Welcome to digitally done. And in this episode, we're going to be talking about the mindset. For sales, I'm Nikki Cali, and we also have with us Sam Winch and Lizzie Macaulay say hi. 

  Hello.

  Now in this episode, we are going to be talking about that weird feeling that you might get when you're trying to do your sales or as I love what Lizzie calls it, the fangirl or the cool girl concept. So let's just dive straight in. I really want to get into this whole fangirl fangirl and, and cool girl thing.

So Lizzie just. Explain to our audience, anyway, all of this.

  So I have a particular rant that people in my orbit will definitely have heard on some level, but I have this theory, right? It's a, it's a Lizzie ism. Let's say that we are too busy being the cool girl in our business to be the fangirl in our business. Most of us,  Just through, through years of, I guess, societal programming and being told that we need to be humble and be quiet and be small.  we get the opportunity to talk about our business or our thing or even ourselves to a certain extent, we go, Oh, yeah, we play it down. It's not, it's not, it's not bad. It's fine. It's pretty. Yeah, that's good. You know, and that's not exactly smacking of enthusiasm, is it, for the thing that we have put our hearts and souls into, and we know will help people, and we know is really high quality, and we know is all these things that people need and can solve their problems.  And it's not inspiring a lot of confidence in the product or service itself. And so what I have taken a lot of time to encourage people, including myself to do more of is to become the absolute raving fangirl of their own thing, because that enthusiasm is so infectious. Have you seen my thing? It's really great. I really love to do it. I love to teach. I love to talk about it with people. I'm so passionate about the stuff that I do. I really, I can't wait for you to see it. It's so good. Now, isn't that just kind of a different vibe than, Oh yeah, yeah, it's nice.  So I highly encourage in the, in the spirit of getting in the mindset for sales is go be the fangirl. Go love the crap out of the thing that you do and tell people how much you love it. Please. Hmm.

 Yeah.

No, I interesting concept,   hey?   

And it just flows perfectly like from our previous episode, which was all on pricing and the confidence in your value and all that sort of stuff. You've got to get that mindset right. And you know, Sam, like just before we started recording this, Sam, you know, was telling us a little bit of a story about how she had to really believe in herself, that she values herself. And I would love you to like, you know, Tell our audience a bit more about that whole, you know, and we all get it, but that weird feeling that you get with sales. Why, why do we get that? Do you reckon like, I just don't get it, but  I don't understand.

no, I do. I think I, I, I'm, I'm one of those people who has always felt that bit ooky about that word sales. You know, I was brought up you know, middle class English family. Children are designed to be seen, not heard. Like it's very English. Dip off a lip. Like you don't make a fuss about things. You know, you don't, you don't shout from the rooftops.

You have got to be humble. You don't, you don't brag. Bragging's, Bragging is bad. That definitely my upbringing a hundred percent. So even now, like talking about myself is uncomfortable. And I was called out about it just the other day. Someone asked me how things are going. And I'm like, Oh, they're okay.

She says, they're not okay. They're good. They're great. And I was like, Oh yeah, kind of. Okay. Like  it felt wrong to say, actually, I think I'm doing really great. So the, the natural reaction for me. Was to go, Oh yeah, no, I'm going. Okay. I think now whether it's that uncertainty that I don't want to get called out in case I'm not, or that I don't want to brag, like, but it's definitely that feeling of like, Oh no, can't, can't say great things.

Like I have to say just, it's okay, but it's interesting to see that I come across countless clients when we talk about. The building, the course is one thing, right? But the selling the course, that's a whole nother, that's a whole nother thing. And I know so many course creators who procrastinate and postpone and put off when we come towards the sticky end of finishing something, they never sell it.

And I, you know, try as I might push as I might. There are some clients who've, I believe still probably to this day, who've never crossed the line, who have this most beautiful thing that they've invested in building that they've, they've developed. They've recorded videos for whatever else that is still sitting without a sales page or has a sales page technically that I know is linked up, but has never once been spoken about or promoted about online.

So it's just sitting in the ether of the internet with no love and it's sad to see it happen, It's not an isolated incident. Like I see people do it.

 Why do you think that is, Sam? Could you, could you hazard a guess?

  Yeah. I think it comes down to several things. I know in the last episode, when we were talking about pricing, I do think some of it comes down to when they first build a thing, they feel uncertain that it's going to deliver the outcome that they've promised. Some of that imposter syndrome y, like. Oh, I don't know now.

What if everyone hates it? What if it doesn't work? What if like, what if it fails? It's those sorts of doubts. We can definitely lead ourselves into stories about that. My coach calls me out in this because I was like, what if they hate it? What if my client like hates the program? She's like, Sam, when has that ever happened?

