Latest / Sell Well: Helping Agencies Close More Deals and Grow Revenue / Phone a Friend: Becky Pierson Davidson on Strategy Calls, Sales Blitzes, and Claiming Goals Publicly
Transcript
- 0:00SPEAKER_02: Hey, welcome back to Sell Well.
- 0:01SPEAKER_02: But today I'm phoning a friend, and this one is special because she is the reason this podcast even exists.
- 0:07SPEAKER_02: Becky Pearson Davidson runs a boutique agency called Affinity, where she designs, builds, and manages community products.
- 0:13SPEAKER_02: I think memberships, courses, education-based businesses.
- 0:16SPEAKER_02: She does it all.
- 0:17SPEAKER_02: But she spent the last decade in strategy and product leadership roles across tech, online education, and personal brand businesses, including Bospin.
- 0:25SPEAKER_02: Before going out on her own.
- 0:27SPEAKER_02: She also hosted the Build with Becky podcast, which fair warning is the show that talked me into starting this one.
- 0:32SPEAKER_02: Becky is one of my coaching clients, and today you are getting this sneak peek behind the curtain.
- 0:37SPEAKER_02: We're talking about what her sales process looked like before we started working together.
- 0:41SPEAKER_02: The one missing step that changed her clothes rate.
- 0:43SPEAKER_02: And the time I told her to go find$40,000 before the end of the year, and she actually did it.
- 0:48SPEAKER_02: Let's get into it.
- 0:52SPEAKER_02: Today I am here with Becky, one of my coaching clients.
- 0:56SPEAKER_02: I'm super excited to have you on, Becky.
- 0:58SPEAKER_02: Thanks for joining us.
- 0:58SPEAKER_02: I'm so excited.
- 0:59SPEAKER_02: You're my favorite person.
- 1:01SPEAKER_02: Well, you're the reason that this whole podcast started.
- 1:04SPEAKER_02: So I'm so excited to have you on.
- 1:05SPEAKER_02: You gave me all the inspo to get this started.
- 1:08SPEAKER_01: You're killing it.
- 1:09SPEAKER_01: I love your podcast and I tell everyone about it.
- 1:11SPEAKER_01: I'm like, yeah, she modeled her podcast after mine, but I can't stop listening to hers.
- 1:17SPEAKER_02: Well, yours is wildly successful, and I'd love for you to tell people what it is about and what you do and give a little bit of your background.
- 1:24SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
- 1:25SPEAKER_01: So I run a boutique agency.
- 1:27SPEAKER_01: We design, build, and manage community products.
- 1:30SPEAKER_01: So think like programs, memberships, course type education businesses.
- 1:35SPEAKER_01: And it's a lot of fun.
- 1:37SPEAKER_01: We're uh helping a lot of membership owners scale.
- 1:41SPEAKER_01: And also we do a ton of build and migration projects.
- 1:45SPEAKER_01: And um on the podcast, the idea is like you get a strategy or idea very similar to yours in every single episode in like a quick voice note.
- 1:53SPEAKER_01: It's awesome.
- 1:54SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I loved that you just sat down and started recording voice notes.
- 1:57SPEAKER_02: And I remember it was this lifelong moment for me when you were like, No, my podcast doesn't take me a lot of time.
- 2:02SPEAKER_02: I was so inspired by that and loved the content that you put out.
- 2:05SPEAKER_02: It's changed a lot about how I view content in general.
- 2:07SPEAKER_02: Um, so it's been really cool.
- 2:09SPEAKER_02: But today I want to dive in and talk about sales.
- 2:12SPEAKER_02: And sales is something that we worked a lot on in our coaching together.
- 2:17SPEAKER_02: And I'm so grateful that you're kind of sharing the behind the scenes of our coaching and some of the things that you changed in your business.
- 2:23SPEAKER_02: So I'd love for you to just share what your sales process was before and what it is now from the time that we worked together.
- 2:30SPEAKER_01: Okay.
- 2:31SPEAKER_01: So first of all, like I spent a couple of years just trialing different offers, and I think that matters a lot in this context is just like figuring out what works, what offers really resonated with clients from a sales perspective, but also from a delivery perspective.
- 2:48SPEAKER_01: And um, I'm very obsessed with like productizing what our services are.
