It’s no accident that I introduce sales in Book Yourself Solid in Chapter 9—after I’ve taught you how to set your foundation and build trust and credibility. One of the reasons that so many sales conversations are unsuccessful is because they’re had at the wrong time—usually too soon—before you’ve earned the proportionate amount of trust needed for the offer being made. Plus, your clients’ buy when it’s right for them—when something occurs in their life or business that compels them to hire you. If these two factors, trust and timing, come together at just the right moment, you’ll have a successful sales conversation and book the business. But this only works if you’ve built a solid foundation, demonstrating that you:

• Have a red velvet rope policy so you work only with ideal clients.
• Understand why people buy what you’re selling so you know exactly to whom you are selling and what they want to invest in.
• Have developed a personal brand identity so you decide how you’re known in the world.
• Are able to talk about what you do without sounding confusing or bland, or like everybody else, and without ever using an elevator speech.

If you’ve set this foundation, a potential client will give you the opportunity to earn their trust. But you’ll only earn their trust if you:

• Use the standard credibility builders and have a high degree of likeability.
• Have designed a sales cycle that starts with no-barrier-to-entry offers including your always-have-something-to-invite-people-to offer.
• Have simple lead generating information products that enhance your credibility and speed up your sales cycle.

Then, and realy only then, are you ready to have sales conversations—that work.

The Secret to the Book Yourself Solid System

This simple 4-step process is the secret to the Book Yourself Solid system.

1. You execute a few of the 7 Core Self-Promotion strategies, which create awareness for what you have to offer.
2. When a potential client becomes aware of your services they’ll take a look at your foundation. If it looks secure, if they feel comfortable stepping onto it, they’ll give you the opportunity to earn their trust—but only the opportunity. They’re not necessarily going to hire you right then and there. They need some time before they will actually trust you.
3. That’s when your plan to build trust and credibility comes into play. As a potential client moves through your sales cycle, they will come to like you, trust you and find you credible.
4. When their circumstances dictate that they need the kind of help you provide, they’ll raise their hand and ask you to have a sales conversation (I’ll teach you this in a minute). You have a sales conversation the Book Yourself Solid way and book the business.

The process is simple. The process is sound. It can turn your business life around. And, most importantly, the process is a complete, repetitive, and self-perpetuating system.

The Super Simple Selling System

Now, let’s talk about how to have the sales conversation. I’ve created, the 4-Part Sales Formula for super simple selling—so simple the formula practically works on its own. Why? Because, once trust is assured and a need is met, using this 4 part formula during your sales conversations will book the business. But, please remember, this is meant to be an open and free-flowing conversation not a sales script.

Book Yourself Solid 4-Part Sales Formula

When a potential client expresses interest in working with you, open with a simple question…

Part 1: What are you working on? Or, what is your goal? Or, what are you trying to achieve?

Once you feel certain you know what they want to accomplish and by when, simply ask…

Part 2: How will you know when you have achieved it?  What results will you see? What feedback will you hear? What feelings will you have?

Once you feel like the potential client has clearly articulated these benefits, make sure they are fully in the hiring ­frame of mind, ask…

Part 3: Would you like someone to help you with that (achieve your goal, etc.)?

If they say, “no,” wish them the best of luck and keep-in-touch with them. If they say, “yes,” then offer…

Part 4: Would you like that person to be me? Because, you know, you are my ideal client. (To which they’ll say, “what do you mean?” Because no one has ever said that to them before.) Well, you are someone with whom I do my best work. (They’ll ask “why?” and you’ll tell them…) Because you are… (Here is where you list the qualities that make them who they are and allow you to do your best work.) As, you’re listing these qualities you’ll see their face brighten as they sit up strait and say, “Wow. That is so me! Thank you for noticing.” You’ll say, so shall we look at our calendars to plan a time to get started? And, the answer will be…drumroll please… “Absolutely, yes!”

Don’t use the phrases above verbatim. Instead just use the Book Yourself Solid 4-Part Sales Formula as a framework for a superduper simple (successful) sales conversation.

Written Exercise: Practice without pressure. Try this process with a good friend or colleague and see what happens. Ask them to call you at random a few times over the course of a week and say, “Hi, I’ve been getting your newsletter for a while and I think you may be able to help me, can we talk about your services?” And, instead of doing that thing that everyone does—talk about themselves and their business for 20 minutes—ask them what they’re working on or what they’re trying to achieve or what problem they’re trying to overcome, and you’ll be into Part 1 of the Book Yourself Solid 4-Part Sales Formula. Super simple.

