08: The 5-Step Instagram DM Sales Flow to $16K Clients

Today I’m breaking down the exact 5-step Instagram DM sales flow I use to close $16K+ clients and no, it’s not my reels doing the heavy lifting.

I’m walking you through exactly how I use Instagram DM sales to start conversations, nurture leads, build trust, and close high ticket sales without sounding scripted or weird in the DMs. We’re talking real conversations, real strategy, and the systems that actually help you sell on Instagram consistently.

I’m also sharing the biggest mistakes I see business owners making when it comes to DM sales, why most of you already have leads sitting right in front of you, and how to stop overcomplicating sales content.

If you want to make more money from your audience, improve your DM sales process, and learn how to actually convert followers into paying clients — this episode is for you.

In This Episode:

•  Why reels are not your Instagram sales strategy 
•  The real reason your Instagram DM sales aren’t converting 
•  My exact 5-step DM sales process for high ticket sales 
•  Where to find warm leads you’re probably ignoring 
•  How I use Instagram Stories to sell on Instagram daily 
•  What to say in the DMs without using scripts 
•  How to build trust and rapport naturally 
•  Why consistency matters more than perfection 
•  The sales systems and lead tracking process I use behind the scenes 
•  How I qualify leads for high ticket offers 

Free Resources Mentioned:

• Sales Content Plan + Sales Content Recipe
• 5-Step DM Sales to $20K+ Months Masterclass Deck
• Join My Email List + Get the Free Lead Tracker

Mentioned In This Episode:

• Come join my podcast producers networking community: Cocktails and Close where she hosts more workshops like this. 

instagram dm sales, dm sales, high ticket sales, sell on instagram, instagram sales strategy, instagram stories sales, sales in the dms, high ticket clients, instagram lead generation, closing sales in dms

This podcast was produced by Your Girl Media. 

Follow on Instagram: @yourgirlmedia

Want to be pulled into my world? 

👉 Come hang with me on Instagram: @alyssalmoorhead

“DM me the word SALES GAL ” to talk about your sales strategy or let me know you came from the podcast!

 💸 Curious for more? Head to: www.alyssamoorhead.com

Check out our Sales Content Plan + Sales Content Recipe

Check out the 5-Step DM Sales to $20K+ Months Masterclass Deck

Join My Email List + Get the Free Lead Tracker

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Reels ain't your sales lifesaver. I promise you, I'm not making close to 24 going on 30k months from my reels. That 90 seconds you talk in reels is not gonna make me pay you 10 grand. If your Instagram stories and your Instagram DMs aren't bringing you 16k hot steamy leads, and you're not exactly at the sales pool you want to be at for this order, I've got you. Hey sales friends, I'm Alyssa, your cheap sales gal. I've been in business for 11 years, and I currently run a Done for You Lead Generation and Lead Management Agency with Instagram DMs. I'm about to show you guys all of the juicy sales things on Instagram, Instagram stories to get new leads, and closing sales and sales sales calls. So let's get into all of the juicy details. Hi guys, happy Wednesday for me, my sales friends. I'm so happy that I'm so happy. Um today is like the first day, probably in a month, where business is not not busy, but it does finally feel fun again because I've finished doing um a month of sales SOPs to restructure the whole company with an ops manager, an ops assistant, a chief operations officer with our chief revenue officer overseeing it. We now have a team of 10 or 11 and 15 clients. So we've been busy, but with all the infrastructure pieces underway, finally, shit is getting easier. I'm excited to chat with you guys about something that I'm literally doing right now, which is the five-step DM sales flow to get $16,000 plus clients. So I'm super excited to chat with you all about it. Let's go through the steps. All right, let's get into the deets. I'm excited to talk with you guys about the five-step DM sales flow. There's a bunch of resources that are gonna be in this podcast that you guys haven't seen before. Uh, you guys are gonna get my sales content plan, which is three pages of content that makes sales and eight Canva Carousel templates. I have only reserved this for clients paying $1,500 total to $15,000 total until now. But I like you guys, and a lot of you have become clients, so whatever, you guys can fucking have it. Um, it's an invaluable resource. We should be charging for it, but I don't want to set up a whole flow for that. And I also like don't really believe that you can do all this shit on your own. So, like, come back to me when you need me. Um, alright, you guys are gonna get the sales content plan again. It has eight Canva carousel templates, which you know would cost thousands and thousands of dollars. They did cost me thousands and thousands of dollars, but you guys can have it for free because I'm nice, arguably too nice because I come from the fucking Midwest. So let's talk about those steps. You're gonna get the sales content plan. Um, most of you who've been listening have access to our free lead tracker. It's in our email list, it'll be linked. And my beauteous podcast manager that edits this podcast that I mention every single podcast episode. I also did a masterclass in her membership, Cocktails and Clothes, called Five Step DM Sales Flow to $20,000 plus months. So very similar to what we're gonna talk about today, but I'm gonna give you the succinct version. And if you want the full deck, you're gonna get it, and ideally, potentially the recording of so you guys can check out all those things. So you'll have sales content ideas, you'll have sales content, carousel, templates and canva, you'll have a lead tracker, I'm gonna go over the DM sales flow. You should have everything you need to make money. If you're not making money, come tell me I'm not making money because like we can fix it. Like, I'll tell you like what you're doing wrong, how to fix it. Alright, so let's get into the five steps. Here is what most people ask me.