- 2:53SPEAKER_01: And so I tried a lot of different ways to do that.
- 2:55SPEAKER_01: So all this to say before we worked together, my like main packages were all like five thousand starting at$5,000.
- 3:03SPEAKER_01: And so I would get on a sales call with somebody, talk to them about it.
- 3:08SPEAKER_01: Maybe it's their first time meeting me, maybe they've been following my content for a while.
- 3:13SPEAKER_01: But like there wasn't, there isn't like a smaller bite like trust product that I had there.
- 3:20SPEAKER_01: I did have like a$500 offer for a while that was kind of like a power hour type workshop thing.
- 3:26SPEAKER_01: And it's funny because it's actually really similar to the strategies I sell today that are doing really well.
- 3:31SPEAKER_01: Like it was a 90-minute call, you get a quick deliverable with like notes.
- 3:34SPEAKER_01: It was definitely less elevated than it is now, but it didn't sell great, like even the$500 thing.
- 3:42SPEAKER_01: So um most of the time, and and a lot of times I was trying to sell that direct without a sales call because it was like$500.
- 3:49SPEAKER_01: And then I started doing sales calls.
- 3:52SPEAKER_01: And again, I'm pitching like$5,000 plus projects, and my close rate wasn't great.
- 3:58SPEAKER_01: It was, I I don't know the exact number, but I would guess it was like definitely sub 50%, like probably like 33%, like one in three people would buy kind of thing.
- 4:06SPEAKER_02: It's really interesting because when we started working together, I felt like one of the things I saw from you immediately was this pressure of like, I have to just change what I'm saying on the sales call.
- 4:16SPEAKER_02: It has to be, you know, my delivery.
- 4:19SPEAKER_02: And your delivery was awesome.
- 4:20SPEAKER_02: You are a really good salesperson.
- 4:22SPEAKER_02: You're so good at guiding people through the process, but you didn't have that natural next step for them to take that was a no-brainer, hell yes.
- 4:29SPEAKER_02: Can you talk a little bit about changing the way you talk to people on that first call?
- 4:33SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's it's so funny because I'm like supposed to be good at customer journey and like help people with that.
- 4:39SPEAKER_01: Like a lot of what we do in community building is designing member journeys.
- 4:43SPEAKER_01: Now, this is like post-purchase, but what you helped me realize is that I was missing the initial like next step, the like customer journey piece.
- 4:55SPEAKER_01: That's like you have to, everybody has to start here.
- 4:57SPEAKER_01: And so I was selling like audits.
- 5:00SPEAKER_01: I was selling, and actually my audits were cheaper than 5,000.
- 5:04SPEAKER_01: I tried a lot of different price points.
- 5:06SPEAKER_01: I think they were like 2,500 at one, like at the point we started working together.
- 5:09SPEAKER_01: Um, and what, and that was like such a long process and it was very asynchronous.
- 5:14SPEAKER_01: And what I learned is that everybody needed to just start with we need to talk about what your strategy is.
- 5:21SPEAKER_01: Like, what is your current strategy with your current membership and what's working, what's not, like we can audit it, or what's your strategy for the new membership or new program that you want to build out?
- 5:31SPEAKER_01: And so even when somebody would do like a membership build project with us, every like we're starting with a strategy.
- 5:38SPEAKER_01: Like in every single project, I was starting with the same step.
- 5:41SPEAKER_01: And so you helped me realize like you're starting every project with this step.
- 5:44SPEAKER_01: Let's pull it out as its own thing.
- 5:47SPEAKER_01: And so we started doing like just talking to people, getting to know them, talking about their problems, and then saying, like, okay, I start everyone here with a strategy.
- 5:56SPEAKER_01: This is why, this is how it will work for you, this is how it's personalized and custom to you.
- 6:01SPEAKER_01: And then it's like a no-brainer and close rate of that is like way higher.
- 6:07SPEAKER_02: Well, I think something that you do so well is turn people into raving fans.
- 6:12SPEAKER_02: And you were the one who the reason that you had me go, huh, wait, I want to hear more about this podcast thing is when you told me, yeah, I have people that come to me and they're like, I listen to every episode of your podcast and they're ready to buy.
