Stop Assuming. Start Selling. The Beliefs Quietly Killing Your Sales

I’m switching things up in this episode and getting straight to it.

No fancy intro, no long-winded warm-up. Just a real conversation about assumptions, beliefs, and the stories we tell ourselves that quietly shape how we show up in our business.

Because lately, I’ve been hearing the same things again and again from product-based business owners.
 People aren’t buying anymore.
 Everyone only wants discounts.
 Nobody opens emails.
 January is dead.
 I don’t want to annoy my audience.

And honestly? Most of these are not facts. They’re beliefs. And beliefs are just thoughts you’ve repeated long enough that they feel true.

In this episode, I unpack some of the most common assumptions I see brands and retailers making about selling, marketing, email, Christmas, sales seasons, pricing, and customer behaviour. I also talk about where these beliefs come from, how negativity bias sneaks in, and why assuming the worst is one of the fastest ways to stall your growth.

We talk about why selling is not pushy or icky, how marketing is actually service, and why your job is not to guess what’s going on in someone else’s wallet.

If you’ve been holding back, second-guessing yourself, or quietly wondering if it’s even worth promoting right now, this episode is for you.

Listen in, then ask yourself one simple question.
Is this actually true, or is it just a belief I’ve been carrying around?

Transcript

 So welcome to today's podcast. My name's Melissa Robbins. This podcast is gonna start a little bit differently today.

I don't have my normal intro and outro, but I'm just gonna get straight into it. And what I wanna talk to you about today is assumptions and things that I have seen recently, or I've heard recently, and I just wanna run through some of these in case this is something that's impacting you or impacting your decision making

and the actions that you are taking right now as well. I'm just gonna start with the definition of what a belief is because I feel like, a lot of people have these beliefs and I just wanna clarify what a belief actually is.

As the dictionary talks about belief as an acceptance that a statement is true or that something exists. Now, that is often the case because most people. Have a certain belief and believe that if that is true and that that is fact as well. But diving into, what Abraham Hicks talks about that the belief is just a thought that you keep thinking and that beliefs aren't inherent truths rather than mental patterns formed by repetition, which can be changed by consciously choosing new thoughts

and by creating new mental momentum, which can be changed by consciously choosing new thoughts and shifting your perspective. It's the idea that recurring thoughts become our ingrained beliefs, shaping our reality, and by questioning them and focusing on desired outcomes, you can reprogram your mind and attract different experiences as well. So let's just talk about what some beliefs you may have or assumptions that you may make, which may impact your behavior and I'd love to hear if any of these were assumptions that you've had or you've thought about.

And hopefully, you know, it can, we can start to just question some of them too, whether they are actually real or that it's something you've just been led to believe,

so let's start questioning some of these as well. 

 so let's run through some of those assumptions, and these are assumptions about product businesses, about retail stores, about brands, e-commerce stores. , Working on those assumptions that I see or I've heard, , that I have come across recently. Everyone wants sales. People assume that everyone wants a sale and that they'll only be able to sell their product if they're on sale too.

I totally believe that that is not the case at all. I know myself personally have bought many things in the last couple of weeks, even though it's around near Black Friday cyber Monday, . And have purchased many things full price. So it's definitely not everyone is wanting a sale.

Not everyone needs it to be a sale. If people have a problem and they wanna get that problem solved, then they're willing to purchase something, whether it's on sale or not. So not everyone is looking for a sale. Not everyone's looking for a discount all the time. Number two, that everyone has finished buying, that they've purchased everything that they need to buy in the Black Friday sales,

or that , there's certain periods that people will buy, people will buy all year round, and not everyone has finished buying. So don't stop marketing. Don't stop promoting your products. Don't stop promoting your website. Don't stop talking about your offers and what you have available because not everyone has finished buying.

There's plenty of selling season all year round, and especially right now, there's plenty of selling season left before Christmas as well. Another assumption about Christmas that everyone is buying for Christmas. I know myself, I don't buy that many Christmas presents because we do a Chris Cringle with, family groups and I don't have that many nieces and nephews that I buy for still.

I buy for my, some of my family, but again, it's not. Not everyone is buying for Christmas, so don't make assumptions that everyone is just buying for that particular period, or just for gifts. So it's not always the case that everyone is buying for Christmas,. And another assumption based on that is that if.

