Your DMs Aren’t Converting to Sales & This Is Why w/ Lauren Najar

You’re sending messages, starting conversations, trying to sell and still not seeing results.

In this episode, I break down what actually turns people off in the DMs and why so many common sales tactics feel forced, exhausting, and ineffective. I walk through what I don’t do in the DMs, from cold pitching to over-messaging, and what actually gets people to buy instead. 

I also share how I’ve built a sustainable business through relationship-driven conversations instead of volume-based outreach. From closing four-figure deals to generating a $20,000 launch entirely through DMs, this is a real look at what it takes to convert without burning out, sounding robotic, or pushing people away. 

Chapters:

00:30 Why DM sales feels off for most people

01:30 Sales calls vs DM selling shift

03:30 Why scripts don’t work in sales

05:30 The problem with launch cycles

06:30 What cold DMing actually is

08:30 Why volume DMing burns you out

09:30 Why conversations drive sales, not likes 

10:30 Why scripts fail in real conversations

11:30 How selling actually works

12:30 Why you struggle to pivot in DMs

13:30 How to know if someone is actually a lead

14:30 The problem with spam engagement

16:30 What natural DM conversations look like

17:30 What not to do in the DMs recap

18:30 How I close sales in the DMs 

Let’s Stay Connected:
→ Follow Lauren on Instagram: www.instagram.com/laurennajar
→ Learn more or work with me: www.laurennajar.com
→ Follow Business Over Cocktails on IG: www.instagram.com/businessovercocktails
→ Attend Growth & Connect retreats & events: www.instagram.com/growthandconnect

