshop has to match whatever your offer is, okay? So for example, 25 years ago I used to teach proactive dating strategies. Okay. Well, I don’t teach that class because I don’t have anything to sell. You only teach what matches what you offer.

[00:37:10] So let’s take it to the next step. Step seven is get accountability. You want ongoing support and ongoing guidance like we talked about earlier. And let’s be very clear: when you have accountability, when you have ongoing support and ongoing guidance, you will absolutely get better results because it creates more focus and it creates more momentum. It doesn’t have to be in a paid program like the one I offer, other people offer, it could be simply you and a couple other gals getting together.

[00:37:45] And I do want to say one of the things that I do in addition to the Thrive at Sales class is my clients do sales blitzing every week. You get on a call, a Zoom, and you all share what you’re going to do. “Hey, I’m going to do 25 reach-outs. Hey, I’m going to get 10 people for my upcoming workshop.” And then you get off the Zoom and you do it and then you report back at the end. And you will find that this does keep you focused and does create momentum because the goal is not just to teach you how to sell. The goal is for you to master selling. And weekly sales blitzing has super supported the ladies in becoming more masterful at selling.

[00:38:29] And again, you don’t need a program to do this. But you do need a couple other people to make a sales blitz date with, and that is part of ongoing support. And I do invite you to do that. You know, one of the things I don’t actually have on here that I’m going to throw in is I want you to bring your positive disposition. To not only your conversations, but bring your “expect success” attitude to pursuing your best month ever. Because you have to expect success to get success.

[00:39:04] One of the things that gets in the way, and this is the next step, is managing our disappointment.  Managing our disappointment because it’s very common that somebody that said they were going to sign up, then they don’t sign up, or they vanish, or you’re so excited to talk to Sheila at three o’clock and she confirmed at two o’clock and at three o’clock she’s nowhere to be found. Now, instead of just speaking the truth to ourselves. “Oh, well, she’s not here.” We make all these stories up. “Well, she must not want to talk to me. She changed her mind. Maybe she doesn’t like me anymore.” Like all of that is these things that go on in our head. And so I really want you to have an “expect success” attitude as you pursue your best month ever and talking to people.

[00:39:57] I got two more super tips. One is track your numbers and evaluate your progress daily. And what that means is, I want you to find out what really is your close ratio? How many calls can you do in a day? One of the things I did this last month is I went from a 30-minute conversation to a 20-minute conversation. Because if I have 30 minutes blocked down on my calendar, I’m usually taking 30 minutes. But now I’m having a lot more sales happen in 12 minutes, 15 minutes and 20 minutes. Now, I’m not saying you have to do that, but I’m saying you might want to test it, because as a result you may improve your close ratio beause you’ve got more time to talk to people.

[00:40:47] Now I will say I do not schedule calls every 20 minutes. I schedule calls every 30 minutes, but that extra time in there allows me to get some non-sales work done or reach outs if it’s a day that’s set aside for sales. The personal reach-out is going to put smiles on the screen. It’s going to put sales conversations on your calendar more than any promotion or any automated anything that you do, you know, because when you personally reach out to someone, again, that evokes a decision before they respond back to you. If you just send a blanket email “Hey, everybody, you want to have a conversation with me?” that’s not going to evoke a decision because it’s not a personal invitation. And this is very, very important. This is how you keep your workshops full. This is how you get sales conversations on your calendar.

[00:41:43] Many, many years ago I was a direct seller and I sold jewelry. And one of the things you learn as a direct seller is you ask every single person to book a party. And I remember sometimes I would be doing this jewelry show and there would be some lady with a faccia lunga, that means long face in Italian and she wasn’t making eye contact with me and she was looking like, you know, she wasn’t even happy to be there. But I knew that, as a salesperson, I had to ask every single person to book a party. And I would ask these ladies, even though they looked like they didn’t even want to be in the same room with me, I would ask them if they wanted to book a party. And sometimes I would be shocked when they said yes. Sometimes people just don’t look like they’re enthusiastic when they are, but also we can’t make any assumptions.

[00:42:34] And that’s part of what happens, in community, is that people may not even ever think about working with someone like you, you know, they have to get used to the idea. And so this is why it is so important that we ask everybody. But this is also why it’s important to use the workshop strategy, because nobody’s going to show up for your workshop if they’re not genuinely interested in what you have to offer.

[00:43:00] My friends, number 10, be bold. And for some of you, this may be the most important strategy because you may be not talking to people because maybe it makes you uncomfortable.

[00:43:14] Well, the thing is every new client is probably on the other side of your comfort zone and we have to be willing to be uncomfortable. And we have to be willing to ask people for a conversation if we want them as a client even if they’re not giving us any indication, we want to get them to a workshop or get them to a conversation or something. Yes, you can use other tools, your eBooks, your video series. Yes, you can use all that. But we really want to personalize the conversation and the process as much as possible because we are selling to individuals.