SPEAKER_00 4:00

How do I get new leads? How do I get new leads? How do I get new leads? How do I get new leads? Right? Here's my answer. You already have leads.

SPEAKER_01 4:10

You just don't know where they are, you don't consider them leads, you're not talking to them, so there's no potential because you're not having a one-on-one conversation. But per the same adage of it's easier to keep a client and get a new one, it's easier to keep and convert the leads you have than go get new ones because they're gonna need longer to make a buying decision. Usually. Not always. We have people for me and my company that buy very quickly, like days like our client, um, one of our clients paid a $15,000 retainer, not just to me, to me and the whole team, but made a $15,000 a month buying decision within three or four business days. Because she knew what she wanted. She found us, uh we found her. We reached out to her, very important differentiator. We reached out to her, so call it outbound, but we started the conversation. Um, she was interested, she was already looking for this, she hadn't found us yet. She paid 15 grand a month. Okay? If that's not the fucking power of starting conversations, like start conversations, friends. So, number one, you guys already have leads. Here's where I would look first, and then we're gonna mostly cover new leads. But you already have leads. The proposals that didn't sign, go back to them. The sales calls that didn't sign, go back to them. The people in the DMs that stopped talking to you because they never saw it or they were busy, go check in once. The people in the DMs that were hot leads, that then you went to a conference and you got 87 new followers and you all started chatting and they got buried, go back to them. All those people, put them in the lead tracker, which you now have because it's gonna be linked in the resources and it's linked in multiple other podcasts. And you have to sign up to the email list to get it, but you get a whole wall of free resources when you get in there. We also have uh networking events and paid sales masterclasses coming in June, so stay tuned for more of this. Okay, so that's what I want you guys to do first. Go pull in the leads you already have because you do have them. I have yet to meet a single one of you that does not already have leads. If you've been in business for a little while, like a couple months, even to 11 years, like I have, then you've had sales calls, you've had sales condos in the DMs, and you've had sales proposals sent out. So go back to those people first. After that, let's talk about the list where I find new people. Um, this is in the deck that we're gonna share too. We go over like my sales routine. So basically, here's the spiel. I make sales content, I follow up with any new leads, I talk to the leads that I have. Sometimes I do it in different orders. I have ADHD, so I'll scoot shit around. But really, what I would have you guys do is open your lead tracker in the morning so you don't ignore it. Like your fucking Google Sheet lead tracker is your best friend if you want to fucking make money. Like, best friend. Like, treat that bitch really well. You've got to maintain her, you've gotta give her love, you gotta open it, you gotta update it. The point also of you guys adding the leads you already have in there is you go in there and there are leads, meaning you don't open a lead tracker thinking you want to make money or hope you want to make money, nobody's in there, and you get discouraged. If you put some people in there, even put your past fucking clients in there, your current clients. Mine are in there because every time I open it, I'm reminded I've made money before. I can make money again, I'm going to make money again. Because I already did it. So I know I can do it again. Even if you have a new offer, even if you have a new price point, whatever. You've done this before. So that's what I'd have you guys do. Number one, open your lead tracker, see if there's anyone who you need to follow up with. A proposal, a past sales call, a past lead, a current lead, etc. After that, I go and make new sales content. And then I do what I call basically to myself clean house. So I'm gonna look for leads, all the spots that are already there. Now let's talk about where those are. So lead tracker first. Don't ignore your lead tracker. Put some shit in there. Put your current clients, your past clients, your