- 6:23SPEAKER_02: And I was like, this is such an interesting lead generator of people who get to know you and get to try you out because that's the exact same process that we're using with the strategy session.
- 6:32SPEAKER_02: If somebody comes in from a referral and they're like, I mean, I heard you were awesome.
- 6:38SPEAKER_02: I don't know that.
- 6:39SPEAKER_02: And I think you sound okay, you need to turn them into that raving fan before you throw a price tag of$5,000,$50,000 at them.
- 6:48SPEAKER_02: Um, just kind of getting that trust or buy-in.
- 6:50SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
- 6:52SPEAKER_01: Uh, if people listen to the podcast and they book a call, my cloth, um, my close rate's like over 90%.
- 6:59SPEAKER_01: I've it was a hundred percent, and I'd like one person mess up my stats.
- 7:03SPEAKER_01: So now I just say it's over 90.
- 7:06SPEAKER_02: That's awesome.
- 7:07SPEAKER_02: Um well, in terms of how your confidence changed implementing that kind of because it wasn't like we revamped your whole system.
- 7:15SPEAKER_02: We really just added in this extra step.
- 7:17SPEAKER_02: Um, what do you feel like that did to your confidence as you saw your close rate go up?
- 7:22SPEAKER_01: Uh, I definitely feel like I'm better at sales.
- 7:24SPEAKER_01: I feel like our our system works well because our because the clients love their strategies and they're like, and our um conversion to next step is also like 70%.
- 7:35SPEAKER_01: And so that's awesome.
- 7:37SPEAKER_01: And so, like, like today I had a strategy call with a client, and at the end she was like, I'm so glad I found you.
- 7:42SPEAKER_01: This was incredible.
- 7:43SPEAKER_01: This is exactly what I needed.
- 7:44SPEAKER_01: And it just makes me feel good.
- 7:45SPEAKER_01: I'm like, yes, my clients are so happy and they want to keep working together or keep in touch or work with us later, whatever.
- 7:52SPEAKER_01: And that just that feels really good and that gives me confidence.
- 7:56SPEAKER_01: Like my confidence comes from happy clients.
- 7:59SPEAKER_01: Right.
- 7:59SPEAKER_01: And you're in referrals, of course.
- 8:01SPEAKER_02: Happy because you're able to do great work from them.
- 8:03SPEAKER_02: And another thing that I saw you kind of change is in order to get people to say yes to the 5,000, yes, sometimes you were offering the power hour or whatever, but most of the time you were giving away all of that info for free.
- 8:16SPEAKER_02: And you were mapping out, hey, in your proposal, I've put together this whole product plan for you and I've mapped all this out for you.
- 8:23SPEAKER_02: There's a ton of risk to take in a sales call where you're like, I have no idea if you even have money.
- 8:29SPEAKER_02: Like, we're trying to figure this out.
- 8:31SPEAKER_02: Um, so I'm really glad that you kind of moved over to that model.
- 8:33SPEAKER_00: Yeah, me too.
- 8:34SPEAKER_00: Thanks.
- 8:35SPEAKER_02: Um, okay, we at the end of last year, just did an episode on this.
- 8:39SPEAKER_02: I talked you into doing a sales blitz.
- 8:42SPEAKER_02: You were 40K off your goal and you needed to go find$40,000.
- 8:47SPEAKER_02: And we had a very blunt conversation where I said, you need to go find$40,000.
- 8:51SPEAKER_02: And you were like, Where?
- 8:53SPEAKER_02: Can you talk to me a little bit about what that process was like and what you were looking for?
- 8:58SPEAKER_02: Um, when you started that, and when you started to realize like this might work because you hit it, you hit your goal.
- 9:04SPEAKER_02: When did you kind of say, Okay, wait a minute, this might actually happen?
- 9:09SPEAKER_01: I think what helped me is you're you were like, okay, well, we have this number.
- 9:15SPEAKER_01: How do we actually get to it?
- 9:16SPEAKER_01: And so we listed out, okay, you need to sell X number of strategies, like X number of builds, whatever.
- 9:23SPEAKER_01: Um, and then young, you always do this when we talk about like revenue goals.
