Last month at Acceleration 365, my live event in Florida, I felt like a rock star. I opened the conference with an inspiring message and really connected with my audience. The program was going so well, I was thrilled.
But then it happened…
The big wah wah wah (said like the Peanuts school teacher)…
It was during the part of the program when it came to selling the final two seats in my Inner Circle Mastermind program. My posture changed. I went from rock star to shrinking violet in about 30 seconds. Fortunately, my amazing coach Lisa Larter was in the audience and mentioned it to me at lunchtime.
Alan Weiss of Million Dollar Consulting always says “the first sale is to yourself.” Oh boy, is that ever true.
Let’s say you get to the end of your speech and you go to ask for the business in the form of the “help me speech.” This is two lines right before your closing story that says, “As you can see I am passionate about [Insert Topic]. If you know of anyone who could benefit from this program, please come and hand me your business card when we are finished”. This is a concept derived from Thom Winninger that some of you might use when starting out and delivery freebies.
But what if when you go to say your two lines, inside your head, your little green monster is screaming “selling from the stage is wrong… Ewww, don’t do it”. Or if like me in Florida, you don’t “like” to pitch people who have already paid to be in your room.
Then what will happen?
You might just lose your posture.
And if you lose your posture, you have lost the sale.
Wah wah wah…… deflated, shrinking violet.
You have to believe in what you are selling.
To further my own posture mistake, when I did circle back to pitch it, I was selling features, not benefits and outcomes of my program. I should have been saying things like…
If you are tired of getting lower fees than you are worth and you want to focus on filling your pipeline with more quality clients.
Or… Maybe you want to build the confidence to close full fee deals, then you might want to consider the Inner Circle Mastermind.
Instead, I was sharing that we meet every month and do quarterly one-on-one sessions. Those are features. Those are mechanics. They are not outcomes and not benefits.
I did believe in my program, but I didn’t believe in pitching from the stage and therein lies the rub. I have to believe that if people flew halfway across the country to spend the weekend with me, then they would WANT to know what all I had to offer. They WANT to know about the opportunity.
I will get better at this!
How about you?
Where do you need help standing tall in your fees? Where do you lose your posture?
We’d love for you to share a comment below!
See you soon, Wealthy Speakers!
