The Secret To Sustainable Sales

Most business owners only think about sales when they need clients.

The problem is that sales doesn't start when you send a proposal or hop on a discovery call. It starts long before that through the relationships, trust, and consistency you're building every day.

In this episode of Honest Brew, we explore what creates a sustainable sales process, why nurturing relationships matters, and how small touchpoints often lead to opportunities months or even years later. Because the strongest sales strategies are rarely built on pressure. They're built on trust.

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#SmallBusinessOwner #BusinessGrowth #SalesStrategy #EntrepreneurMindset #RelationshipMarketing #BusinessDevelopment #FounderLife #MarketingStrategy #ClientExperience

A candid conversation between three seasoned business women who've been in the trenches of entrepreneurship. We bridge the gap between the glamorous just market and sell advice and the reality of what it takes to build a sustainable business. While most business content focuses on marketing, branding, OR operations in isolation, we bring all three worlds together. Because your brand culture needs to live in every system you create, your operations need to support your brand promise, and your marketing needs the infrastructure to deliver on what it sells.

We're here for the solopreneurs ready to grow beyond themselves, the partnership survivors rebuilding stronger, and anyone tired of business advice that treats branding, marketing, and operations as separate planets when they're part of one ecosystem.

HOSTS

Cheale Villa, Visual Caffeine, visualcaffeine.com / Monique Johnson, MoJo Design, ...

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:03

Most people treat sales like harvesting. They only show up when they need money. But a sustainable sales process is about planting seeds long before you're ready to pick, or I should say, ready to harvest. This is our focus today. We're not only sharing our personal experiences with sales, also our sales strategies, but we just hope that this conversation really supports you in having a more sustainable sales process. I am Shell Via with Visual Caffeine, and you have stumbled upon Honest Brew, where we're having raw conversations about growing our businesses, and we hope that it supports you growing yours. These are my cohorts. Monique Johnson from Mojo Design and Sarah Bradley from Indigo Elephant. Today we're we're talking from two angles how we sell our services, um, and what it is like to be the receiving end of someone's sale process: the good, the bad, the ugly. So think of your sales process like a garden. Some seeds take a week, some take an entire season. But if you're only watering when you're desperate, don't be surprised if nothing grows. And let's be really morbid here. Your plants will be unalibended. We'll just use that right now. So let's start out with planting seeds. And I have to say, I'm moving a few weeks to be on an acre of land that has an amazing amount of gardening. And I'm actually in the midst of planting my gardening. And it's, I can't be even thinking of what I'm gonna plant for the summer. It's really what am I planning to prepare for like August, you know, into fall. And it so I think that's a really good metaphor. And I'm kind of weirdly in the middle of that. So let's frame it this way: if you are thinking about sales for your fourth quarter, when do you start planting those seeds? And what are you doing to plant them?

SPEAKER_00 2:06

Juicy. I start at least three months prior to when I want it to hit. I mean, at least three, but I I do feel like since I'm a solopreneur, that I'm always kind of looking for new clients. And I don't necessarily say, okay, what I'm doing today is now gonna hit exactly in Q4. It's like it's rough, but I do I will say this that recently I had happy to say a new client now. So it's been a long process, but I do feel like in this economic state that we're in, the sales process is has to be super supportive and it's been longer for me. That just means that I've been speaking with them more, communicating with them more, negotiating more. People really want to feel supported right now. That's really, and they're they're being kind of picky about who they're giving their money to. They're making sure that you're the right person. But generally speaking, I try to think about it a few months out.

