Do you believe in what you offer? Because when that belief is there, it makes the quote-unquote "pain" that we sometimes feel when we start getting more and more into sales, it makes that decrease, because we're so focused on how we can help. We're not focused on, "How can I push someone to spend money with me?"
Welcome to the Legacy Creator podcast, a show dedicated to giving you the tools you need to build a profitable, purposeful, and powerful business that lasts. I'm your host, Ashton Smith, a sixth-generation entrepreneur who is passionate about helping you think bigger so that you can actualize your goals and build your legacy.
Let's dive in.
Hello, hello. Welcome back to the Legacy Creator podcast. Today, we're going to deep dive into a topic that is brought to my attention constantly. I get questions all the time around sales, and specifically, how to sell on Instagram. Now, some of what I'm going to talk through today is going to be applicable just to Instagram, but some of these elements you'll be able to extract and use for other platforms. But I want to have a hands-on, deep-dive conversation around how to sell on Instagram, and hopefully inform you that it is easier than you think.
People wildly overcomplicate sales, especially when they are new to business, and especially if you don't have a background in which you were proactively selling, and that was me when I entered the online business space in 2017. My mission: to empower women, which was beautiful, but not specific. And I didn't have a sales strategy. I had no idea how I was going to build a profitable business, and profitability directly ties to sales. So, today, we're gonna talk specifically about how to sell on Instagram. I'm gonna share some lead tracking and sales tips with you that have worked really well for our company, work really well for a lot of the clients that we work with, a lot of our acquaintances and our network. And I hope that by the end of this episode, you feel empowered and you walk away knowing that sales is a service. Selling your services is a service, and it can be super simple.
As we dive into this conversation, I want to highlight a really important element: the biggest hindrance that I see when it comes to sales is mindset. Now, don't disengage, because mindset sounds so intangible. We all know mindset is everything, and my clients will tell you, "I am strategic-focused. I'm all about the tactics. I'm all about the nitty-gritty plan and the execution, implementation," but we cannot shelf mindset. We cannot ignore mindset, because if your mindset is not in the right place, none of the other stuff will matter.
And when it comes to sales, mindset, to me, is what I see to be the biggest hindrance. You know, I think back to when I started my first business back in 2017, and as I went through different iterations and introduced different companies, this was something I definitely struggled with in the early days, because I felt weird about selling online. I somehow felt like I was being pushy, or I somehow felt that I was a burden or I was annoying. When in reality, we have to start thinking about sales differently.
Number one, we have to ask the question, "Do I believe in what I offer?" Do you believe in what you offer? That's important, because when that belief is there and we know without a shadow of a doubt that we can bring value to people, that we can help people, that we can make people happier, that we can provide solutions, whatever it is, it further incentivizes you to sell. It makes the quote-unquote "pain" that we sometimes feel when we start getting more and more into sales, it makes that decrease, because we're so focused on how we can help. We're not focused on, "How can I push someone to spend money with me?" It's all about the mindset and the energy that you bring into it, but you have to believe in what you offer. And we have to start thinking about, "How can my offers be of service to someone?"
When you make sales about you, you're probably going to feel icky. When you make it solely about you, about your bottom line, about selling no matter what, you're gonna feel icky, right? But if you bring the intention and the energy and the mindset of, "This is valuable, this is a solution, this is a service, this is supportive, this is going to provide insert specific outcome for my customers," that is an entirely different energy. So, mindset is everything, and we have to start rewiring how you think about sales. The act of selling is a service. It is a way to genuinely support your community. And at the end of the day, we also just have to accept the fact that running a business requires sales. It really does, you know? Without sales, we don't have cash flow. Without cash flow, we don't have a profitable business. So, we have to start rewiring. We have to elevate our belief. We have to shift towards service. And then, your energy and your actions in those conversations will feel more and more in alignment. And there is power in repetition, and in practice. That's another big thing here. Don't expect for your first sales conversation or your first ten to feel incredible and seamless and amazing. It's gonna take time. It's going to take repetition and optimization. So, there's that.
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Now, back to the episode.
Alright, so now that we've got mindset, we have laid this foundation—that's the biggest piece of work—let's dive into how do we actually find leads on the platform? Ultimately, we need to find a bridge to connection and communication. So, I'm gonna share some of the most common ways, some of the most common bridges to communication and connection on Instagram as it stands today. These are bridges, for lack of better terms, that we use, our clients use, to get connected with, get in front of potential clients that we can further serve.
So, those are your bridges to find potential clients. That is one of the first steps here, okay?
