Anti-Discount & My Black Friday Bust to prove it
If you don’t value yourself, how you can expect anyone else to value you?
HELPING FEMALE ENTREPRENUERS CHANGE THE MINDSET AROUND SELLING, INCREASING REVENUE WITH CONFIDENCE BY BUILDING REPEATABLE SALES PROCESSES.
Inspired by her own journey in corporate and entrepreneurship Gwen is helping to bridge the gap of selling from a place of confidence and authenticity. Whether you have zero experience in sales or decades- it’s time to refuse masculine sales norms and lean into our feminine gifts of empathy, intuition and relationship building skills.
Through my B3 framework (Breaking Belief Barriers) Be sure to check it out on my website. I show you how to have confidence through authenticity, increase revenue/sales by shifting your mindset around selling, then build repeatable sales processes that feel good to you and your prospect, which in turn will save you time, money and anti-aging cream! Ha!
You don't want to miss:
My own Black Friday Bust!
Why discounting cheapens your product/service
How discounting does the opposite of what you want it to do
Areas I see where insecurity rears its ugly head is through discounting! Before we get into what this says to our customers and prospects, let's dive deep into what goes on in your head first especially this time of year.
Price war - You see someone doing something similar to you all over Instagram and they have Black Friday specials so of course why would someone buy your higher ticket item
This is a great time to get a quick boost in revenue
You get excited and pour your time and energy into this big promotion around black Friday, but haven’t set realistic expectations
Perhaps you think this is going to save you because you see all the other stories of everyone else hitting it big on black Friday.
Let’s set the stage first- Always come from a place of help. Having the conversations that tend to be “hard” isn’t hard when you genuinely want to help.
Social Media is NOT your friend!
Girlfriends- there is always going to be someone who is doing something bigger and more grand than you… doesn’t mean it’s better! You have no idea what is going on behind those closed business doors, what worries that person stays up with at night, what money she does or doesn’t have in her bank account. Bigger and grander doesn’t mean better!
My own Black Friday Bust
I may have mentioned a time or two but for 6 years I was a director in Mary Kay Cosmetics. Early on in my career, I drank the kool-aid. Now, hear my heart- Mary Kay was a huge blessing in my life and what set the foundation for my future sales career and in large part why I am so passionate about selling differently! My director is still an incredible friend and mentor to whom I have contributed much of my success to date to her. Okay back to my story- The training I attended there was a ton of hype around black Friday and one success story after another of others who would sell thousands and thousands of dollars in one day. With a small customer base and not having built much of a connection beyond the sale, I foolishly decided to host an open house black Friday event in my home. I spent hours packaging, making labels, decorating, and having hot chocolate and wine available- I went into debt thinking- I would make it up and then some. At the time Hunter was 2 or 3, my Mother in Love was visiting for the weekend and I remember being at mary kay appts all day, on my feet, running super late, and freaking out that I wasn’t going to be set up in time. I remember coming home and my husband and mother-in-law had the place beautiful, all decorated and the products laid out. It was stunning! NO ONE CAME!!!!
They didn’t come for a few reasons.
I had no personal connection with them
I had not shown the value of being their sales consultant beyond the exchange of products for money
Still not sure- Let's start by drawing on some of your own experiences.
Think about a product or service that you purchased when it went on sale. In the short term, you probably felt like you won or saved money. The next time you thought of purchasing that same product/service at full price, how did you feel about it? I’m willing to bet not as good!
I’ll use the example of going to the spa. 🛀 If a 90-minute massage costs $180 and I got that massage for $90. The next time I want a massage, I will likely downgrade and only get an hour-long massage for $100 because I don't value that 90 minutes at $180. Make sense?
When you discount your product/service you are telling people that you value yourself at the lower price.
Discounting does the opposite of what you want it to do
Beyond the psychological aspect, your training your clients to only buy during a certain time. When things go on sale. The whole thing your trying to prevent (the ups and downs in revenue) your actually creating. Not on that, but from experience, I can tell you that if you're in a service business and you discount your product, those clients become your problem clients- because they didn’t value you to begin with. They are the ones who will be the squeaky wheel, those are the ones that if your not careful you will end changing your process or offering to others around because they get in your head. Those are the ones if you have a subscription model that won’t renew and want to haggle you for everything! Don’t discount!!!!!
If your are hellbent on offering something to your clients during this time of year- offer them savings!!!! Hmm.. doesn’t that feel different? We are offering a savings of 5% or if you buy now you can save next year..
Key Quotes
“It simple- Authenticity, curiosity and the desire to help = confident selling. See I believe that during the selling process, we tend to lose one of these 3 aspects due to insecurity, outside pressure like quotas or meeting payroll for example and the formula breaks”.
Connect With gwen
Check out my NEW website www.gritandtenacityconsulting.com
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