Consciously Connected to Sharing Your Offerings With Empowering Selling

Selling has a bad rep because it is rooted in icky manipulation and force. The truth is, everyone is selling! We just have to create reframes around what that means.

In this episode I dive into the process of empowered selling and what happens if you don't practice that. I go into ways you can create expansion in the way you share what you do + how to connect with people on a deeper level.

If you want to hear a deeper dive into this topic, then I have a whole module on this in Aligned, Authentic, Abundant:

https://consciouscreatorco.mykajabi.com/aligned-authentic-abundant

I'd love to know your thoughts on this, come and chat with me on Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/consciouscreatorco_/

Transcript

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Hi, I'm Emma and you're listening to the consciously connected podcast, a space where I chat to creators and quite often to myself around forming a connection with in to connect to our outer world more clearly. I myself am a yoga teacher, an aerodynamic practitioner and a womb science facilitator. Combine this with five years in marketing and you have been trying to tour both of my world together to help creators create consciously. If this is something that you're interested in learning more about, you can find me over at Consciouscreativecound instagram. For now, let's get on with the show. Hi and welcome back to another episode. We've got a big topic we're going into today. This is one that I've been wanting to record for a while but there's just so much to say on it. I've been feeling a little bit overwhelmed with where to even begin. And the topic we're going to be diving into is selling and more specifically empowered selling, empowered purchasing, which is a concept I teach in AAA, my signature program. And it is something that I am very very passionate about mostly because it creates this reframe from these icky perceptions we have towards selling. And if you are somebody that is sitting with that you're sitting with any kind of resistance to appear like you are selling your offerings online or in any form, I want to just begin by creating a reframe that if you are offering anything, even if everything that you offer is free, you are still selling. You're inviting people into a space to work with you. You're creating messaging opportunity, invitations to connect, to connect your work with others and that selling. And when we think of it like that, it's not the actual art of selling that we feel disconnected from, it is all of the ickiness that we associate with it. And that is because typically marketing has been based on manipulation, it's been based on lack mentality and in extreme cases, force as well. If you don't already know, I studied advertising at Uni and I remember one of the case studies we looked at was colgate around toothpaste, selling toothpaste. And it was really funny because people obviously never used to brush their teeth with toothpaste. This just wasn't a thing. And the way that toothpaste became something that is now in every single one of our cupboards is that marketers created this message that if you had smelly breath, no one would want to be around you, people would move away from you, people would think you were disgusting, you wouldn't be able to have a partner. It created this space of insecurity, of lack of shame, all of these different things that we would now feel. It is now ingrained in us to feel. If we went a day without brushing our teeth, we wouldn't want to stand close to people. We'd be really conscious thinking everybody thinks that we smell, we wouldn't want to kiss anybody. This is now so ingrained in us because a product based company decided that to sell their product, this would be really effective and my God, was it. We now all probably have some form of colgate, maybe not that brand itself, but some form of toothpaste within our cupboards that is now an essential part of our lives. And this is the premise that marketing was built on. Now, I find this fascinating. I'm not saying that I agree with it, but I studied advertising psychology because understanding people is something I am so, so passionate about. And understanding why people make the decisions that they do really interests me. It always has done. I've studied philosophy and ethics like I've studied psychology. It is something that genuinely, really I could dive into it all day, every day. And consumer insights was my favorite topic at Uni, which is essentially just understanding people. Now, this is actually a really, really powerful, powerful tool. And this is something that I speak about with my clients all of the time. If you do not understand who it is your offering is for, you won't be able to communicate with them, for one. And you also actually won't be able to create offerings that even serve them. So this is kind of like my jam, the consumer insights, really understanding people. The trouble is that that has been used to form Icky marketing techniques. Because when you truly understand someone's fears and insecurities and doubts and the things that they feel lack around, you can sell to that and the likelihood is they're going to want to buy. The trouble with that is that it doesn't create empowerment. And this is how I flip my entire understanding of advertising psychology in the way that I teach within my courses to ensure that you are using that understanding in a really beautiful way. Because when you understand people, when you understand what they need, what transformation