Everyone needs something by a certain time. And of course you should be communicating, when you have cutoffs for dates or how long to expect for deliveries or offer express or priority delivery. That's always a good one to add to your cart so that, you can add on a little incentive.

If someone wants something faster or goes to the top of the line, they can have that priority access too. Not everyone is buying for a particular season or a particular time don't stop marketing just because you think, oh, you know, the. The cutoffs pass and someone can't buy from me anymore, so people will be buying all year round for different reasons.

Don't assume everyone is buying for a particular time period or they need it by that particular time. Again, when I buy certain things around this time of year, I might be like, oh, I'm happy to get it in, you know, mid in between Christmas and New Year or early January. I just need something for a trip that I'm taking to don't make assumptions about when everyone needs a cutoff by as well.

And on that, like people travel. , I've been traveling recently and I needed to get, winter gear. So don't assume everyone's buying for a particular season. Only. You can sell different things if you're fashion especially, or if you have products that, are suited to. Certain seasons that not everyone's buying for that particular season that they're in, you might have customers globally and they're all buying for a different season and different weather, even if you were within Australia, there's very different weather within the whole country. Anyone who lives in Melbourne will know that it's been cold much longer than it has in somewhere like Queensland.

So everyone's buying for different areas. Don't make assumptions about everyone, is the same as what you are. As another one I've heard recently, people don't have money left, that they've spent all their money. Everyone is so different in this area, so get out of people's wallets and don't make assumptions about what they're spending.

Just if it relates to you at all. Everyone is spending differently. Everyone has different values of what they spend money on, so don't make assumptions about what, people have left or what they wanna spend their money on. The other one around that as well is that people are only buying for others.

Lots of people are buying for themselves, so don't make assumptions that there's only gift guides or it's only for other people. Like how can you share, you know, like what someone should buy for themselves for this time of year. Gift guides for that as well. And I know there's many people out there who buy their own presents because they, don't like what they get from someone else.

So, definitely people are not just buying for other people. They may be buying for themselves as well. Another assumption, and I've got about 18 here, so sorry about this, but hopefully this will trigger something in you to think, okay, maybe I am just making these assumptions and it's not the case for everyone.

This one I hear a lot and that people say. Is that, people don't open their emails Now, I don't know, everyone's rates are gonna be different here, but really ideally, your open rates for your emails are between 20 and 40% or somewhere near there. And if they're not, then talk to me about, what we can do to fix that.

But we wanna have open email, we wanna have people opening emails and people do getting emails. I'd still like to see what you know if someone is entertaining me, if someone's helping me and guiding me. I love getting emails from different product businesses or different types of businesses, so don't make assumptions that people don't email just because you don't open them all.

I might even open some of my emails three months later. If I have something that I've been like, oh, okay, I wanted to check on that. You know, or I go and binge a few from the one particular person that I did. I did this the other day. So don't make assumptions about that. Or that people get too many emails.

And of course, lots of people do get too many emails and not everyone is gonna open all their emails, but it doesn't mean that you don't show up as well, like. Some brands send eight emails in a week. Now, I'm not saying that everyone should be doing that, however, the fact that works for these big companies means that it's generating them income.

So we wanna be thinking about that too, but don't make assumptions about that. People don't want email just because you might not open yours. And don't make assumptions about that. You're sending too many. Everyone has a different cadence of what they should be sending based on the size of your list and that you should be seeing segment in your list.

. Don't stop sending emails just because people would've got a lot over, the Black Friday, cyber Monday period. You should still be sending emails up until, Christmas in January, in between Christmas and New Year in January, still promoting your product.

Don't make assumptions about people have finished buying. There's lots of opportunity to still get sales, , and have December and January be really great periods for sales as well. Assumption that no one is seeing the content online. A hundred percent there, there's definitely been changes in the algorithm.

There's definitely been less people seeing content, but if you are making great content, then it's still getting shown to certain to people. And again, people can go back and binge and find you and see that different content. So don't stop sharing online just because people are seeing less of it. Try and make, improve that content and make that content better as well.

And don't assume that everyone, every person buys or shops the same way. When I had my retail store, I would have people buy things for Christmas in October. They would buy things for Christmas on Christmas Eve like everyone shops and buys a different way. Some people don't think about it until the very last minute.

