The Business Advice I Ignored (And Why)

In this episode of the Teacher to Entrepreneur podcast, Rachel Cicioni shares her personal approach to business practices that feel good to her and her business. She emphasizes authenticity, transparency, and alignment with values. She discusses why she avoids common tactics like DM outreach, hiding prices, and high-pressure sales, advocating for a more genuine and respectful client relationship. Listen in to this episode to hear how this advice could work for your business.

Chapters
00:00 Rejecting Conventional Business Practices
03:51 The Importance of Transparency in Pricing
08:24 Avoiding Manipulative Sales Tactics
12:52 Building a Business Aligned with Values

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Welcome to the Teacher to Entrepreneur Podcast. I'm your host, Rachel Sissioni, former classroom teacher turned entrepreneur and mentor to educators building their own unique teacher businesses. This is a space for teachers who are curious about alternatives to the classroom, exploring private practice and other multifaceted work, and for those who want to know what success can look like beyond the classroom. I'm glad you're here. Now let's get into today's conversation. So today I want to talk about some common business practices that I just don't do. Not because they don't work, but because I don't like them. They don't feel aligned to me and my values. I've tried them because I thought I had to, and they just felt wrong. So I don't do them anymore. And if you've ever felt the same kind of resistance to some of the advice you're hearing online, I want you to know that you're not the only one. And that just because something works doesn't mean that that's the way you have to do it. So I'm going to walk you through a few of those practices, why I don't do them, and what I do instead. The first common business practice that I refuse to do anymore is called DMing. I have worked with multiple coaches that I paid to work with who have told me that I had to do this in order for my business to be successful. And so I tried it and I tracked it and I did all the things they told me to do, and I absolutely hated it. It feels invasive. It just does not feel good to me, whether I'm on the sending end or the receiving end. So basically, the strategy is that it's a numbers game. One program told me that I had to not only DM everybody, in fact, I was supposed to DM a hundred people a day, email every single contact that I had an email address for, and text every contact that I had and to track it. I had to do a minimum of a hundred outreach a day. And the idea was that if you reach out to enough people, eventually some of them will say yes. And they even sort of gave me a script of hi, I'm so-and-so. This is my business. If you are my ideal client, then please reach out to me. I'm here to help. Or if you know my ideal client, please consider sharing my information with them. And I totally get the logic, but it never felt good to me. There's also the other version that you've probably seen. I don't notice it as much now, but it was definitely really prevalent, like 2020 and even a little bit before, where people try to build a fake relationship with you first. Usually MLMs, that's what I experienced. And so they will compliment you, start a conversation, and then eventually pivot into trying to sell you something. And I understand that people were taught to do that, but being on the receiving end of that made me feel really uncomfortable. To the point that if I saw a DM from someone that I didn't know, I would actually start to feel anxious about it. And for me, in my mind, social media is a public space. The DM is a private space. And I don't think it's appropriate to enter someone's private online space without their permission. And so I don't do that. Here's what I do instead. When I create my business pages, like on Facebook, for example, I let people know. I post on my personal accounts and I invite them to follow me on my business account if they want to. And that's something that people can easily say yes or no to. The other thing that I do is I send a personal thank you message to someone when they follow me, a real message from me or from Amy, my VA, who is also a former teacher client. So she knows my business inside and out. And either she or I might ask a question to get a better idea of who you are and what type of content you're looking for. But from there, it's completely in their court. I don't chase people down and I don't push them to the point where they have to tell me to go away or to leave them alone, which I have absolutely experienced as well. The second one is a little bit controversial, and I absolutely see pros and cons to both. I even tell my clients that this one is entirely up to them. I don't feel like any like either one of these is right or wrong. It's just more of like a comfort thing. But for me, I don't hide my pricing. I try to be as transparent and upfront about everything in my business, both businesses, as possible. And so I'm very transparent about my pricing. Everything is on my website, no surprises. But a lot of business coaches will tell you not to do this. They will tell you to get people on a call first. But for me personally, if I go onto someone's website and I can't find the price, my immediate assumption is that it's more than I want to spend. And I don't even want to get on the call with them. It creates stress and I don't want to put someone in that position. I've also been on the other side of those calls, and that's the reason for my stress. That my experience has been that when I do finally hear the price, it turns into a sales conversation that can feel very high pressure. And I don't like that. So I don't do it. This is what I do instead. I put my prices out there very clearly. That doesn't mean that there isn't flexibility. If someone really wants to work with me, we can have a conversation and see if we can find something that's going to be mutually beneficial or that would work for both of us and still be fair and responsive to both of our needs. But the starting point is always transparency. And what I found is that since changing to this model, I get a lot less no-shows. I get almost no no-shows because people already know what they're walking into and they already have an idea of who I am, what it's going to cost them. They have an opportunity to think about what their questions are going to be. And we're able to just have a much more productive call that doesn't require me to do any sort of pushy sales tactics. So I find that feels a lot better for me. And I haven't had any uncomfortable situations with prospective clients on the other end either. The third thing that I refuse to do is something that I call pain point selling. Now that's a little different than pain point marketing. So in marketing, there's this concept of you want to show people two different sides. There's the mountaintop, which is the goal that they want to achieve. And so you want to show them what it would be like if they had accomplished this goal or solved this problem. And then the other side is the pain point marketing, where you're calling out your potential client or your ideal client's challenges and the struggles and the problems that they're having that they want a solution for. And so that's good marketing. And you need to understand your audience in order to use both