- 9:26SPEAKER_01: And that that's really helpful because it's like, okay, well, how many people do I need to talk to to get this?
- 9:31SPEAKER_01: Or like, you know, it's just, it's just math, um, basic math that we can do in our heads.
- 9:37SPEAKER_02: Man, isn't that so true?
- 9:38SPEAKER_02: It's so funny when we talk about revenue goals and money and all this stuff.
- 9:42SPEAKER_02: People are like, Well, I feel like, and I always stop them and I'm like, oh, unfortunately, this is a math problem.
- 9:47SPEAKER_02: Like, I know not a feeling.
- 9:48SPEAKER_02: I know, like it feels like uh, I've really got to figure out my mindset around money.
- 9:53SPEAKER_02: And there's definitely some power to that.
- 9:54SPEAKER_02: But at the end of the day, like we're talking about addition and subtraction, and we're trying to put the numbers on the board that make the most sense.
- 10:02SPEAKER_02: So for you, it was like if you sell this many strategies, we can bank on this many bigger projects come in.
- 10:07SPEAKER_02: Um, which I also think is going back to what we just talked about, another great reason to have that kind of setup where you can build out a funnel that will work for you, even if you don't have a traditional funnel of sorts.
- 10:20SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
- 10:21SPEAKER_01: That conversation we had reminded me of when I used to work at a big agency and I worked um, you know, I was like second to this guy who ran our practice group.
- 10:31SPEAKER_01: And within our practice group, we had revenue goals.
- 10:34SPEAKER_01: And if we reached our revenue goal, we got bonuses.
- 10:37SPEAKER_01: And we're talking like millions of dollars, right?
- 10:39SPEAKER_01: Like our like one point, I think our goal this that quarter was 1.7 million.
- 10:44SPEAKER_01: And my boss came to me and he was like, We are$15,000 off our goal and we have to hit it by Wednesday.
- 10:50SPEAKER_01: It was like Monday.
- 10:51SPEAKER_01: And I was like, 15,000?
- 10:52SPEAKER_01: And he's like, Yeah.
- 10:53SPEAKER_01: And I was like, okay.
- 10:54SPEAKER_01: And I just like found the money.
- 10:55SPEAKER_01: Like I like reached out to old, old clients.
- 10:58SPEAKER_01: And he was like, it's so it became this thing where he was like, Becky finds money.
- 11:03SPEAKER_01: And so whenever we needed to like reach a goal or a milestone, like he would come talk to me.
- 11:08SPEAKER_01: We would just, I was really good at thinking, who have I worked with or talked to in the past that probably needs something now?
- 11:16SPEAKER_01: And so when we had that conversation, it reminded me of that.
- 11:18SPEAKER_01: And I was like, Oh, I've I've done this before.
- 11:20SPEAKER_01: Like I'm actually kind of good at this.
- 11:22SPEAKER_01: And so yeah, I just revisited my entire client roster for you know, the past couple of years, reached out to people.
- 11:30SPEAKER_01: I reached out to partners that have referred me work.
- 11:33SPEAKER_01: That was one of the ways I think I got 9,500 of that 40k from reaching out to a partner and saying, Hey, I'm trying to close X deal, whatever.
- 11:41SPEAKER_01: I forget exact my exact wording, but she sent me two projects like that day.
- 11:46SPEAKER_01: Like sometimes you just need to check in.
- 11:49SPEAKER_02: And you let people know I'm trying to hit this goal, especially partners, right?
- 11:53SPEAKER_02: You kind of invited them into what you were doing, which I think a lot of people feel like to announce your sales goals is to admit weakness.
- 12:02SPEAKER_02: There's something in us that doesn't want to admit, like, hey, I'm short on my goal.
- 12:06SPEAKER_02: I think social media does a terrible job of making us feel like everybody else is ahead on their goal.
- 12:11SPEAKER_02: Um, or we're not all trying to sell one more project at the end of the year.
- 12:15SPEAKER_02: But going to people and saying, hey, I have a few more coaching spots I'm trying to fill, or I have a few more things that I'm trying to, you know, strategy sessions I'm trying to book this year.
- 12:25SPEAKER_02: It actually invites people that are your raving fans into, oh, now they're a part of it.