And I was like, Well, it hasn't, they  know they always love it. She's like, so where is the evidence to support the fact they will hate it? And I'm like, yeah, fair point. Okay. So she really calls me out on that. And like, I need someone to call me out on my own bullshit in that sense, because like I too fall into those thought patterns, but I think with clients, it's definitely the case of like, you know, I've, I've kind of poured my heart and soul into this thing.

What if it gets ripped to shreds by someone else? What if they don't love it? What if it doesn't sell, which is kind of a self fulfilling prophecy because then they never sell it. But like, right, what if it's the, what if, what if, what if mentality of what if, what if, and it's, it is hamstringing, like it completely holds them back from promoting this thing into the world.

And I love your fangirl thing. Cause it actively. Wish I was that person, but I also know that I need to do work on that. Like I'm not the best fangirl for my own business and I should be, right? There's no reason I shouldn't be, but it's something that, that I still struggle with.

  Well, that's allowed as well. Yes. Sorry, Nikki. I just to say like, I don't think  the reasoning for the rant is because how dare people not be screaming everything from the rooftops 24 seven, but it's more like pointing out and just poking a little towards like, well, we could start this, could we not, we could say less like, and more yes, and, and see how it goes and just sort of.  sort of nudge towards being a bit bolder in the way we claim our worth and our brilliance and our impact, I think.

  Yeah, I think it's probably some, some of the people I come across who don't promote the thing at all, or as much as I think they should be. There's probably two types there. There's the ones that know they're not doing it and are probably quite self aware that it's because they've got some kind of limiting belief about it.

But then there are those who I genuinely believe don't know that they're doing it because they've always got a reason. Oh, it's not quite ready yet. It's not quite finished yet. Oh, I need to rerecord that video still. I'm not sure. And I, Nikki, I think you're the same. We see those clients who are caught in that perfectionist cycle of going, Oh, but I still have to fix that thing.

I still have to fix that. And so it never gets to the selling point. They won't tell you that that's the reason, or they're probably not even self aware that that's the reason, but it's still stuck in that perfectionist cycle and is never properly promoted or properly pushed for sale because they think it's not ready yet.

Or it's not perfect yet is definitely one as well.

  you can't, you just got to remember to like, I think we all want to please everyone. And I think that's what we're  touching on here, but you can't please everyone. So your course isn't always going to be perfect for everybody, but you've got to me. I always say embrace that because  I wouldn't have put out wisdom.  If I had wanted it to be perfect from the very beginning, there's no way in hell I would have been able to do that. And I wouldn't have had feedback. I wouldn't have been knowing what it was that people really did want in the end. Like we were putting stuff out there. We got our feedback through testing and so forth.

And that's where, you know, like you touched on this in the last episode, Lizzie too, like, you know, with the whole beta testing, pricing, things like that as well. Like you can put out a product, you can put out things out there to initiate the whole idea. And Sam, I love your thing that you always advise, you know, you know, you've come on to our systems and like expertise, expert talks and everything said, just start the bloody thing.

Just put one bit of lesson out there at least, and just get the ball rolling. See what people are wanting, get that feedback. You're not going to be perfect the first time. I think if you have that mindset of, it's not going to be perfect. But what I'm doing is starting the ball rolling and getting feedback.

I will then be able to create a product based on people's,  feedback and create something that they really want. And

you get, you get some sort of, you get a form of excitement out of that. When you know what you're doing is literally what they need because you are getting that feedback. And I think that's a big thing, like with respect to feedback. To mindset,  like you touched on before, like you just can't be perfect. Don't be perfect. I know we all want to be

I don't think. 

but

It's a completely  unrealistic expectation, right? Perfection doesn't exist. There is no perfect. And especially even when it comes to courses, because you're trying to deliver a product to meet the needs of the many,  it's impossible to make everyone happy. It's just not possible. So we have to find that like, until it gets out into the world.

And I tell clients this all the time, that while it's sitting in a course platform or in your hard drive or wherever, we don't know, like, we just don't know if it's going to help anyone because we have to get it into their hands and get them to use it. To get any data back. And so at the moment it's not helping anyone because it's not reaching anyone.

But the moment it starts to reach someone, we can go, ah, cool. That's the bit that works. That's the bit that doesn't. But until we've got that feedback, we've got nothing right. Lizzie, you, when we very first met, I think had a favorite quote and it's the thing that we sort of started this episode with, it started the ballpark for this episode which was about doing people a disservice.

You want to tell me a bit more about that?