SPEAKER_01 3:09

I don't really think a few months out. I'm like, it's to me, I'm like, every time I do networking, every time I do a post, that is me nurturing my audience. Because for me, I want to be the authority in my industry. Like if you think go high level, you're gonna think of me. I want people to be like, oh, you need to talk to Sarah. To me, I like that process because my purpose with my business is to be of service. And a LinkedIn post can do that. A simple comment on someone's post can do that. So to me, I see that as me planting seeds. So when they get to a point where they don't have the capacity to learn something new and they don't care to learn something new, they don't want to deal with it anymore. They want someone else who's an expert to be like, you've got this handle, so I don't have to worry about it. I'm the first person they go to. And so for me, when I think of those touch points or like wanting to get more clients, for example, I pour more of my energy into my marketing, into my networking, because I want people to know my name. I want people to understand what I do and then be like, hey, if you need me, here's my link. I've learned to almost have a mentality of like, I don't care. Not in those sense of like, oh, I don't care about your business. It's more of like, I know I have a solution that can work for you. And if you want to take me up on it now, fabulous. If you need to wait three months to a year, that's fine too. Like, you know where to find me when you need it. And that just helps take the pressure off of me instead of being like, why haven't you booked a call with me? Like, why aren't you doing what you're saying you're gonna do? Because I can also be saying that to myself too.

SPEAKER_02 4:43

What I heard from both of you was actually there is always a constant effort going on.

unknown 4:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:50

Because, like Monique, we actually manage her email newsletter. So she is always nurturing, she is always doing those things. I think that um there is those continue actions you do, and then there is those really intentional things like networking that you do. And I think that we have to also maybe separate those. So, in the terms of gardening, what I heard of out of both of you was planting seeds for maybe berries that come up pretty quickly from planting the seeds. And then there is also nurturing an avocado to bear fruit three years from now. Yeah. So, and everything in between, right? Yeah. Um I feel like that's what it is. It isn't a magic formula. It's when you choose to be more maybe aggressive. And I consider networking and an aggressive. Like I'll have one group I kind of go to and I'll have bursts of like, I'm doing a whole lot of networking. It typically is around when I sense I'm a few months out from a dry, a potential dry season that I have learned in my industry is just a dry season. Unfortunately, in the last decade, between the pandemic, now we've got this whole energy crisis. I don't know, like, I mean, gas, all these economic craziness that I think we haven't experienced before that creates a feeling of predictability. It's harder to detect when dry seasons could happen. Yeah. Right? Totally. So I think it used to be more predictable. Yeah. I knew summer would be dry. I tended at the beginning of the year, started doing a lot more networking and da da da da. But did I always have some kind of networking going on? Yes. Did I also have additional random little like marketing strategies? Yes. So I think it's good to lay that out because I think the people can get very cyclical because of the noise online that tells you that this is the one formula. This is not just one formula done, whatever. Great for the people who claim they did it and that's how they got their millions. I don't buy that. That's all they did. They just found what to sell. So I've had people where I've had conversations with them that I thought it was going to go somewhere. And then two years later they hired me. Totally. Same thing. Yeah. So they were a lemon tree. And that's okay. That's a reason to plant the seeds. So with me putting that all out there, any thoughts?

SPEAKER_01 7:23

Also, wanted to add like a caveat. I think it also depends on what type of sales cycle do you have. You know what I mean? I have some clients where they have a signature program that they launch every quarter. So for them, they're always planning ahead. So if their webinar is in April, they're already doing sales a month to a month and a half beforehand to get people excited to join the webinar. And then once the webinar is done, it's like, now join my program. Or some people have rolling sales where it's like you can join our membership at any time. I feel like for most of us, we do like one-on-one services. So I've seen people where they're like, oh, I only have five spots available for May. Like there are other sales cycles to when it's like, say those five spots are done. It's kind of like, okay, my books are closed. You can get on the wait list for June. So I think it also depends on what are you selling? What does that sales cycle look like? Is it literally a cycle every quarter, every month, or is it something that's kind of more evergreen too? So I feel like that also helps kind of discern like how you want to plant seeds and like what actions you want them to take.

SPEAKER_02 8:32

Well, I heard in there, and I've worked with people who've done that in a marketing sense. They're they're selling a course, they're selling whatever. And I'll actually give you an example. I have a client that they have online courses that they sell for people's certifications. They've got a new set coming out. And so we have strategies for that launch of that new set of courses that are coming out. But then we have we have those marketing strategies that are continually cycling to continue to sell the existing stuff. So what you would call evergreen, right? Yeah. And so I think that part of that is a sales conversation, but a lot of that is a marketing conversation. Yeah. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 9:14

I could be wrong. They kind of go hand in hand. They do. You know what I mean? Because it's like, I feel like sales is like a goal and marketing is the action to achieving that goal.