But then once we find them, we have to actually nurture them. Now, I'm not a big proponent of cold messaging, and you also need to know your environment. You need to know how people communicate and how they like to communicate on specific platforms. What I know about the current environment on Instagram, especially when I pull from just data from our community, our conversations with our community, people are looking for more of a true connection. Cold messaging, to me, does not work as well on Instagram. Direct, immediate pitches, also I don't find work well on Instagram. I even notice that from, like, being on the receiving end. I just automatically delete those. I find that people on Instagram, they wanna be connected with and, and just, in general, in the sales process, people do want to be seen. People want to feel like you see them as a human being, and there are ways to do that in all different contexts, but this is a very important piece to the sales process. We cannot actually get to the pitch, the sales call, whatever it is until we nurture, until we build rapport. You kinda have to think about it like maybe a dating relationship or even a friendship. You're going to wanna take time to converse with this person, get to know them, and find common ground. That's one of the first things that you wanna do when you're connecting with people, is find common ground.
Now, I will say before I keep going that a lot of what I'm talking about today is really applicable for higher-ticket offers. If you are looking to fill lower-ticket offers, you're looking for increased volume, and this one-on-one sales approach may not be as applicable. So consider your mid- to high-ticket offers, and that's what this is applicable for, right?
So all of that to say we need to nurture these relationships. We need to build rapport. We need to build trust. We need to get to know this person, too. Like, this also allows you to vet people as well, because you can get to know who they are, how they operate, what they may struggle with. I always say first step, though, we need to find common ground, and it doesn't necessarily have to or need to be about business, for example. We can ask, you know, about family. A lot of times, I will encourage our clients to use their content as a springboard to communication. So, you know, if I'm in a line at the grocery store, I'm not just gonna go out of my way and tap the shoulder of the person in front of me and say, "Hey, how's your family?" I don't know that person. They're gonna be like, "Uh, you're psycho." Um, so what I would do is I would, you know, find common ground. Maybe they're wearing a sweatshirt of my favorite band. I'm like, "Oh my gosh. I love that band. How long have you been a fan? Have you been to a concert," right? So think about ways that you can find common ground and really think about this as if you are in person with this person. Act as if you are in front of them at a coffee shop, and really visualize that. We wanna make sure that your communication with them feels organic, it feels natural, and most importantly, we wanna make sure that it feels genuine. That is so, so central to people wanting to work with us and purchase from us. They wanna feel as though they're connecting with a genuine human being.
In this nurture process, find common ground. Have discussions. Ask questions. Be curious. Be curious genuinely about their life, about their family, about what they do. This rapport-building stage is, number one, what is going to make you feel confident, good, and aligned about actually reaching out with more of a proactive sales conversation, so it's going to create that alignment. And number two, it's going to increase the likelihood of success with this process. As a general rule of thumb, think about how would you like to be treated in this process? How would you like to be sold to? As a good piece of homework, you can even consider, has someone sold you into a particular offer, program, et cetera? Pay attention to what motivates you. Pay attention to what caused you to say yes to work with that person. Really consider those elements and see how you can apply that to your sales process.
Okay, so as we're nurturing them, we're finding that common ground, we're showing that we're genuine, we're showcasing interest, at some point in time, we may shift the conversation a little bit to go into more depth about how you may be able to support them without formally saying that. So what I mean by that, for me, I always like to connect with people about life and business, but I also like to know, "Hey, what are some of your goals? Like, what are you working towards?" That's just because I have genuine interest, and I like to be a cheerleader in people's corners, but also because if they share something that, you know, I might be able to help with, I can always, like, bookmark that for later, right? I can see if we can further unpack that and see if that's something they want help with. So for me, that's a great transitional question where we're moving away from maybe, like, "I like your mug. Your plants are cute. I like that band too." We're talking about their family, and we shift a little bit more towards business. And for me, that's really applicable, right, if I can identify what their goals are. So you have to think about what transitional questions could you leverage in order to learn more about your ideal clients, and how you might be able to support them. So you have to kind of, like, brainstorm and play around with that a little bit depending upon your industry and what you offer, and you can test these out too and see how they perform in real time as you are engaging with people on the platform.
Okay, so all of the most important work has taken place up to this point. The most important work in the sales process is everything that happens before you actually pitch someone. Now, you will have outsider scenarios, you know, that fall outside of this, right? You may have people that inquire directly. We have that as well, you know? Maybe they love your website, your imagery, your messaging. Maybe they've just been consuming your content for a long time, and they inquire, and that's incredible, but what we're talking about here is proactively selling. So I'm never going to tell you to just bank on your content selling for you, although content strategy is a whole other thing, and we have an episode coming on that. Content is important, but I find that direct communication with people in conjunction with content is also important, because people wanna feel seen, and especially when you are selling something that's mid- to high-ticket, that human touch, human communication is so, so important.
So, when you have your mindset right, you know how to find leads, you're nurturing them, you're building rapport, it just lays the foundation for a successful pitch process. Let's address the question, okay, how do I actually pitch people? How do I actually sell someone? So scary. And no shame because I used to feel so scared about this process as well. But we wanna think about how can we make this conversational and how can we highlight the fact that we just wanna be of service? That's ultimately what selling is, right? What we may do is send a simple invitation for them to hear more. This is an actual quote unquote "pitch" that I use all the time. I will use voice notes on Instagram, and I will reach out and say something along the lines of, "It's been so cool connecting with you. I'm so excited about all of these things you're working towards this year, specifically X, Y, Z." I wanna kind of reference some of those things. "You know, it's been great connecting with you, and I actually feel like I could be of service in these particular areas and help you actualize some of those goals. I wanted to see, would you be willing to hear a little bit about how I might be able to support you?" Super simple, right?