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Welcome to the Business Chaser, your quick pour of strategy, clarity, and momentum. We skip the small talk and get straight to the strategy here in these bite-sized episodes. We're here to help you grow smarter, market better, and chase what matters all in 15 minutes or less. I'm your host, Laura Najar. Tune in and let's chat. Hello, hello. Welcome back to Business Over Cocktails. This is a business chaser segment. And today we're going to talk about what not to do in the DMs. So maybe you've heard of how to sell in the DMs and all of those things. And there could be a lot of answers to that question. I am going to give you what I have done successfully in the DMs, basically my entire business. First and foremost, if you don't know who I am, I'm Lauren Najar. I am a business coach, a strategist. I have a marketing agency. And as of this past year, I've been hosting in-person retreats and dinners for female founders now across the country. As of this recording, I hosted a retreat in Dallas or co-hosted a retreat in Dallas. So we are nationwide now. But anyway, so I'm going to go through my business really quick and why I am the expert, or why you should listen to me, I guess, of you know, why is Lauren talked to me about DMs? So I will say when I started my business, the landscape of the online industry about eight years ago now was that you had to do a bunch of sales calls. And the idea was that jump on a discovery call, jump on a clarity call, jump on whatever you wanted to call it, call. And you would end up like selling them essentially on a call, right? So it ended up being just a true sales call. And it led to a lot of people, you know, saying like this is a clarity call, but then it being misleading, and then you end up being sold to on the call. So I remember that being a thing. It might still be a thing, but I remember a lot of people, you know, would want to get on connection calls with me. And I would be like, okay, cool, like coffee chats, things like that. But then they would end up selling to me on the call. And that's not why I was getting on calls. It was really to try and build relationships. So on the flip side, when I started my business, I was told, like, yes, like get on sales calls, and then here's like a script and here's how to close them, right? And I was, I was really outsourcing my own knowledge of selling. I had been selling in the banking world. I even trained people how to sell and have successful sales conversations within the retail banking side of things. And, you know, if someone came to you for, you know, sat down at your desk in the banking world and like, oh, I want to open up a checking account today. Okay, great. Well, you're not just going to sit there and just open up a checking account. You want to sell them on all of the other banking products as well. So I helped people increase their sales for that. So, you know, you have, I'm I'm so far removed from retail banking and like it's been six years since I worked in retail banking now. So, you know, for me at that time, it would be like, okay, checking, and then we can sell them into a savings and online banking and a debit card and maybe even a credit card application, and then eventually a mortgage referral or investment referral. And so, like, we would have these conversations to hopefully get a bigger relationship out of that client, especially if they were new to the area and even new to our bank, because chances are they have a bunch of other things, other places. So, anyways, I knew how to sell really well. And when I was building my online business, I kind of just like forgot all of that because I let the online business world and being a business coach, yes, while that was new, I forgot, like, oh no, I can like sell and these these skills are essentially transferable. So I really like outsourced my power and my knowledge to other people where I'm like, oh, wait, yeah, like these people are more successful. So I'm gonna listen to them and how to close on sales calls and what I should do and all of the scripts and things like that. I just never felt good about it because I was more focused on the script itself versus actually listening to the person. And at the end of the day, how you actually sell well is when you are actually listening to the person and where you can respond. And I can't tell you how many times I've been on sales calls, even over the past few years, where maybe I've wanted to go on calls just to see like how it is to work with certain coaches. And I, you know, I get put on calls with like sales teams because these are, you know, bigger coaches and things like that. And, you know, they keep asking me the same questions, but they're not hearing what I have to say. And it's just, it's so obnoxious. And they almost like also don't let you off the phone, which is like really crazy. So I just don't like those marketing tactics. I don't like those selling tactics. That just never has set well with me. Also, through that is when you sell, again, the landscape in the last seven, eight years was that you had to launch every three months. You had to launch something. So you would launch a mastermind, then you would launch a low-ticket item, then you would launch a medium ticket item, then you would just take on one-on-one coaching, but you would always be in these like launch cycles where you're sending a million emails, you're posting a million times a day, and it was really exhausting. And I tried to do a traditional launch like that, I think like three or four times at this point. And the very first time I ever did it, I didn't sign any clients because like I had no leads. Like it was in you didn't have I didn't have any leads before the launch, right? Like launching might have given me some leads. And I do believe that it creates a lot of momentum for you, and then you just have to keep launching until it's successful. And then I launched again, probably like around 2020. I launched like a group program, and I had, I think, like three signups, which again, I felt like I did a lot of work for little to no return. And again, it just didn't sit right with me. I just like, nope, I'm not doing this. I gave it the good old college try and not gonna do it. So, anyways, and all this to be said is like throughout all of this, I finally started getting my confidence into selling in the DMs. And how do you do that? The things that you don't want to do. So these are things that I do not do, these are tactics I do not like personally, you know, and I will say, yes, this is my podcast, so I can say whatever I want of what I like and what I