 Well, here's the thing. It's a perfect segue, I guess, into that is because you say, you know, like it gets locked away

forever, for instance,  And  chances are, especially if, if the two of you guys have worked on it, it's going to be bloody amazing, right? And somebody is really going to need it. And what you're doing by keeping it locked away is denying somebody that opportunity to learn or to heal or to better themselves in some way, because what you're.

scared of what might happen? What if it's amazing? What if what happens is that you change somebody's life for the better forever? What if what happens is you fundamentally change the course of an entire generation and every generation after that because you shared your thing, right? What if that's what happens instead of one?

If nobody likes it, maybe nobody will like it. Maybe they're the wrong people and you need to find the right people and change their damn lives. Right. And yeah, I'm getting a bit excited about it, but this is so important because, you know, we, it's, it goes back to the cool girl again. It's like, oh, well, it's fine. What if it's amazing? Right. Maybe we need to spend a bit more time thinking about those what ifs instead.

  I need to carry around a little Lizzy on my 

 Yeah. 

 Like, does anyone ever feel that? If you're listening to this podcast and you agree, please let us know in the voice notes because like, I need a little Lizzy on my shoulder to like, 'cause you know when that internal voice starts going, what if no one likes it?

You need Lizzy on the other end. What if they do like it? Like what? What if like, I need that in my ear the whole time. Hey,

  It's fun. It's a much more pleasant thought.

Because isn't someone that send you to a better place? What if it is amazing? And admittedly, I have had people in my space over the years who have said, Oh, but what if it is amazing? What if I, what if it's really good? And been concerned about that. What if I did like, well, isn't that what we're all here for? She's like, no, I can't handle that. So, okay, cool.

that  opens up a whole different set of fear. That's a whole nother podcast episode that is

  I don't really have many good answers for that. And I'd be like, I would, I would be very fine with it. Thank you. Yes, please. 

  So,

 yeah, I just like, that's my little pep talk. It's like, well, what if, what if it is amazing? Let's do that. Let's think about that. What if you. Change the course of history. That would be cool.

I think 

  It's

just like having a conversation with a friend. I know this is going sort of,  sound like I'm not going anywhere with this, but I promise that, you know, like you, you have a conversation with a friend, you're there asking for advice or whatever you are there to support them, to help them. You're confident in the information that you're giving them.

And they're a friend. Why can't you have that same confidence to other people? You just don't know where those friends. Holding up exclamation marks are out online, you know, you're helping, you could just help someone, one person you could help. Like you just said, like any bit of information you put out there or content you put out there will help someone either directly or indirectly. It could, Might not be exactly the information they hear like word for word, but it could be  Spark an idea, spark a thought, whatever it is  And I don't, and I think you know, we have conversations every day with people. We're comfortable. We're confident talking to friends, family, whatever it is Helping them with solutions every day  Where's that confidence, you know, and sometimes it's yes, because you feel like you don't know them. They're going to, they might not accept you or anything like that, but you don't realize, I think all of us have some sort of lovable side to us that we need to,  to just, you know,  remember every now and then online, you know, it's not about, I don't go online and make my hair all perfect and all that sort of stuff.

I think we've talked about this before. I'm not sure,  but I, you know, what you see is what you get. And it's just me, Nikki, that's who I am. And I'm here to help you. However, you need help,  you take it or you leave it, whatever it is. And I think some of us have to sort of have that mindset. And when you put a price with that advice, I think that's where the big  happens to a lot of people.  That was me doing a slap  to anyone who was wondering what that noise was, but yeah, it's just, you know, I think, you know, looking at the mindset for sales, I think  it's that initial, it's either you get the ickiness at the initial point of the sales or the closing of the sales. And I would love to know what our audience thinks with respect to that. Where their ickyness might step in. Is it actually making contact with those people initially talking with them and selling yourself as a person that's, you know, like here I am to help you or whatever the content, whatever it is, or is it actually closing that sale? You know, where is that ickyness coming in for you?

I'd really love to learn that because I think a difference there somewhere along the way. How about you guys? What do you think about that? 

It's interesting with course sales because I think most of the people I work with come originally with the concept that courses are just going to be passive income. So they don't have to sell. And I do wonder if part of the lure of the concept of passive income is an audience that thinks, Oh, I don't have to sell it.

Right. There's no hard sell. And so Great. Great. That's part of the reason why passive income doesn't work is because actually you do have to still sell it. Like sure, there's, there's leveraged income, the work goes in elsewhere, but a sales process is still required somewhere along the line. And if you're not in the game to sell something, you're still not going to make any money.

Right. That's, that's not the way this works. So I think that yeah, it's interesting when you talk about where is the ickyness, because I think sometimes people are led to thinking, and probably perfect for us talking about digital products that like, they can just build a digital thing so they won't have to sell it.