Now, this highlights my favorite way to pitch, and that is by asking permission. And it's not that I say, "Do I have your permission to pitch you and to sell you on my services?" That's not what it is. As you just heard, it's more of, "Hey, could I share a little bit of information with you? I feel like I could help." That's selling. That's all that selling is. And 9 times out of 10, people say, "Yes, I would love to hear more." It's so funny because I just started working with a new client. With every client, when we start working together, we look at revenue, we do look at the sales process, and I ensure that they have a proactive sales system like this in place. And I just got a message from her. She was so excited because she was like, "This is the first time that I've ever, like, gone out of my way and put myself out there to actually pitch people." And everyone so far that she's pitched to share information with or has actually sent proposals to, they've said yes. Isn't that incredible? You never know what opportunities you're missing out on because you just don't put yourself out there. You have not because you ask not. Really consider, how can I communicate that I would love to be of service, and I would love to share more information and see where that goes, right?
Now, you know, there may be a step between inviting them to hear more and then maybe getting on a sales call, for example, if that is your mode of sales, if that is the way you are kind of finalizing the sales process through a sales call. Sometimes for some of my clients, we will offer to that potential client to send over a quick Loom video, to walk them through some things that they could help them with. If you don't know what Loom is, I love it. L-O-O-M.com. We use that as well for a lot of things in our business, but that tool, that, uh, tactic tends to work really well because it shows a potential client that you are invested, that you are interested in really supporting and serving them, and it gives them an opportunity to kind of interact with you in a different way and a little bit more depth. So consider using a tactic like that. This works really well for a lot of, like, brand designers, web designers that I work with, agency owners, where you can actually go over onto, like, your client's website or your client's social and walk them through some of your ideas and how you could help. I even have had clients that are coaches and consultants that have used this as well. So that may be a little something you could try out.
That is truly how simple the pitching process is. Doesn't have to be more complicated. And just to reiterate, what makes that successful is what comes before it. So just remember that.
The final thing that you'll want to consider here is leveraging and systematizing with a lead list and a lead tracking system. We have a couple of systems that we use in our business. We have an engagement tracker, and we use that specifically for Instagram, and we have a lead tracker that kind of encompasses leads across all platforms that are more of, like, a formal lead, um, where they have either, you know, expressed interest or inquired or something like that. But we do use an engagement tracker, so you can kind of use—you can kind of lump that into one for now, depending on the stage of your business, especially if you are a startup. Just create a basic lead tracker. You can do it in a spreadsheet, and you can track from cold to warm to hot. When people enter into that warm stage or that hot stage, that's where we're, you know, going to consider actually pitching them. This is a super, super simple system that I used to build our initial client base and our initial revenue base back in 2019.
So what you'll wanna keep track of is potentially things like their name, their handle. What is upcoming for them if they've shared any of that information. If there's any details that you don't wanna forget, you know, about their family or things that are going on in their life, you can document that. And then a "next step" column is really helpful so that you can know every time you sit down to look at this lead tracker what action you need to take on your end in order to continue moving that conversation along. This just helps you be very intentional with your lead tracking and your sales process on Instagram so that you don't forget who you're talking to. You can keep track of those high-level details, and you can be intentional about those next steps. So again, if you're just starting out, a cold-warm-to-hot system is gonna work just fine for you.
Final piece here that I just wanna briefly mention is rejection and how to handle that. It's so normal as business owners to feel so deeply tied to and connected to the business to the point where we kind of tie our worth to it. That's so normal, so I just want to communicate that. But just know that rejection can be a redirection, number one. I firmly believe that every closed door is leading us to a better, more aligned open door. So just keep that in mind. But also know that a no and a rejection does not mean that you're not equipped, and it doesn't mean that you don't have value to bring. It just means that that wasn't the right fit for you. This is where resiliency as a founder is so important because we're gonna be rejected so many times in business, and the longer that you're in it, the more used to that that you get and the less personal—you take it less personally is what I'm trying to say there. So don't let the fear of rejection hold you back from incredible opportunities, both to grow your business, but most importantly, to be of service to the people in your community. That's what selling is. Selling is serving.
I hope that this was helpful, and I hope that this simplifies what selling actually can look like. I hope you feel equipped and empowered, and I can't wait to see the connections you make and the sales that come in using this information. Before you head out, if you could leave a review on the platform that you are tuning in on. Let us know what do you enjoy and like about the podcast, this informs future episodes. And if you could share on social media, share to Instagram Story, tag us @myawakeningco. We'll reshare and get this message out to as many people as we possibly can. Until next time, talk to you later.
