How to Sell Without Selling

Selling. One of the most dreaded things in the world. Most people do not like selling or being sold to. And one of the reasons people may hate selling or avoid selling is because they think selling is a pushy, desperate process designed to woo potential customers, delivered in an inauthentic way.

Full disclosure. I used to think I hate selling too until I discover the true definition of selling.

But before I reveal that, I want to ask you – Have you ever bought something, and you walked away feeling so happy and excited that you have done it? Of course, you have! And each time you have purchased something willingly and happily, did a sales process take place?

Of course, right?

In today’s podcast, I will show you how you can sell without selling and making your customers happy at the same time.

You can avoid feeling like you have to hard-sell everything, and strategically put systems into place to passively generate an income on your site long-term.

The rest of the transcript is available below the audio.

The biggest mistake a lot of people make; salesperson at the shop, insurance agent, online business all makes the same mistake, is making the offer way too soon, too often—pitch after pitch and offer after offer, with only little time to react before the customers are ready.

I am on a few email lists where I am getting pitched a new, highly priced info-product every couple of days! I stay subscribed to these lists and succumb to the bad taste in my mouth just so I can stay on the leading edge of what not do.

So today, I am going to show you how you can “slow down your pitches” and get it to a point where essentially what you are doing is lining up buying opportunities for your audience.

I will show you how you can use non-aggressive selling strategies to take the pressure off your audience and make things even more convenient for them.

Over the course of 8 years of blogging, “lining it up” is what has been most successful for me. I have earned over hundreds of thousands of dollars years after year without the use of aggressive selling tactics, product launches or upsells.

Before I go on, it is important that I mention this:

I am not against hard selling and aggressive pitches.

I have done it too. And if you have created something amazing that you know will change the lives of your audience, you should sell hard too.

If you created a cure for a disease, you would not soft sell it, you would sell it hard!

Why?

Because the more you sell, the more you know you are actually curing this disease.

What I am against is not being truthful—both in terms of what is being offered, and how it is being offered (like false scarcity). There are nice ways to sell hard, and there are not-so-nice ways to sell hard.

There is a time and a place for an honest hard-sell, but in-between there are several passive income opportunities for you which you can setup to run long-term on your site, and all it takes is “lining it up”.

Here are some strategies and tactics you can use to help “line it up” for your audience and sell without really selling at all.

The “Free-Way” Method

Some of my most successful promotions for products came as a result of showing people exactly how to do what that product does, for free.

Say what?!

Let me give you an example…

I often run free webinar which involves showing people exactly what I do to grow my following, free up my time and start a business.

During the webinars, I spend the first 30-40 minutes going over exactly how to do it…for free.

I reveal step-by-step, exactly how one can conduct turn their passion into profit for example, without having to pay a dime.

Sharing the free-way is important for a couple of reasons:

1. You are giving those who are not ready to pay for a premium tool an opportunity to move forward. They can get started right away, risk-free. This also gives them an opportunity to see what it is like, which plays along with the second reason…
2. It helps to contrast and illustrate the benefit of investing in a product, tool or resource that could get the same (or better) results, with just a fraction of the time and effort.

When you share the free-way, and then immediately follow with the benefits of a paid solution (whether it is your own or someone else's) it clearly shows why that product exists and proves that it works.

There is no hard-selling required. The contrast, if big enough, will do all the selling for you, and if you are addressing a pain that your target audience has, then you've successfully line it up for them.

An example of how I use “free-way” for my program is our Plan, Create and Execute a Month of Social Media Posts in Just One Hour Workshop where you can learn how to come up with engaging social media content that speaks to your audience, for free! All people have to do is just sign up and show up during the free challenge. If you are interested, sign up at www.momboss.academy/social-media-plan-masterclass

Of course, it leads to our on-demand Instagram Growth Bootcamp if you are serious about growing your Instagram account. Either way, you would know our process, and make it work for your business.