they're looking for, where they do have that struggle within their life, and where they're really craving that ease, you can create offerings, like I said, that actually are of service to them. This is something that I really dive into in AAA, how to actually create an offering that meets the needs of your audience rather than just churning out offerings for the sake of it or just to make money or whatever other reason there may be behind that. So that's first step, when you truly understand somebody on a deeper level, you can form that connection. And again, I talk about this in content that connects. You can understand what people need from you, how you can actually be of service, how you can show up for people in a way that does create transformation. I say this all the time with my clients, but your work doesn't begin the second someone hits by. Your work begins when you start showing up, when you share, when you create this understanding, this connection that is just as important as the work behind your offerings. And so when we think of selling, that is essentially what we're doing. We're forming this connection. We're creating this energetic alignment with people so that they want to engage in our work deeper, they want to go on a journey with us. And the problem is that we form this disconnect from selling because the ways that we're often taught to do it feel very jarring to the way that we show up within our offerings. So if you have this offering that is just truly a unique embodiment of your style, your creation, it's your passion, it's your purpose, it feels like total alignment for you. I usually get people that come from corporate spaces into these sole led businesses and they feel so passionate and they feel home to themselves is something that people often say. But when they come to share that with the world, that's when they then feel this disconnect. And that is because we're viewing marketing selling in a totally different way to the way that we're viewing the creation behind our offerings. I want to create reframes around this because marketing is essentially a mirror of your offerings, or it should be. And I say this within the content course that I have, but you need to think about the energy behind your creations. And this is something I joke about with my clients all of the time. But this whole trend of dancing on reels is great for some people. It really does align with their energy. But I've seen a lot of soulful, nourishing healing, calming spaces be advertised in this really jarring, fast content, words flying across the screen, chaotic, trending music. And there's this huge disconnect between the energy of that offering, the energy of the individual sharing it, and the way that it's shared with the world. And when there is this disconnect, not only do people not actually come forward and buy whatever it is you're selling, but it also doesn't feel good for you. And that's where you can start to feel like you don't know how to shop online. You're starting to feel disconnected from what you do because you feel like it's not what people want or people aren't connecting with it. And this is where we can start to create these associations around selling that it feels off and it's icky and it's not right. And this is just one example of many there are so many different ways that we can form disconnect from selling because it isn't actually in alignment. And one way that I see this come up really clearly is, as I've mentioned before, with these manipulation forms of selling. And if you don't know what that looks like, it essentially looks like things where people aren't creating decisions from a truly aligned, empowered place. Empowered is really the word that I like to use within this. And I'll dive into why in a moment. But essentially what we're talking about here is that people are buying from a place of need, from a place of lack, from a place of desperation, from a place of just not enoughness. And as I said before, it's a very, very effective form of marketing. Colgate a great example of that. They're not the only ones either. We see this everywhere. You can have beauty brands, clothing, anything that makes you feel like you need this, you are not complete without. This tends to fall into the territory of Ickiness because it feels based on force. We don't feel like fully autonomous beings when they're making these decisions. It's like something has come over us. And this is where you see people spend money that they don't have, spend money on things that they don't truly want, that they don't truly align with, because they've kind of gone into this fear mentality. It's put up these blinkers into what actually is right for them, and they've entered into purchases that maybe they don't want, they don't need, they actually don't even like. The trouble is, when you sell from this place, particularly when you are offering these heart led services, what you find is that the clients that you draw in are probably not going to be aligned with your work, with your energy, with who you really want to serve. This may show up as people who suddenly want to cancel working with you. So they work with you for a little while and they suddenly don't want to do it anymore. It may show up in people that don't show up, so they don't show up to do the work. They have this kind of complacency, this expectation that you are going to do the work for them. Maybe they're a little bit flaky, maybe they just aren't getting out of what you're putting in. This can also show up in people that just don't feel like this is really for them. It's hard to