Here’s How to Sell the “M” Word (Without Sounding Like Everyone Else!)

How good are you at selling the “M” word?

Most likely, you’re about as good as selling it as your clients are eager to buy it.

There are various tricky “M” words - I’m personally not a fan of the one that rhymes with “hoist,” nor do I appreciate that there’s actually a Facebook group for people who cringe at that word.? Is there anyone reading this who also gets Major Cringe for that word? Why would I join a group that’s centered around discussion of a word I hate even to think about?

Maybe that’s just one more reason I prefer LinkedIn to Facebook, but let’s get back to the “M” word I’m talking about here:? MINDSET

Ask any wise person who’s made truly significant jumps in their career or business, and they’ll tell you that shifts in their perception, creating new contexts, and building a new mindset made the most significant difference.

If you’re a consultant who started out charging by the hour, and shifted to charging based on the value you deliver, you know that quite a lot changed in your thinking (and being!) to make that leap.??

Same thing holds true if you’re an expert who once believed “nobody will pay this much for what I do” and now regularly closes business at rates that once would have made you stutter to speak aloud.

Once you started talking to the right sort of people - those who are expecting to pay higher rates, and who wouldn't have hired you at a lower rate (they may subconsciously assume you just “aren’t that good”) you discovered an entirely different criteria for your best target clients.

That’s the great news about mindset.??

The bad news is that mostly, business people don’t really want to buy "mindset" - any more than they don’t really want to buy “the how” of how anything gets accomplished.?

Smart people are interested in “how” things are going to happen when they work with you, but first, they are most interested in the “WHAT.”?

When we think about good marketing, we must think about sharing the "WHAT" before we spend too much time on the "HOW.'

Your best clients or customers want to buy RESULTS.

And more importantly, in the words of one of my mentors Samantha Hartley of Joyful, Profitable Consulting, they want to buy TRANSFORMATION.

Just to be clear: they don't want to buy the word "transformation." They want to solve a problem and experience the results on the other side. To some degree, that's the real reason we buy things - especially expensive things.

Let’s say I tell you the story of a client named Stuart.?

When Stuart came in to work with us, his business was making about $15K per month.? He wasn’t really getting clients from LInkedIn.? And he was working awfully hard - too hard - to get the clients he was getting from other places.

After we worked together for a year, Stuart was spending 90 minutes a day on LinkedIn.? He’s now? having fun on a platform he used to consider fairly useless. But the much more immediately exciting news is that he’s consistently making over $300K per month, and on track to have a $3.5M dollar year.

When I write content, guest on podcasts, and train our existing clients, we talk a lot about the different things clients like Stuart did to make this happen.? So there is certainly a lot of "how" involved.

Because Stuart did these things, and shifted his mood and focus as he did them, he developed an entirely different context for his business over time.

Thus he also built a brand new mindset around what his expertise and his business are worth.

So now, he appreciates how much the transformation of his mindset - just that in itself - is actually worth.? But I don’t think he would have been able to see that or feel that - or wanted to pay for that! - on Day One.?

When it comes to selling the “M” word, the short story is, tie it to a specific result.

It can be a result to do with revenue or profit (never a bad idea for a business offer!)

It could be a result concerning more free time, or less stress.

It might be a result involving simplifying something that once seemed complicated.

When it comes to true transformation, the shift in mindset is a giant, giant factor in your client’s success.

But if you’re a big fan of ever-increasing ease, do yourself - and your clients! - a big favor by making it easy for everyone to understand what’s at stake.

In fact, as we like to say, whenever you communicate with anybody - by Zoom, video, phone, content, etc. - imagine a giant flashing sign above your audience’s head that says, “WHY SHOULD I CARE ABOUT THIS?”

First, show them “The WHAT.” (your clients' results or transformation)

THEN show them HOW.

Let's try it now: what is the transformation you provide for your clients?

Or if it's easier: what results has one (or more) of your clients experienced by working with you?

And finally, I've got to ask: does anyone reading this have a word that makes you cringe every time you hear it?

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As far as we're concerned, there's one KPI (key performance indicator) that makes or breaks a consulting or coaching company.

And that is this: how many of the RIGHT FIT prospects (those with the money and mindset to accept your offer) do you need to speak to, per week or per month, to meet or exceed your income goals?

Want to see how you can totally transform both the number and the KIND of people who want to meet with you?

Well, I'm pretty sure that by now you know how the internet works. Ping me and we'll have a chat about that.

Thank you for your service to the planet!