What if sales aren't about selling?

Business  ·  Sales  ·  Mindset

By Julie Cyvonne  ·  Plant Medicine Coach & Business Mentor  ·  8 min read

Imagine this: you're on a networking call, no agenda or pitch, just two women getting to know each other. She asks what you do, and you tell her you're a web designer.

And she says, "Oh God, don't look at my website, I hate it."

And you freeze.

One of my clients told me this happens to her constantly. She's phenomenal with people, networking is her superpower at this point. She can close a client who shows up already saying "I want to work with you," and let's be honest, most of us can close that one.

What she couldn't do was navigate the moment where a stranger hands her the exact problem she is qualified to solve.

Here's what I reflected back to her: she hired me on precisely that kind of call. A get-to-know-you conversation in a networking group. She mentioned she was interested in psychedelics, I asked her some questions, and she paid on the spot.

Nobody pitched anything to anybody. We simply had a conversation.

Most of us learned sales from men who were selling to men

I had a mentor years ago with an analogy I absolutely love. It's hers, not mine, and it goes:

Her point was that most people are shoving their metaphorical dick down someone's throat in a sales conversation. It can work! Bro marketing converts. There's a service right now I want to buy and fully intend to buy, and I refuse to speak to the guy again until I'm ready to hand over my credit card, because his tactics are so aggressive I can't stand being in a conversation with him.

As women selling to women, that pressure lands like a slammed door. So we swing all the way to the other side and say nothing at all, which is why so many brilliant business owners freeze the second someone hands them an opening. But don't worry, there's a third option!

Sales as dating, not mating

Mating is spotting someone you've decided is a good fit and going straight for it. Frat boy at the party energy: sees a cute girl, walks over, leans in for the kiss, and she's standing there going: who are you? What is your name? What are you doing here?

I went on a date a few weeks ago with a man who had six tequila sodas on a Monday, talked about himself for the entire night, and then asked me to come home with him. He may have called that a date because he paid. But for me? It was mating.

Dating is spotting someone you think your service could help, then asking questions to find out whether that's true. You're just gathering information. And if the information says no, you get to walk away, no harm no foul.

The questions that do the selling for you

This is the sequence I run in every conversation, whether it's a booked sales call or a chat at a coffee shop. I'll use my client's web design business as the example, but plug in your own work: functional health, coaching, psychedelic facilitation. 

Then you say the price like it's 100% neutral.

You know the moment. Beautiful conversation, total alignment, and then it's time to say the number and your voice drops to a whisper. You look at the floor. Your butthole clenches and you fumble the whole thing.

Mine sounds identical to every other sentence in the conversation: "Amazing, I'm so excited, you're going to love this. There are two options. Pay in full is $4,500, or four monthly payments if you'd rather."

I've had sticker shock on my one-to-one price and my response is: it's six months, baby. Six months of VIP concierge access to me. I'm grounded in that number because I know what it's worth.

And if someone balks? That's information about fit, not a verdict on your value. Part of why the balk stings so much is that you're not having enough of these conversations, so you've attached your entire month to one of them.

Why microdosing changed my close rate

My client walked me through the loop running in her head during those networking calls. "I don't want to bother her" and "I don't want to seem salesy" or  "I don't want to ruin the conversation" and "I don't want to kill the vibe."

Every one of those thoughts pulls her out of the conversation happening in front of her.

I don't have that loop. Microdosing quiets the default mode network, the part of your brain generating that chatter, and what's left is presence. I'm assessing information as it arrives instead of pre-writing the ending. If someone tells me they're not open to psychedelics, my response is genuinely "cool, happy to get to know you either way," because there's nothing in me that needs the outcome.

It also makes me catch the subtleties. Someone's energy shifting before they say a word. Body language telling me they're done with the topic. I can pivot because I'm noticing.

The goal is a yes or a no, at 100%

The point of a sales conversation isn't to get to yes. It's to get to certainty, in either direction.

I love the calls that end in a clear no. They weren't a fit, or we didn't have symbiosis, or they didn't need what I sell. I walk away without a single "what if she would have been a great client" running in the back of my mind for the next three weeks.

Your job is to be curious enough to learn whether your assumption about them is true, honest enough to help them see clearly whether this problem is worth solving, and unattached enough to accept whichever answer shows up.

Your integration moment

You don't have to be in sales for this one. Sometime this week, slow down and get curious with someone you care about. If they're lit up about a yoga class they took, ask them to tell you more. What made it good? Then ask another question.

The best salespeople are the ones who genuinely care and ask better questions. That skill is built in your friendships long before it shows up on a call.

If something in here hit a nerve, that's information. Book a call and let's look at what's happening in your business and whether I'm the person to help. 

You don't need to have it figured out before you book. 🍄