Not all products will have a free-way of achieving a similar result, but when they do, consider just giving that information away, because if the product you're promoting is truly awesome, then the product will essentially sell itself.

The second method to sell without selling is…

A Resource Page

There is one page on both The Chill Mom and MomBoss Academy that is the most profitable page on the site. If you do not have a page like this, you are missing out, and not just on possible income, but the ability to give your audience something completely helpful and convenient without you ever having to do anything after you have set it up.

So, what is it?

A resource page is a page on your site that lists any tools, links, and resources that your audience would find useful, preferably ones that you have already mentioned on your site before.

Here is a link to my own resource page on this site.

I also have a Free Training page, where I list all my free opt-ins on one page. So, if someone can easily find something that would help them regardless of which stage of business they are in.

So, think in terms of which level your target audience could come from, create multiple lead magnets, and include them all in one page for easy navigation.

You could also have a “Best Of” page where you organise the most important articles and podcasts published on your site. It is similar to free training page or you could combine the two, but I like to keep them separate because it would be too overwhelming with both, when you have already created many post and lead magnets. But if you are just starting out, you can absolutely combine them both.

My own resource page accounts for over 60% of the overall income generated from the blog, and the beauty of it is that it is an ASSET that is passive and perpetually more and more profitable.

It is not aggressive at all, and in fact people arrive on this page and think it is a goldmine of information—all of the good stuff, conveniently in one spot. Which it is.

And that is how you want to approach the creation of this page and the tools and resources you choose to put on it.

Here is how to make it work best for you:

1. Create a new page on your site.You can call it resources, tools, whatever you wish, but just create a new page.
2. List any items that you have ever mentioned (or plan to mention) within your brand that could be considered a resource.These could be products, tools, links, resources, books, software, equipment, other blogs, and podcasts, etc.

If they are your own creation—great. If they are someone else's creation, awesome.

If it is someone else's creation and it comes with an affiliate or partnership program—great. If not, you should still put it on the page anyway.

Remember, this page is supposed to be as helpful and convenient as possible, and not everything that is helpful will directly generate an income for you.

It is not about the income. It is about the convenience and library of awesomeness you are creating for your audience, and the more awesome it is—well—the more trust and earnings you will have in the long-run.

You could even link your webinar to a tool or resources. For example, let's say you are an affiliate for Canva and you have a blog post or free webinar/video where you explain how you use Canva in your business and how it had helped you.

It gives people an opportunity to see what they are going to get before they get it, which is huge—especially when you are promoting a product that is not your own.

What you can do is, throughout your website: on the sidebar, within articles, at the end of podcast episodes, on guest posts, etc., mention your resource page. Even when you mention specific products on individual blog posts, you can cross-reference and drive traffic back to the resources page as well.

Here's my resource page: https://www.momboss.academy/free

Over time, you will get to a point where no matter what page on your site visitors arrive on for the first time, they will eventually get connected to your resource page.

Remember, this is a long-term strategy, and because of that, you do not need to push hard at all. Make this awesome, and it will attract more people on its own.

It is a win for everyone.

I hope you can see the benefit of approaching sales in this way. It provides a long-term, passive approach to allow your audience to discover products that are helpful to them, on their own, as they go through your site and get deeper into your content.

Like I said earlier, I am not opposed to the hard-sell, as long as it is honest, and in a perfect world you would have products “teed up” throughout your site, while also running strategically timed (and time-sensitive) launches for key, flagship products.

Perhaps you are already doing some of these in your business.

If you want to find out how your business is stacked with client-attracting, lead-generating, trust-building ASSETS that would boost your sales, compared to the industry standard, here's a test you can take.

It only takes 10 mins and you will find out which areas you are doing well in and which area you should focus on.

And if you're wondering what tool you can use to grab the contact details of people who are downloading your free resources, I'm using AMPLY. It's an all-in-one platform where I manage my contacts, book my calls, communicate with my prospects and sell my products online. Check it out here.

Rooting for you,

Michelle Hon