of those, the mountaintop and the pain point marketing techniques effectively. But pain point selling is something else. This is where you push someone into fear or urgency in order to get them to make a decision. And that feels really manipulative to me. And I've experienced it firsthand. So here's a short story for you. This is how the whole funnel and situation worked. I attended a webinar that I really liked. A lot of times with webinars and masterclasses, my experience has been that it's marketed as this here's the awesome secrets I'm going to teach you and tell you of how I got this awesome result and, you know, come to my free masterclass or my free webinar. And I was prepared for that. But this one was actually really good. It wasn't 15 minutes of actionable advice and then a 45-minute long sales pitch with maybe like a bonus gimme at the end. This was actually a really helpful webinar for 40 minutes. And then maybe the last 20 minutes, 15 to 20 minutes or so, was about how to work together and where to go to get a call. And these are, you know, possible next steps that we can take. And I thought it was very helpful. And some of the advice that I got from there, I still use today. So I booked a call. And when they told me the price, I wasn't ready. I wanted to think about it. I wanted to do a cost analysis. I wanted to weigh the pros and cons, and I wanted to come back when I was ready. But that's not what happened. And here's why. The conversation quickly shifted to where it made me feel like if I didn't do this and I didn't take quick action on this, then this dream that I have been working so hard for for the last almost two years was not going to happen. That I might as well just give up, that this was my one shot and I had 24 hours to decide, or the price was going to go up by thousands. This was my like fast action bonus, my fast action deal. And if I was even considering doing it, then I should just pull the trigger and do it now and get started. And so I went for it. And it didn't take me long to regret it. And that whole experience stuck with me because I never want anyone to feel that way when they're talking with me. I always want them to leave having had a positive interaction and taking something away from it that that's useful to them, whether they decide to pay to work with me or not. So here's what I do instead. When I get on a call, I always have my teacher hat on, not a salesperson hat, but my teacher hat, whether that's for my teaching business or my mentorship business. Because my main goal is for people to be able to make an informed decision, not an emotional one, not an impulsive one. I ask them questions. I want to understand their situation so that way I can decide if I can actually help them achieve their goal or solve whatever problem they're coming to me with. And I give them plenty of time to ask their questions of me as well. And then if I can help, and I believe that I would enjoy working with this person and that I can help them achieve their goals, then I will extend the offer to work together. After that point, that's entirely up to them. There's no pressure, there's no fast action bonus, there is nothing to try to incite them to make an impulsive or emotional or rash decision. All the prices are transparent. So they knew all of that before they got on the call with me. And the reason behind this is because I want people to feel good about the decision that they're making. I'm not going to go anywhere. I'm still going to be here in a week or a month. I understand the psychology behind it and I understand how why it works. And I understand that a lot of times people will make these impulsive sales and it does turn out fine. And they're happy that that they made that purchase or uh it works out and they get the results that they want to get. And I've had that experience as well, where I've made an impulsive decision about a purchase, a high price or and low price purchases, and felt good about it. I was like, I'm glad I did that. So my reluctance to do it has nothing to do with whether or not I think the person will regret having made that choice or not. I just don't want to put them in the position where they ever feel pressured, especially when it comes to like building a business, which can be a major life change. So I just approach it completely as a teacher. And I remember at one point I asked my coach in one of the paid programs that I, in fact, in the paid program that used the pain point selling to get me to purchase it, I asked him about this and expressed my discomfort with it and how it was not a good experience for me. And I started the program in a high stress state and with a lot of misgivings, even before we started really diving into the deep work of the program. And this is what he said to me. He said, if you believe that your program helps people, then it is your responsibility to do whatever it takes to get them to say yes, because it's in their best interest. And I remember thinking, so it's in their best interest that I manipulate them into doing what I want them to do. And I'm gonna take that responsibility and saying that I know what's better for you than you do, and so I'm gonna manipulate you into doing it. And I thought, wow, that is some serious rationalizing. And it went downhill from there. My experience with that coaching program went way downhill from there. And I think in working with business coaches who have that mindset, there's something that they don't consider. And it's that for some people and people like me, there are things that are more important than money. There are things that matter more than money. And I personally respect my clients too much to do that to them. I don't think that I know better for them than they know for themselves. I can't imagine thinking that for another grown adult or for a parent of someone else's child, that I would know better what's for that child than the parent would. And that's probably why I very rarely have ever had problems with students' parents in the classroom or in my own business. So if you've been hearing this advice that you have to hold DM and that you have to hide your pricing and that you have to push people into decisions and you have to do these, all of these different sales tactics, I want you to know that you don't. Your business can still grow. It might grow more slowly, but it can still grow. And in a way that actually feels good to you. And the way I look at it is this you didn't build your business just to create something that you would dread showing up for. Build something that feels good to show up for because that energy, that feel-good energy, working with clients that you're excited to work with, showing up for your business in ways that feel good for you, that energy, that's what people feel. And that's what they respond to. Next week, I'm going to share more about some of the coaching and mentorship experiences that I've had as a mentee, the good ones and the ones that were not so great, and my advice for how to evaluate whether a coach or mentor or program is the right fit for you. Until then, I hope you have a great week. Thank you for listening. If today's episode resonated with you, please share it with a colleague or leave a review. This helps the conversation reach other teachers who may need it. You can learn more about what I do and how to work with me at the privatepracticeteacher.org. Best wishes always.