Some people prep way ahead of time. Some people have lots of people to buy for. Some people only wanna buy for themselves. Don't make assumptions about how people buy and their behavior of their buying as well. This one I heard the other day in my membership and it sort of threw me a little bit because I was like, really that? Is that, you know, is that something that people actually believe? And one of the ones that came up, and she may recognize this when I'm talking about it, but is someone said that if you go on sale, that you must be ripping people off normally and that your prices must be inflated normally if you are able to go on sale.

And I was like, no, what? Seriously, that I had that thought, had never crossed my mind at all that just because someone is on sale, that they've normally got inflated prices. And I don't believe that to be the case at all, but clearly that's something that someone had thought about and that it had crossed their mind.

So, we discussed that, you know, dived into that and that is a belief that she held. It doesn't mean that other people had that same one as well, or that they were assuming that that was the case. So most people, and especially small businesses, really struggle to put their prices up or to price properly.

And I see this again and again because they have their own beliefs and their own values about what things should cost or what they can afford. So they don't even wanna put the prices as high as what they probably should be, but the fact that, yeah, that if you go on sale, that you must be ripping people off normally.

That was a, um, that was a curve ball, one that I was definitely, tried to work through why that belief was existing and sitting in there as well. Okay, so touching on the email one before that people are sick of hearing from me. That's not the case. It may be for some people. You'll get unsubscribed when you send emails, but you've gotta let that go and serve the people who actually wanna hear from you and give them great content to share so that they do wanna hear from you.

And really try and work through that. It's. That you are too much or that you are sending too much or that there's too much information coming your way. Touching on what we said before, no one spends money in January. I've heard that, you know, bandied about, that's definitely not the case again, because you don't know where people are going away.

You don't know what people got for Christmas. Maybe they wanna buy something for themselves 'cause they didn't go, they wanted for Christmas. There's so many different things that you could believe in this, in here, but. What it drills down to is that you should keep marketing, you should keep promoting, you should keep sharing what you have available and keep assuming that there's someone out there who wants to hear from you.

There's someone out there that you're gonna help with the information that you're gonna share, or the content you're gonna share, or the email that you're gonna send. So stop assuming that, people are finished buying. You've gotta keep promoting and selling as well. And this one comes up as well, that people, you people assume the worst.

So negativity. Bias comes up, which is, this is, I'm gonna read out the definition here. It's a con. Cognitive tendency to pay more attention to remember more vividly and be more influenced by negative experiences or information than positive ones. Even when they're of mag equal magnitude, this means that bad is stronger than good in terms of psychological impact.

So it's definitely, people will always think or assume the worst and look for the worst, and it's just the way that they assume why someone hasn't bought. So we wanna stop assuming why someone hasn't bought that's why that they didn't like it or that you haven't done a great job of marketing it. But we need to stop assuming why people spend money and that they have finished buying and that you're being annoying by contacting them and helping them, I think we've gotta flip that switch from selling, is annoying or icky, and. Dirty. It's a dirty word, and that selling is service. Like if you are helping someone make a decision, if you're helping filter the products that you have available with your gift guide, if you're helping filter on your website that you have gifts under $50 or whatever it might be like, if you are helping people and you're showcasing what you have available and.

How it can transform someone's life and how it can make someone feel better, then that's what it's all about. Like really helping your customer make different decisions and showcasing what you have available, sharing your passions about your why, about, why you create what you create, why you have these colors available, how excited you are to use this gift wrapping and packaging, and how it means so much to you to get that sale every time.

So I'd love to know after you listen to this, which ones resonated with you? Which assumptions have you made? What beliefs do you hold that you just have assumed are true without even questioning, you know, how long you've been thinking this same thing. I would love to hear from you about that, and I hope that this episode has triggered something in you to make you think, to make you stop and question is that actually true or is this just something that I've believed and, held or is it a belief that I've just kept thinking for so long that you inha that you think it's true? I'd love to know if this has shifted any of your perspective and if this has helped, change that reality of what you might believe is true. And a little bit of, you know, reprogram your mind and attract different experiences for yourself as well.

. Alright, so I hope you've enjoyed this episode and I'll speak to you soon.