- 12:30SPEAKER_02: They want to help you win and they want to help you succeed, especially if they get a referral commission, which you're great at putting those plans together and inviting people into that.
- 12:39SPEAKER_02: Um, I think that it's such a cool thing to see that other people want to see you win.
- 12:46SPEAKER_02: Um, and I think that gives people a lot of confidence to do it again.
- 12:49SPEAKER_02: You can't, I mean, you can't do that all the time.
- 12:51SPEAKER_02: That was something that we talked about was who are you gonna reach out to?
- 12:53SPEAKER_02: Like, do you want to play this card right now with this person?
- 12:57SPEAKER_02: Um kind of choosing your right moment was something I think you're really good at.
- 13:01SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
- 13:01SPEAKER_01: And that, I mean, I think the root, there's two things.
- 13:04SPEAKER_01: Like the root of all of this is why like relationship building is so important.
- 13:07SPEAKER_01: I mean, my whole thing is I talk about building community and I really do that in my life.
- 13:12SPEAKER_01: Like, I show up for people and they show up for me back.
- 13:15SPEAKER_01: Like, like you said, I you know, who are some people you could reach out to?
- 13:19SPEAKER_01: I'm like, this is the list.
- 13:20SPEAKER_01: But like I I remember being like, I don't want to pull this card right now.
- 13:24SPEAKER_01: And I didn't, and I'm thinking about pulling it next month.
- 13:28SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, like I like you you just have to decide when you want to play which cards you want to lay down.
- 13:34SPEAKER_01: Um, but the other thing is that like I wholeheartedly believe in sharing goals publicly.
- 13:41SPEAKER_01: And um, just as like an aside story, recently, or I guess it was January, I posted on LinkedIn and I was like, I'm going on a podcast tour.
- 13:52SPEAKER_01: And this is whatever.
- 13:53SPEAKER_01: And I was like, tag shows I should go on, blah, blah, blah.
- 13:56SPEAKER_01: I had no shows booked.
- 13:57SPEAKER_01: I just made up that I was going on a podcast tour and like publicly claimed it.
- 14:01SPEAKER_01: I was like, I want to go on a podcast tour.
- 14:03SPEAKER_01: This is my plan.
- 14:04SPEAKER_01: This is what I want to talk about.
- 14:05SPEAKER_01: Like, I want to do a tour about my new framework, like the way authors do.
- 14:09SPEAKER_01: And I booked 10 shows, like, because I just claimed it.
- 14:13SPEAKER_01: And it's the same thing.
- 14:14SPEAKER_01: Like, if you tell people what you're trying to do, what you're trying to accomplish, then they know to mention you in rooms you're not in.
- 14:21SPEAKER_01: But if they don't know that you're what you're trying to do, how would they know to mention you?
- 14:24SPEAKER_01: Right.
- 14:25SPEAKER_02: Or they might feel like, oh, you're booked, or oh, she's busy.
- 14:28SPEAKER_02: I don't want to bother her with an opportunity that's risky, right?
- 14:31SPEAKER_02: As soon as you let people know, hey, no, send me the risk, send me the deal that might not close.
- 14:37SPEAKER_02: Like, I'm interested in the conversation.
- 14:39SPEAKER_02: I'm in a risk-taking season.
- 14:41SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, it brings you to mind to your point, like talking about you in rooms you're not in and things like that.
- 14:47SPEAKER_02: And I can't wait to listen to all the shows you're gonna be on and your podcast tour.
- 14:51SPEAKER_01: Yeah, they've they've they've been dropping.
- 14:54SPEAKER_02: Um point though, of like, I saw that on LinkedIn and was like, oh, that's so cool.
- 14:58SPEAKER_02: Becky's going on a podcast tour.
- 14:59SPEAKER_02: And it feels so like this is so thought out, and she's got a whole plan and all this stuff.
- 15:05SPEAKER_02: And you're like, I just want to see if it'll work and put that out there.
- 15:08SPEAKER_02: And it did, and as it started to pick up momentum, you're like, cool, I now know to do this again.
- 15:14SPEAKER_02: And I think that's a big part of sales is figuring out I've got to test something, I've got to put something out there and making sure that people know that you're around.