Right. It would just sell.

  I have an interesting. Well, it might not be interesting. I have an alternative  suggestion  is that if you are feeling ache and I get the aches about silly, I'm, I'm no different  if you're feeling ache about anything that you do in life, when we are bad at something like quote unquote bad, what do we do to get better?  Do more  of it.

  Yeah. So there are people who are willing to teach us how to be awesome at sales.

We could just go into more conversations and know,  okay,  step one, be a bit crap at it and get better, you know, and as long as the expectation isn't, I'm going to be amazing at sales. I'm going to have it have a hundred percent conversion rate.

If you can sort of give yourself the grace to be a bit crap at it to start with so that you can give yourself the opportunity to get better. You know what you'll get better, uh, go find resources, go look at the reels or the YouTubes or whatever. One of my favorite Instagram accounts is that no shade, no shame sales game lady who, you know,  she did a series recently that was all about all the dumb stuff that you can buy online.

Why aren't you selling your product better? Because if they can ask for like a, I don't know, it was like a jazzled  model of a. Something, I don't know, it was, it was a disaster and she was like, you shut up. So, you know, if, if there are people out there who are willing to ask for the thing, why aren't you?

Just get a bit of practice in, I think. And I don't want to oversimplify it, but, you know, that's what we, the advice we tell our kids when they don't want to do something. They get ics because they don't want to do their homework or whatever thing. Well, practice makes perfect, doesn't it? 

  Yeah, that's a really interesting way to put it actually. Like if you've got the X, that just means you need to face it more. Like it's very easy to retreat. And when we talk a lot about the concept of comfort zones, like if it feels uncomfortable, that's not always a bad thing. Right. We need to lean into that discomfort and that's.

a difficult concept. It's easy to understand, right? And it's easy to recommend to others. Sometimes it's difficult when it's your own discomfort. You're like, Oh wait, no, hang on. This means I probably need to do more of it, even though I don't really want to. It does, you're right. Ring true of my mom telling me to do my homework though, 

 I know it's gross. I know it's like it's terrible advice. Why can't I just do the easy quote unquote easy thing and go and  never have to sell anything? But then it's not easy and we've talked about the easy versus hard and how they're actually the opposite of each other, the naughty thing, but going and doing the thing makes it easier to do the thing.

 exactly. I remember  our first job, right? Well, one of my first jobs, I started working in a surf store. I worked, I lived in country area, like working in a surf store. What the hell do I know about surf stuff? I walked in there thinking, how the hell am I going to do this stuff? There's  so no confidence at all in what I could do.

And then slowly, slowly understood the product I was selling and so forth. It's the same thing and ended up making great sales and, you know, competing with other people in the store. It was great. It was fun times, but that's the same concept as what you're doing here with your product. The more confident you are, obviously one, you've got to be confident with your product.  Obviously that takes into corporation with unit pricing and so forth, but you've got to be confident with who you're talking to. And that confidence also comes with not just practicing that sales process, but it's also comes with understanding and having confidence in your market. And you're going to grow that confidence.

And this is where I touched on before. It's like having a chat with a friend. You're listening. To their

problem and giving them the solution and that confidence will build when you understand their problems and what you have to offer to help them. That's obviously through a coaching process or, you know, courses and things like that.

But if you've got like a, like a, just a general ebook or digital product, the aim there is, if you're going to be selling that, you've got to put the effort into selling that. And why will people buy from you? And that's that building the trust.  So you've got to build confidence in others as well. So there's that aspect on both sides, building trust and confidence  on both sides.

  It's a really interesting concept because as much as I always used to say that I didn't like selling, what I do really like doing is getting to know someone, getting to know where they're stuck and offering a solution.

And I And I do that too well. Like I've often over the past couple of years have had to turn down clients because I convert too many sales calls, but I would never have told you I convert too many sales calls.

I would tell you that once I get them on the phone and we have a chat, they call like, cool, Sam, do that for me is really what happens is because I'm like, Oh, I get your problem. I see where you're stuck. Like, this is what we could do. And that's really what it became for me with like. If you'd have ever said you'd be great at sales, I'd have laughed at you, but I am good at getting to know where my audience is stuck and going, cool, this is how I get you unstuck.

And that's all it became for me. It's like, oh, it almost became a game. Like  how, how good can I learn about where they get stuck? How, how good can I be at pinpointing? Like when they're going to call, I'm like, I already know where you're stuck. I can predict it. I know where, I know where you're stuck right now.