don't like, but I have to preface this that these tactics are still being taught because at some point or another, these are like successful. The numbers don't lie, right? If you send a hundred cold DMs a day, you're gonna get some yeses. The chances of that happening, you might get two, right? Two and two percent, converting two percent on a cold audience, that's normal. So if you send a hundred DMs and you get two conversions, great. You can keep playing the numbers game all day long if you want. I just personally, that is exhausting and I don't want to build a business that way. How I've built a business is through relationships and actually having conversations in the DMs where I'm actively listening to people, getting to know them, building trust, and simultaneously posting content that is going to answer their biggest pain points, right? So, what I don't do is I don't send X amount of cold DMs a day. And what I mean by cold DMing, so this is another like definition that people don't understand. Cold DMing is what would be cold calling to you, right? Do you remember you everyone's been cold called? Even as maybe you have a kid and you can remember your parents getting cold called, like there used to be cold door-door salesmen, cold calling. Think of that way as that's what a cold DM is. People like to argue and say cold DMing is just like, hey, how are you? Like, no, that's not a cold DM. That is an introduction. That's a hi. Like, what are you talking about? Cold DMing has the active selling in the very first message, right? So if I go to you and I say, Hi, Lauren, my name's Lauren. I'm a business coach and I help women scale their businesses through simplified lead generation and marketing strategies. I'm hosting a free workshop on content marketing, content that converts. Do you want to join? I didn't ask you if you had any problems of scaling your business. I don't even know if you're my ideal client. That is a cold DM. That is what people like to do a hundred times a day. And yes, you're going to get some yeses, right? I don't personally do that. I think that is very off-putting. I think that you can burn out very quickly. I think that, yes, if you want to play the numbers game again, there are different ways to play the numbers game. And you can build relationships this way. Again, it's not going to be overnight. But if you want to send a bunch of DMs a day of just like, hey, how are you? How's it going? Please do that. That's how you're going to get more visibility very quickly. You're not going to get yeses instantly, but you are going to get people that are like, oh my God, this is a cool person. I want to keep talking to this person. Also, to add to that cold DM. So I have a lot of clients, you know, the biggest complaints I get are it takes too long. Or then the opposite is I'm sending too many DMs I need to keep track of, which is valid, but again, you need to keep track. The faster you go, the more DMs you send, and the more conversations you're having, the faster you're going to grow your sales. So, yes, you have a lot to track, but like these are your sales. This is your sales process. Why are you not sending DMs? Why are you not connecting in the DMs? Why are you not selling stuff? Why are you not posting every day? Like, this is the livelihood of your business. Why are we not doing that? Right. Like, why do you want to focus more on getting more likes? That's not going to convert to sales. What's going to convert to sales is conversations. So the biggest thing I will say is no cold DMing. The next thing is there's no script in the DMs that's ever going to sit right with you. You have to just build the relationship where you are confident that not confident, but like you've built relationships in real life every single day. You sell every single day. And I'll give you an example really quickly. Like, say you just got your nails done and you're talking to your friend, and your friend goes, Oh my goodness, your nails look so cool. Where'd you get them done? I'm like, oh, I just went to this place on the street. It's called this nail salon. And I saw this person. Like, you should totally go. That person was interested because they liked your nails and they wanted them to. And guess what? You provided them a solution to get those nails exactly like yours. That's selling. That's referring. And so we sell every single day. And that's all it needs to be is that you have conversations with people enough to the point where you build trust with them and they're going to come to you and say, Hey, I have this problem. I know you have a solution for it. And guess what? You're going to provide the solution. They're going to pay you for it. And that's that. That's how you sell. That's the basics of selling, is just building rapport, relationships, and building trust and likability and positioning yourself as the person that's going to solve their problem and giving them the every bit of confidence that you are going to provide that solution for them. So there's no like send X amount of DMs before you cold pitch. That doesn't exist either. So don't do scripts. I will ditch the script. And then the other thing I want to say is you don't just like say hi and have small talk. You literally just talk to them. There's no like, there's no pivot point. And that's another thing I want to talk about is that I get a lot of questions like how do I pivot the conversation? Well, do you know if they're a lead or not? If the answer is no, then you're not doing a good enough job of finding out if they're a lead or not. So when you feel the need to pivot the conversation, you're like, I don't know how to pivot this. It's like, okay, well, then you haven't gained, like, you haven't gained enough knowledge to pivot the conversation. Because if you feel awkward about it and you don't know what to say, chances are you don't even know if they have a problem yet and you're they're not even a lead yet. So we need to take a step back and say, okay, what do I need to know about this person in order to pivot the conversation into a business conversation? Do I need to sell more in my content? Do I need to promote my email list more? Do I need to provide them with some sort of hand-raising action, meaning like create a masterclass or something to where that person signs up for it and like, oh my goodness, they're a lead now. They are telling me that they have a problem with this. And I didn't know. I have a workshop coming out at the end of April. And currently I think there's 12 signups, and a lot of them are like my clients, past clients, but I have some new people that like I just connected with. And I