SPEAKER_02 9:25

That's uh yeah, I like that. I like that. Yeah, because for marketing else to do that too.

SPEAKER_00 9:31

Marketing to make the sale, right? Yeah. Whether this sale is more like passive or not. Passive meaning I click a button and I am now in a course that is, you know, and and the non-passive version is I'm on a call with Sarah right now. Yeah. So I I do think there are two different paths. I don't sell any digital courses or anything. So for me, I do feel like I'm always uh I always have like one eye open for like potential new clients because you just never know when a project may go bad or it may go really long and you have to fit some stuff in between. It could be that a client needs to pause for a little bit and come back to it later for a variety of reasons. And so you just have to kind of always like roll with it a little bit and just be flexible, knowing that it's it's it's not always gonna be on your end, but sometimes it does go on to the client's side too. Like what how much availability do they have? You know, maybe their mother just got really sick and they need to take time off. So um, I do think there you have to be flexible, you know, knowing that life's gonna happen and it could be really unpredictable.

SPEAKER_01 10:54

So I was gonna say, I feel like flexibility creates a lot of peace. And I feel like as a business owner, like protecting your peace and being in flow with peace is so important. Cause I feel like, at least from my experience, when you aren't just open to endless opportunity, just being open to how things flow. Like if someone says no, that could mean something 10 times better is coming your way, or it's just a no, not right now. It's not like a fully done sealed thing that it keeps you open, it keeps you excited. And I I feel like it prevents burnout, in my opinion.

SPEAKER_02 11:27

And I think that kind of leads us into an area where we are tending to our garden. And I think when you've planted seeds, you're tending so it grows fruit. We hear the um the term lowest hanging fruit, which is really relevant because there are people who you feel are closer to it. So I think that one thing that can be done in your sales process, um, and I do this, I I do it now more in a process, but I used to do it just more intuitively is kind of you have something running for the people who are maybe earlier in their season of fruit growing. Um and so it's really creating an ecosystem for all of them. The people you give most attention to, you're sensing are the lowest hanging fruit. So I will choose to maybe have a one-on-one with them, like not as a sale one-on-one, just like, oh my gosh, I I just want to really want to connect. We haven't connected in a while. I've had a coaching client that we actually just had a one-on-one connect because she showed curiosity towards things, one-on-one connect. She ended up hiring me right there. So people just take action. Yeah, but it's but it's saying really sensing people. So let's say someone's in social media and they follow you and they engage in your stuff. When they're an acquaintance, you really don't know much about them. You don't know really much of anything other than the minimal amounts that you're engaging with them in some way. Going to someone who is like your best friend, the person you spend the most time with, you can actually read their mind. You can actually read between the spaces. The same thing goes with a like a potential client. By nurturing and deepening that relationship, you are actually getting to the point where you are knowing they're knowing you well enough, but you're knowing them well enough that you start knowing actually what to say or what to propose to them. There's one of the reasons I'm saying this is because what I find I hear a lot with people is they get so stingy about their time, they're actually not investing their time where it actually needs to be put.