So, what’s bigger, better and far more fun than overcoming objections? Eliminating them entirely. Why change a prospect’s mind, when you can change your product. Yeah, you heard me. Improve your product or service so you don’t get the objections in the first place. Novel, I tell you!

Now, unfortunately, many sales people will have their hands tied because they’re not in on the design or re-design of the products they are selling. But if you are an entrepreneur, you’re not only designing your product, you’re in charge of it. You’re the boss. You are in the unique position of being able to give customers exactly what they want. Let’s take a look at your product from the clients’ perspective. I just had to go through this very assessment.

www.BookedSolidU.com was launched on January 1^st. Booked Solid University is a business university and coaching program that offers everything you need to be a small business success. Based on my experience and certain tested (or so I thought) assumptions, I designed the program to give newer business owners exactly what they need:

1. Long-term commitment to learning and business mastery (12 months).
2. Content, answers, advice and all the information business owners need to succeed.
3. Live, interactive coaching for accountability and commitment making fulfillment.

People did enroll the first month, my most ideal type of big thinking clients, but far more people inquired and never took action. The 3 primary objections I heard were:

Objection 1: The enrollment fees are reasonable, but I don’t know if I can commit to a full 12 months.

(Read: financial and time commitment too long, creating fear.)

Objection 2: Even though all of the content seems like it’s just what I need to succeed, what if I take on too much, choose the wrong learning path or don’t have time to handle the workload.

(Read: too many options and choice of own learning path too big and idea, creating overwhelm.)

Objection 3: I just don’t know if I’ll get the personal coaching I need.

(Read: even though the best Book Yourself Solid Certified Coaches are available to personally coach, they either didn’t feel it was extensive enough or they felt my personal presence was missing.)

Notice anything about these two lists? Yeah, you’re right. They’re the same. The features I thought would be most helpful to my ideal clients, turned out to be what was most objectionable.

I could have done my best Zig Zigler to demonstrate why:

1. Making a long-term commitment to learning in action is so important to entrepreneurial success.

2. Designing your own customized curriculum is the most efficient, time effective and elegant way to get exactly what you need, at the right time.

3. Working with experts, other than me, brings a more expansive and diverse set of viewpoints, solutions and success strategies.

And believe me, at first, I tried. But, clients repeated these same objections and I remembered that we don’t always want to buy what we need. A better solution, a more elegant solution, one that eliminates friction during the sales cycle, would be to redesign my offering to fit exactly what my clients both need and want. Seems obvious but often it’s not what is done. Here’s what changed. We…

1. Eliminated the long-term commitment objection with a “pay as you go” plan and a full 30-day money back guarantee.

2. Created short-term and specifically prescribed coaching modules, each designed to help the client achieve one specific result, at a time. Overwhelm objection—gone!

3. Kept the Michael Port brand in tact and made my personal coaching more available and visible. Uncertain business results objection—gone!

And that’s not all that’s changed. Even the way that I present the entire concept of Booked Solid U has shifted because of these simple, yet fundamental changes. Check out the site to see what I mean.

Now, these 3 fixes alone might seem obvious and simple to you. But, believe me, when in the middle of a major product launch, with 1000’s of moving pieces and people, the solution was not so obvious and the overcome objection tunnel was getting longer and longer. Clients want easy. They need a simple system that focuses their time and attention on the simplest and most elegant solution. And, that’s what the new, and better, BSU is—easy.

When I started assessing Booked Solid U, I used the same 3-step process I’ve always used to fix nearly every problem in my business. Try it yourself.

3 Steps To Eliminate Objections Or Solve Any Other Problem

1. Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. Instead, ask yourself how you can reconfigure what you have and turn it into what you want (something that will create better results).

2. Don’t make big, sweeping changes. Instead, make the smallest possible changes to the design of the product that will produce the biggest possible results.

3. Don’t go it alone. Bring your clients, and every single member of your team into the redesign process at the earliest possible moment to produce the most elegant solution.

Of course, you and I both know it’s unlikely we will be able to eliminate all client objections. But ask yourself first, which objections can be eliminated with small product changes? Many times the biggest objections can be easily eliminated just by adjusting or reconfiguring your product. Now, you’ve got a conversation going without ever running into the big, pressing, unwieldy objections that throw clients into a stall pattern or, worse yet, entirely off track.

So, please, go to bookedsolidu.com and see if I’ve overcome your objections.