You've probably heard the old saying, "The phone weighs 10,000 lbs". Yes, I remember when that used to be true for me. One of the biggest lessons (and most lucrative) that I learned from Suzanne as my business coach is that the fastest path to cash is reaching out and calling people to either talk to them about working with me or see if they knew someone who needed my help.
And I can tell you honestly – I resisted this advice. I resisted so much that Suzanne handed me the assignment to ask 100 people to work with me. Not just call 100 people a week, but get an answer from them. Strangely, it was the best medicine I could have ever gotten with an illness of being 6-figures in debt and it moved me to having a 6-figure business in only 8 months. How did I make all those calls?
Here are the top ten things that helped me move from feeling like I had to do that heavy lifting of the phone into experiencing a brand new life of freedom, choice and plenty of money in the bank!
1) Ask a new question
Instead of "Who can I get to work with me and start paying me?" start asking "Who needs my help today?" Can you see how that removes the $ sign from your potential client's forehead and moves the intention into service? This changes the entire energy of every reach out!
2) Change the focus
I took the focus off me and how uncomfortable I was and put the focus on them. What did they really want? Why didn't they have it? Could what I have to offer help them get it? That became what mattered to me instead of being liked and staying comfortably poor and unsuccessful (not so comfortable...).
3) Scary ones first
I realized there were people I wasn't reaching out to because I was afraid of the answer, sometimes was even embarrassed to call them. But when I cleaned up my list of reach outs and took them to completion, I felt FREE. They were no longer hanging over my head and sucking my energy. AND…I got Yes's from many of the people I had been procrastinating on calling.
4) Get it in the calendar
I started putting the times that I was going to call people right on the calendar. Not only that, but I put their names right in the time slot. I then told myself that if I didn't call them then, that I had missed an appointment with them. I didn't show up and I wasn't in integrity with them or with me. In my mind, we had an appointment and it was my job to show up FOR them.
5) Don't take their choice away
You really don't know if someone needs your help or wants to work with you until you ask them. If you never reach out to them and have an honest conversation, you never know what their choice is. Now in some ways that can be comforting because if you never ask, you never get a No. But that not knowing also sucks your energy and blurs the truth of your pipeline of potential clients. Deciding to allow them to make a choice frees you and creates space for you to help more people.
6) It's just an invitation
I stopped approaching my reach outs like it was going to be an immediate sales conversation and started inviting people to have a "strategy call" with me. That made my reach out calls an invitation…"I was calling to see if you would like to have a strategy session." Then we would set up a time when we had both agreed to get on the phone and talk about how I could support them. It takes the pressure off picking up the phone because now it is an invitation…their choice to accept…or not.
7) Go for the No
As my No's went up I noticed my Yes's went up too! It's true. You can't get the Yes's without getting the No's, and vice versa. I have gotten a lot of No's in my four years in business. And that translates into enough Yes's that I created a nearly $500K business in just over 3 years…from being 6-figures in debt!
8) Calls = Helping People = Money
I made a commitment that every call I made would lead to helping that person. Of course, I knew that if I could really help that person, the best way I could support them was to bring them in to work with me. But once I let go of the attachment to that outcome and realized that if I had an honest, authentic conversation they would get something out of it no matter what. I was committed to that and because I cared that much it would come through in our conversation. When you come from that place…you WILL make money!
9) I'm not bugging people!
The biggest mistake I made was calling someone once, not hearing back from them and assuming they didn't want to talk to me. But here's the deal…people are busy! Most of us have more on our to do list than we can get done in one day and believe it or not…calling you back is not necessarily in the top five of your "reach out's" list. So don't make up stories, just be persistent. Persistent in helping people. It's your job to keep following up…not their job.
10) Consistency
This is a GAME CHANGER. When I started putting people on my calendar that I would commit to reaching out to on a DAILY basis my life completely changed. And when I didn't do it…I felt the slump. There is a direct correlation between daily reach outs and income coming in to your business. What a simple formula for success!
So here is my challenge for you. Make a decision to lessen the load of the phone and start seeing it as an instrument of change…not only for you, but also for your potential clients. The phone is truly a pipeline to your pipeline. It is your most powerful tool to change your experience in your business, start helping all the people who need you and grow your business.