would not have known at all they were a lead until I launched this masterclass and they signed up for it. Like, how cool. Now they're a lead. And now I can treat them as such, right? They gave me that green line of like, yes, I need help. Like, my hand is raised, like, hi, I need help over here. There is one more thing I want to say. So I am gonna go a little bit over 15 minutes. There are people that will spam you with small talk. And I want to talk to those people right now. There's people that I know that do lead generation. And it just again is so backwards. There are times when there are people who I clearly know it's not that person that I'm talking to. So, like, say for instance, I'm I've been following so-and-so forever. And then, you know, you kind of get the vibe of like how you talk to them, right? And you you've probably experienced this too. It's like all of a sudden, like maybe like the many chat automation kicks off. You're like, oh, this isn't Lauren. Like, this is her many chat automation, right? Or some someone along those lines. There are people that over the years, because I do this for other people, I know like, I get a sense of like how they're gonna respond and things like that. And then every once in a while, it's like, oh, like clearly their lead generator person or their engagement person or their social media manager, whatever that is, doesn't understand or didn't do their due diligence of like we have a relationship for a really long time. Cause that's something that I take into consideration is like if I see a long chat history with someone, I'm not gonna like spam them and and like talk to them as if there's no relationship, right? But I want to like, I kind of want to call out those people because this is something to also not do in the DMs. I do not want to respond to five different stories and spam them with responses and then send them like seven other DMs in addition to liking posts and leaving comments on multiple posts all within the same 10 minutes. We like to have small talk and we want to be top of mind, but let the conversation be organic. That is the biggest thing. And it's interesting to me when again, this is I will say again, there might be success with that, but that is not how I do DM conversations because I'm not going to spam someone and give them five other questions to answer, just so then they clearly know that I notice them. And it just, it's such a it's such a turnoff. I don't want to ever work with anyone like that. And actually, unfortunately, these things are happening recently where then I'm not even wanting to engage with these people anymore. And I'm, I mean, they've been kind of like friends and things like that, but like you know, friends loosely, I guess, but just people that I've like looked to as peers and things like that. I'm like, I just stopped engaging and stopped messaging back because like that's just like it's way too much, way too much. So, regardless if you have someone doing it for you or you are doing it yourself and you think that that is a way to do that, I suggest you don't. You can respond to one story, you can send one message, but the biggest part here is that you send something that's like, hey, like, you know, if they have a story about their cat or something, it's like, hey, like you have a really cute cat, you know, what's the cat's name? And that gives them a way to respond. Or you could say, Oh, I saw that you're going to this event. How was it? How did you hear about this event? So not just saying, Oh, that's cool, is you have to also ask a question so then they can also respond back to you and you can continue the conversation that way. The idea that you have to send a million cold DMs, so I'll rattle off really quickly of what not to do in the DMs again. Don't need to send cold DMs a hundred times a day. That's you don't have to do that. You also don't have to spam someone who's engaging with you 10 times a day. You also don't have to do that. There is not a script. You might utilize a script just to see, like maybe some ideas of what to say, but do not utilize a script in the DMs. And most importantly, is there's not a set number of messages before you then pivot the conversation. It just everyone's different. It might convert in two months, they might convert in two years. That's the beauty of why you continuously do this on a consistent basis. I'll end this with saying I had a$20,000 launch solely in the DMs without a sales page. That was five years ago. Never since then. I've sold out masterminds, I've sold out retreats, I've sold out everything else in my business over the course of the last five to six years because I have solely utilized DM conversations. We have jumped on calls sporadically, but it's because I've already gotten the agreement and the person just had additional questions. So all of my calls end up being yeses, anyways. They were yeses before the call itself. These were just clarifying questions and logistics questions. And I knew it was going to be a yes at the end of the day. So I've closed agency clients in the DMs. I've closed four-figure deals in the DMs. It's not just$100, it's$4,000,$4,500,$6,500 in the DMs alone without sales calls. And it's because, and these aren't cold people, these are people that I've built relationships with prior and maybe have met them in person too, but everything has been closed within my DMs, emails, things like that. That is why I'm able to talk about this with you. And I will tell you what works and what doesn't work. And that is truly how I've made it work all of these years. So I hope this was helpful. If you have any questions whatsoever, please message me either at Lauren Najar or at BusinessOver Cocktails. And I'm happy to talk about this with you. This is such a hot topic always. And there's so many different ways to do it. But I will tell you this is how I've built a very sustainable business. This is how I've consistently had sales be very easy for me. And I don't have to resort to spamming or cold damning people. Have a great weekend, and I'll see you back here on Monday. That's your quick hit of clarity and momentum for the week. If it sparks something, share it with a friend or tag us in your stories at Business Over Cocktails and or at Lauren Major. We love seeing what resonates. Don't forget, Mondays are for full-length episodes with rich conversations, and Fridays are the Business Chaser episodes. These are bite sized insights pulled from our guests to keep you inspired and aligned throughout the week. Do you have a question or takeaway? DM us at Business Over Cocktails. We just might feature it in a future episode. Cheers.