- 15:24SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
- 15:25SPEAKER_01: They like I once I had booked shows, I made like a little like um, or my my designer made like this graphic that was like a a tour poster with like the different things.
- 15:36SPEAKER_01: And it's just it's just cool.
- 15:38SPEAKER_01: Like you get to sort of lean into it because it's working.
- 15:40SPEAKER_01: That's awesome.
- 15:41SPEAKER_02: Um, okay, last question for you.
- 15:44SPEAKER_02: Um, you've worked with all types of businesses, all sizes of businesses, you've been inside agencies, you've run your own.
- 15:52SPEAKER_02: What have you seen is the number one thing that keeps people from scaling?
- 16:00SPEAKER_01: I think we just get in our own way too much.
- 16:03SPEAKER_01: Um, and this is why coaching is so valuable because you push me so much.
- 16:09SPEAKER_01: And nobody in my life pushes me the way you push me because of my personality.
- 16:14SPEAKER_01: And so, like, it's just nice to have you need people that are like pushing you to the next level and reminding you that you just put some random ceiling above your head that doesn't exist.
- 16:25SPEAKER_01: And so I think we just put a lot of limits on ourselves because we don't.
- 16:30SPEAKER_01: I'm sure like we can maybe it's not like you don't dream big enough, but it's like you have to if if you tell me go find$40,000, I'll go find$40,000.
- 16:40SPEAKER_01: And if you tell me go find$5,000, I'm gonna go find$5,000.
- 16:43SPEAKER_01: So it's like, you know, just having somebody to reflect back to you where you're limiting yourself.
- 16:51SPEAKER_01: I think we're all limiting ourselves too much, especially women.
- 16:55SPEAKER_02: Something agree.
- 16:56SPEAKER_02: Something I think that's really cool about coaching too is I love celebrating your wins with you.
- 17:01SPEAKER_02: And I think that even if you do have a small business community, even if you do have friends that are entrepreneurial, especially if you have friends that are entrepreneurial, it can get weird to tell people like, I close this massive deal.
- 17:13SPEAKER_02: Or somebody I love bragging to you.
- 17:15SPEAKER_02: It's the best.
- 17:16SPEAKER_02: And like I love celebrating it with you.
- 17:18SPEAKER_02: And I think that there's something so valuable in having somebody in your corner you can be totally honest about your finances with.
- 17:24SPEAKER_02: Um, the wins and the losses, and be like, hey, I need to go find$40,000.
- 17:28SPEAKER_02: I just closed a massive deal.
- 17:31SPEAKER_02: And walking through both seasons of that, I think that's so fun to be that person for you.
- 17:36SPEAKER_02: But also I've seen that those conversations, it's hard to find that person.
- 17:40SPEAKER_02: I think that that's a really, really great point about um just making sure you've got somebody like that in your corner.
- 17:46SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we limit ourselves too much.
- 17:48SPEAKER_01: You gotta get out of your own way, and the only way to do that is to like have somebody else like push you.
- 17:55SPEAKER_02: Awesome.
- 17:56SPEAKER_02: Becky, how can people work with you?
- 17:58SPEAKER_02: Where can they go find your podcast?
- 18:00SPEAKER_01: Yep.
- 18:00SPEAKER_01: So the podcast is called Build with Becky.
- 18:03SPEAKER_01: You can find it on any podcast player.
- 18:05SPEAKER_01: And if you're building any kind of like programs, memberships, communities, it's definitely for you.
- 18:11SPEAKER_01: Um, and I'm on Instagram and LinkedIn under my name Becky Pearson Davidson.
- 18:16SPEAKER_01: Awesome.
- 18:16SPEAKER_02: Great.
- 18:17SPEAKER_02: Well, thank you so much for being on, letting us uh letting our listeners listen to our quick talk about all things sales and everything.
- 18:24SPEAKER_02: And thanks for letting me coach you.
- 18:25SPEAKER_02: It's been a blast.
- 18:26SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's my favorite, it's my favorite call every two weeks.
- 18:30SPEAKER_02: Well, I will uh talk to you on our next coaching call soon.
- 18:33SPEAKER_02: And if you are listening, thank you so much.
- 18:36SPEAKER_02: And we'll catch you next week.
- 18:37SPEAKER_02: Until then, sell well.