SPEAKER_00 13:39

I mean, I it is a little bit of a sidestep, but I think what what you're alluding to and what I'm about to talk about is just clients feeling supported, even if they're not your clients yet. Maybe client is not the right word, but just people feeling supported. And that I've realized in my own sales process how important that is right off the bat. The first call that I do with someone, and there might be two or even three, if they don't feel like I'm organized, I know what I'm doing, I'm not a mean person to them, they're I'm I'm gonna be encouraging and helping them through the process and I'm holding their hand. Those are qualities that don't even necessarily point the full outcome of what they're getting from you, but it's just the relationship that you're developing with them. They're feeling guided by you and there's comfort there. So if you're if you are providing comfort for them and they're gonna trust you that you know what you're doing, you're organized, and we're gonna have a great outcome just because of this, you know, relationship. So for Shell, like you just said you met with her and you didn't even think that originally you didn't think you were gonna sell anything to her, but you immediately passed the test with her. Like she just loved you so much, like instantly she felt so good about she knows what she's talking about, she's supportive, and I can see how she's providing value already. She just like went for it, you know. And I love that. I just think that's such an important part of the sales process, is just not just like checking the boxes, like I'm supposed to do this, now I'm supposed to do that. It has to be natural flow of conversation. And you're meeting someone for the first time, and you want them to see the qualities in you that you can bring to the table as well, is providing a great service for them.

SPEAKER_01 15:37

And I can even give an example. One of the clients I got this year, she literally found me on Instagram. And if I don't post on Instagram, so like I just have my little this is me, this is my services, here are some testimonials. That's it, pretty much. Booked a call with me, and I always do a follow-up call because of my proposal process, which I did steal from Shell from a different episode, and it's changed my sales process. I don't call it stealing. And I for her to feel supported, she's like, Could you meet with my business coach? And I easily could have been like, No, I was like, sure, why not? I have someone else I can connect with. And after I had that call with that business coach, she was like, You need a high sharer immediately. This is what your business needs. And she's one of like my absolute favorite clients. And I feel another thing that can also be impactful, but we think is like, this is whatever is your onboarding process. Like, if I book a call with you, do I get the confirmation? Do I get next steps? Do I get reminders? Like, I've had so many clients be like, the reason I work with you is because of your onboarding. I want you to create that for my business. How can we replicate that? So it's kind of like again, taking a bit of a step away from it of it's not just a sales call. It's like, how are you being of service? How are you providing support? What are the things no one's gonna care about this stupid automated email? Those things can be so unpackable because they feel supported. They feel seen. They're like, oh, this person's not gonna ghost me after I pay the invoice.

SPEAKER_02 17:14

Absolutely. And I think that um the main thing that I'm hearing out of all of our conversations is it's really about connecting human to human. And I think in a world that is so busy with technology, I think there is an appreciation and trust and loyalty that is created by creating relationship and continuing to nurture that relationship. Because one thing that um I've held to for a very long time. And if you are just here for the first time, I have alluded to the fact that when I started my business, I totally started it with networking. That was my sales strategy. I was not about cold calls and numbers and a number of calls like that is not gonna happen. If you're one of those people, you're in the wrong place for sales advice, um, unless you really want to change it. Because I now I'm 28 years and that's how I grew my business and continue to get business. Thanks be to God. I say that because even when technology wasn't so high relevant, human-to-human relationship to relationship has always been the best way. That is how some billion-dollar deals get made is because of relationships. People think that it's big advertising budgets, whatever, for big corporations that they don't understand my small business. Guess what? Even in corporations, big things happen because of relationships. And here's the mindset I invite you to approach it with I love this person, I want to connect with them, not I want to make money from them. Right. Because it will change it completely. Your sincerity, your genuineness, what you're willing to give them. They are your friend. What would you give a friend? And with that said, we're gonna have to do some blending here. Lovely blend. And that is my quote for our episode. So the blend today is sales isn't a moment, it's a garden. You plant with content, water with some follow-up, and harvest when the trust is ready. The problem isn't that people aren't buying, it's that most of us forget to tend to the soil. And with that said, last sips.

SPEAKER_01 19:34

What I hope you take away from this episode is that there's not a right or wrong way to sell or to market. It's about discerning how do you want to pour into your people? What are you offering to them? What do they what would make you go to bed at night well? What's the transformation? And then just keep putting in the consistent effort of showing up, making connection, maybe going a step beyond what you normally do to help someone out because those are the moments that people will remember. And we want them to remember the most positive things, not the negative things.

SPEAKER_02 20:09

And I I just I want, I honestly want that tending to the soil to really be the thing, aside from Sarah's brilliant wrap up, that you savor out of today's episode. And here's your growth. Thank you for being here.