Yeah. And that, that was, that is sales, right? That was sales. But for me, it was that change of mindset. It's like, Oh no, what I'm really doing is just getting to really know them, find out exactly what their problem is and going, that's really cool because this is exactly the solution, right? This is exactly how we get you out of that spot.

And once you realize that, and you're realizing that you're just offering the thing they really want anyway, because. They're already stuck there and they're, they're desperately already looking for the solution to that thing. And you've gone, yeah, cool. This is how you do that. And like, Oh my God, Sam, take my money, book me in.

And I go, ah, cool. My writing list is four months. I'll book you in, in June. Like 

 your humble brag there. I love

I 

know. And I said, I couldn't do it. But it's once I flipped the belief about what I was doing, right? Still, the concept of sales still brings up all those weird mentalities. Me like, I don't know. Use cars, men and real estate agents and sorry, real estate agents.

You're all lovely, really. But it's those concepts, right? But once I was like, Oh no, I'm just helping them. Like, and I actually am genuinely helping them because they're on the internet. They're already looking for a solution. That's how they found me.  I'm just telling them what the solution is and they're like, yeah, please take my money.

So like, if you flip it that way, if you start to go, Ashley sales, isn't necessarily the hook, you have the solution, right? Lizzie, this is what you were saying. You're doing them a disservice because you have the thing they want. And if you refuse to tell them about it, you're really not helping them because they want it.

They're looking for it. That's why they're on the internet. It's 

 what then that's probably at least partly why they're on the call too.

Yeah, a hundred percent. told that what you offer is going to solve the thing they came on the call for 

in the moment, I guess.  Hmm. Interesting. Well, I think that that has  set some thoughts in my brain for later too. How good. 

  Well, what, um, bit of advice would everyone like to offer to our listeners that they can take away, have a think about, and what activity we gonna get people to  practice maybe after this? 

  I think my piece of advice slash the activity I want them to do is get a mini Lizzie on their shoulder. But if not, at least a mini Lizzie consider what, what would Lizzie say right now? It needs to be the tech catchphrase that I walk away with. Like I start going, what if they don't like it? No, Sam, what would Lizzie say?

Lizzie would say, but what if they do like it? And that's the challenge I want to set to people as well as start thinking, what would Lizzie say right now? Because I bet you, she'd call you out and say, but what if they did

  I, I do that. You've caught me. I do have that conversation a lot because I'm a hopeless optimist and I really believe in all of the magic that's in the world and how much knowledge we all have to share. And that's what makes it so great. This richness and diversity of knowledge and wisdom and gifts that we all possess that are different from each other. Why shouldn't we all know about them so we can all kind of collectively be better, I guess.   At my homework, I'm struggling to think. I had a good one and I forgot because I got sidetracked by like my mission to make people feel happy.  What was it?  Hmm.

 my bit of a little bit of thing to take away is just,  just like we all said earlier and Lizzie said, and Sam said, practice makes perfect. Just keep practicing and build up that confidence and just relax,  relax, just be yourself.

  That's always good. I thought of the thing that I was supposed to say, and it kind of builds on, on the two of well, not, not on what would Lizzie say?  That makes me a little funny, but practice right?  Guarantee you if you're in business and you're in, in a community with other people who are also in business, there's going to be somebody out there who also needs to practice.  So there's nothing wrong with  finding your safe place. My community, we do practice stuff like that all the time, finding your safe space for your trusted human to practice your sales calls on because the more you actually say the words. and receive feedback from it as well. So you're not just saying it to the mirror, but you're actually saying it to a person. You develop that vocabulary and you, you work out what works and what doesn't, and you're doing it in a trusted, safe way. So when the time comes that you are speaking to an actual human who may or may not buy your digital thing,  it feels less uncomfortable because you've already mastered the language around it.

  yourself even in doing it.

  Yep.

 done a couple of times

  Yeah. 

  but anyway, 

well, I think that's been an awesome episode and I can't wait until the next episode. So what are we discussing in our next episode? 

  That's a good question. Oh, are we going back to marketing? Are we building that runway? Finally, finally, we get to talk about marketing again. It's only been, what, three

episodes? 

 Lizzie's so excited. Can you tell? Can anyone tell that Lizzie is desperate to talk more marketing?

  I'm so sorry. Hey, bye 

 We know it. We've got to do it. It has to be done. Well, look, thank you so much for listening to this episode and we'd love to see you hop onto the next one. Be sure to subscribe. And also be sure to get in touch and leave a message in our voicemail box leave any questions.

Ideas, thoughts, or anything like that on this episode or even past episodes.  And remember the action for this week to just keep practicing.  So we'll see you in our next episode. Thank you ladies for your time.​