explain, but it just feels like maybe it's not the right offering, maybe it's not the right time. Maybe this is actually something that people aren't ready to fully show up for or to fully be interested in, or to fully feel the impact of, because the timing just wasn't right. And the reason that people like this are attracted into our fields is when we do use these techniques that come from a place of lack or force, people actually aren't ready. They're not ready to show up. They aren't ready to fully experience the magic of what you do. And this is why it is so important to ensure that we are practicing empowered selling and inviting empowered purchasing. So this means that we aren't just selling to what people are lacking right now. If you have people that are constantly coming to you saying, this sounds really good, but I can't afford it, or I don't feel like I'm ready, or I'm not sure if it's quite right. What we're essentially doing is putting out this lack energy. We're constantly telling people what they don't have in order to sell what we have. But we're creating this lack energy around our offerings, which is naturally what we then invite in people who aren't ready, people who don't want to pay that as a price. People that don't feel like it's enough, maybe they don't truly see the value of it because lack attracts lack. Empowered selling comes from a place of creating this vision of what people can have. It's not about drawing more what they don't have, it's about inviting what people can have. You are enough as you are. You are truly. But that doesn't mean to say that your life can't be enriched. Maybe there's a part of you that you're hiding away and you're not fully tapping into. You have this expression that is within you. It's there already. I just help you bring it out. Maybe the power of what you do is so beautiful. Guidance can just really help you increase it, bring more life to it. Do you see how this switch in language, this switch to a form of empowering creating this vision of how people can benefit from the magic that you share without making them feel like they are nothing. Without it, their existence is unworthy if they do not have this thing that you have to share. Empowered selling also really focuses on choice. You want people to be ready. You want people to have fully seen the magic of what you do. You want it to feel right for people. So that when people do come to work with you, you have those fully sole, aligned clients, you have the people. But it feels really energetically good to work with. If you are drawing in people from a place of force, the chances are that you're not going to enjoy your work anymore because you're not going to be working with people that are actually aligned. You'll start to feel burnt out, you'll start to feel resentful. You'll start to feel like you're not actually fulfilling your purpose because you aren't working with the people that enrich that for you. When you give people space to fully make empowered decisions, to decide whether you are energetic matches, to decide whether they're in the place to receive this work, to decide whether it is going to be something that enriches their lives. Just because somebody doesn't want what you have to offer, it doesn't take away from that. It just means that maybe they're searching for something a little different and that's okay. We don't need to use force there because if we start using force to draw people into the work, when we sense that they're kind of on the fence about it, that's when we attract in all of those clients that I was just speaking about. Now, something to consider within this is I can't stand these words, but objection handling is something that I hear a lot and this for me is an icky form of marketing. But I do kind of speak on this with my clients. I just refer to it as reframes. And the reason being is objection handling has the intention of turning somebody's objections into, no, I want to buy from you. This is for me, this is I do want to buy, even when that objection was actually really valid and may mean that it isn't quite right for somebody. Reframes really focus on sometimes what we know we need is not necessarily what we do for ourselves. Sometimes we can know something is for us, but we can have a little bit of fear around that. We can have a little bit of doubt. We can just need a little bit of reassurance that actually this is what we are looking for and this is where we can create powerful reframes within our process of selling. Just providing alternative ways to think about this. One reframe that was presented to me, which was really affected for me, is that thinking about cost. So we often think about the cost of doing something like, okay, this will cost me £1000. What we don't think about is the cost of not doing it. Okay, but if I didn't spend £1000, I'm going to keep going round and round and round in circles, going to be in this stuck place. I may get to it eventually, but actually this is something that I feel ready for. I'm just kind of standing in my own way. And so that reframe of thinking about the cost of not for me was really impactful. I was then like, oh yeah, the thing with reframes is that we just present alternative ways of thinking. We do not force alternative ways of thinking. We say, okay, this is one way to think about it, and then we let people decide whether that is something that lands with them. Empowered purchasing selling really requires that we give people space. I was working with a client recently who had been on a business program, but by the way, it was called a soulful business