[00:43:53] And when people feel seen, heard, valued, appreciated, welcomed. When they get a sense that we genuinely care about them, when they get a sense that they matter to us, that we want to support them to be successful. When we communicate these things, they are much more likely to be our client. An ebook and a video series and all those things do not do that as well as a one-on-one conversation or inviting them to your virtual workshop, where you can have them feel seen, heard, valued, welcomed, appreciated, genuinely cared for, where you can acknowledge them, where you can love on them. This is really important for you to get more clients and more sales.

[00:44:41] This is a lot of important stuff here. And step one, know your numbers, meaning know what your best month ever is.

[00:44:48] Step two, get committed, which means make a decision to make it your best month ever.

[00:44:54] Step three, get clear on how you’re going to get to your best month ever. Which means how many of X do you need to sell? How many of Y how many of Z, whatever it is. Put together that best month ever sales equation.

[00:45:07] Step four plan on a 25% close ratio. Now you may have a much better close ratio, but start with that and then pay attention to what your close ratio is, which will improve your planning for the future.

[00:45:22] Step five block out that time to talk to people, put together your sales schedule. Because you can’t have 20 conversations if you don’t have time to talk to 20 people. And if you don’t have sales calls, then you’re doing reach outs to get sales calls.

[00:45:39] Step six is reach-outs. Reach-outs are inviting people to have a conversation with you.

[00:45:46] Then of course, number seven is create some accountability. Do that with a friend, do that with a group. I invite you all to check out our Set Yourself Up to Thrive at Sales class. Do something to create some ongoing support and some ongoing guidance and a structure that facilitates accountability.

[00:46:05] And then step eight is manage your disappointment. Do not let any no’s or any not now’s interfere with your commitment to have your best month ever.

[00:46:18] Step nine, track your numbers, track your revenue, track how many calls it takes, evaluate your progress on a daily basis. “Hey, how many calls did I have? How many, much action did I get? What else could I need to do? How do I make this call better?”

[00:46:34] And then of course, number 10, my friends, which we’ve just discussed is be bold. Be willing to be uncomfortable because the more you’re willing to be uncomfortable, the more you’re going to grow your sales. And the more you’re going to be surprised that somebody you didn’t think would be interested, they’re interested.

[00:46:51] Here’s my criteria. If I feel a woman is going to gain value in my community or my classes, and I also feel she’s going to bring value, then I am going to invite her to be my client. And I am going to keep inviting her to engage with me until she either says “no, never”, or until she hopefully jumps in the fountain and I have seen this over and over and over. That, as long as we remember, there’s four kinds of clients, not just insta clients, slow cookers, super slow cookers, and super, super slow cookers that take more than a year, you will be blissing when a super, super slow cooker gets in your fountain and becomes your client.

[00:47:35] Okay, my friends, take what we’ve discussed. Make some upgrades. Don’t think about making upgrades, make some upgrades. Because the more you implement these strategies, the more you are going to have higher revenue every single month. It might take you a month or two or three to move towards mastery on some of these, that’s okay. You’re super smart. You can make it happen.

[00:48:05] I also invite you to connect with me and our amazing Thriving Women in Business Community on Facebook, in our Thriving Women in Business group.

[00:48:17] In January, we will be doing four week best month ever challenge.

[00:48:24] And you, as someone who listens to the Expand Your Fempire podcast, can participate and expand your fempire and have your best month ever. Use the code “podcast.” And guess what? You’re gonna get a VIP discount to come for a very low price of only $147, and I am sure you are gonna get your investment back, not only tenfold. Also, it is gonna support you to have your best month and really your best year ever. That’s why we’re doing it in January to support you to have your best year ever, and I hope to see you there.

[00:49:12] Caterina Rando: Get more support. Get engaged with our community because that will support you to grow, thrive, learn more, and of course be more uplifted when you leave than when you showed up. Just like I hope you’re experiencing with every episode of Expand your Fempire, that you’re listening to.

[00:49:36] If you have not gone to Caterinarando.com/links, that will take you to many free resources, including our Expand Your Fempire app, including information about my next free workshop.

[00:49:54] We do workshops on sales. We do workshops on speaking and other hot topics. I’m here to serve you. I’m here to support you. Grab all the info you can, because I want you to make even more of a difference with your amazing business.

[00:50:12] This is Caterina Rando reminding you, you have massive value to bring. There is a lifetime supply of people to serve. Your job is to get better at your selling, build influence, be speaking.

[00:50:27] In order to serve more, you got to sell more. When you do that, you know what will happen? You will uplift more lives. And that is one of the biggest joys you will ever experience.

[00:50:40] Love to you. Can’t wait to be with you again on another episode of the Expand your Fempire podcast

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Expand Your Fempire with Caterina Rando.