program. This is usually in the industry a lot, and it was heavily focused on objection handling and trying to take money on the call. So take payment there and then. And my client said, this just feels really icky. And she did it and she got clients from it and they were not aligned with clients whatsoever. And she was fully doubting her work, just feeling like, oh god, I don't even know if this is what I want to do. Because there had been an element of force. People wanted to stop the program. Halfway through, there were so many things going on that just had my client really questioning herself. And I said, this is nothing to do with your work. This is to do with the way that you've sold your work and please forgive yourself for that. Please. If anything that I'm talking about now. You're like, oh, my goodness, I've done that. And it feels really out of alignment or anything that I'm talking about that you're like, I did that, but I did it with this intention, and it actually did feel really aligned for me. Both of those are okay. Part of this process is releasing the shame. I am not here to call out. I am not here to shame anyone. And I know that this is something that is huge on social media right now. This kind of shaming, call out culture. This is not what this is. If you have found yourself, as I said, practicing any of these principles, give yourself full permission and forgiveness like you didn't know. I'm so sure that none of this was done intentionally. I've had to sit with this recently and thought, oh, my goodness. Some of the things that I've been doing have felt often icky. And sometimes we need to do that to know that it's often icky, and we always have permission to forgive ourselves and to be forgiven and to come at things a new way. You can just change whenever you want. And so when my client came to this realization, we then really went through empowered ways of selling and actually how to really just create space for people, to take people on a journey of realization, to start people on their transformations before you even start working together. This is something I feel really passionately about in the work that I do. Really being so connected to your why that it's not about how many places you sell, it's about how can you start doing that right now? And this is a process that we went through. And she felt entirely different about her business. She suddenly felt so, so passionate about the work that she does. Again, was holding beautiful spaces, having incredible conversations with people. And the people that signed up were fully, fully ready. They were like, yes, this is the work I need. They saw incredible transformations. She was so in flow with her work again. And this truly is the power of selling. As I said, it doesn't start when you begin your offering. It starts when you begin talking about your offering. And so this process of empowerment, having people so ready, not coming from a place of lack, but coming from a place of abundance, wanting to work with you just to be more expansive in their energy, not because they feel they're in lack with their energy, being ready, knowing that it's right, feeling held. And this is what's really, really important is this process of selling should be a mirror of your energy. It should be a reflection of how you show up in your offerings. If you are creating these safe, gentle spaces and then using pushy, harsh sales tactics, that creates the disconnect within you. It's going to create a disconnect within people that engage with you. If you do have this more fiery energy. And you are like, yeah, come on, let's get going. Take on this challenge. That's okay, too. You can really empower people, inspire people from this fiery place. Sometimes that is the energy that people really need. They need that, yeah, I can do this. I've just been stuck. I've been getting in my own way. I need to feel empowered. Sometimes people just need you to hold gentle space and just to leave the door open. And I speak about this within your Elements class, about really understanding the energy that people are in so that you can create balance for them. So selling feels nourishing, you feel like you're supporting someone. And when people make that decision, they feel empowered in that. They feel the connection. They feel ready, they feel aligned. So I have a whole module dedicated to this in aligned, authentic, abundant. It really, really goes into the process, releasing any blocks that you have and actually coming into alignment with a way of selling that feels like a reflection of your truth. So if you want to learn more about that, I'll leave all of the links below. If you have any questions, anything you'd love to share with me, I would love to hear from you. I will also leave my Instagram below. I appreciate this could have been a little bit of a triggering episode, so please go easy on yourself. Like I said, forgive yourself. If you've noticed anything within your own selling practices that now feels icky, be gentle with yourself. It's okay. You're learning. You're growing. You're an evolving human. Thank you so much for listening to this episode. Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. If you would like to come and connect with some fellow Conscious creators, you can find me at Consciouscreatorco Underscore. And if you would like to work with me on a one to one or a group capacity to help you find that conscious creation that I know is sitting within you, then you can book a free 15 minutes call with me in the link in the show notes. I hope you have a consciously connected day. Thank you.