past sales proposals, your past sales calls, your past DMs, where the combo went cold, ones you need to follow up with. Put those people in there first. It's gonna be a warm welcome that you've made money before. Number two, let's talk about where you find new ones. So you need to be making sales content. I talked about this on the masterclass extensively today about face-to-camera, Instagram stories in the membership, where the replay is. We talked about exactly what order to do your stories. So, like when do you do personal? When do you do educational or thought leadership? When do you share content on your offer? We talked about that specific order in the membership, in Marie Walker's Cocktail and Clothes. We also talked about the different types of content. So if I want to talk about, if I want to sell something, not personal, not thought leadership, not me and my cat drinking coffee, telling you what we're working on that day, that's still personal, not thought leadership like me doing stories or a carousel that I put in my stories about my podcast episode on five-step DM sales. Again, that's thought leadership educational. But when we talk about the offer, should you be sharing the offer details? Should you be sharing objections? Should you be sharing client stories, testimonials? Like, what do you share? So we talked about all of that, all that's in these resources. So you need to be making sales content. We're gonna check your lead tracker for anyone to follow up with. We're gonna make daily Instagram stories. I'm a hard ass about this too. If you don't have five minutes to make Instagram stories each day, then like don't expect to make sales on an ongoing basis. If you're not doing it, you're missing money, period. Like, in like it's not like you don't know about it. You're on Instagram. You've seen an Instagram story, so you could make an Instagram story. All of us have a phone because you're on Instagram, on the phone, pick up the phone, turn the camera towards you, talk to the phone. Like the number of people that don't do this, like I literally think to you all. When I'm looking through my stories viewers and our 15 clients, and I'm looking for people that will fucking spend money, I only go to the inst one with Instagram stories up first. And I'm like telling you this as I'm thinking about it, because it's like internal subconscious thinking, but those people know how to market, they're invested in their business growing, they show up on a daily basis, which means they're gonna see messages, they're gonna answer messages, and we have the potential to make money from them seeing and answering the messages. But when I see people who don't have Instagram stories up, I think like you're not buying or selling something. That's just like subconsciously what I think. Trust me, you all probably want people to think that they can buy from you, right? If you want people to think they can buy from you so they can buy from you, so they can make sales, I would make you some Instagram stories. That's that. Sales content first. After you have Instagram stories up and some carousels up from the sales content plan. Sales content plan covers both. It covers carousels to pin to your feed, it covers the templates obviously in Canva, stories ideas, reels ideas, threads ideas, emails ideas, ads ideas, all that shit is in there. Slash, those ideas can be repurposed into whatever format you want. So after you have that content up, here's the five steps I go to where to find leads and how to talk to them. So the first thing I do when I'm checking for new leads is I actually don't even look at my inbox first because I'm gonna get there. What I want you guys to get in the habit of is something I've learned over time. Do the hard shit or what you're gonna forget about first. Like do the tedious, meticulous shit. Do whatever you want first, but before you get into like the meat and potatoes of answering a bunch of DMs, check for new ones. And my new leads DMs are gonna be in the DMs. So I'm gonna get there. But I don't want to forget this first step, which is why I do it first. So every day in the morning, I'll look at my Instagram stories viewers, not the number of viewers, the actual viewers on Instagram. We're not on video, so I can't show you how to do it. But if you need to know, you can claw Google it or DM me on Instagram if you have any questions. But look at the people who viewed, not the number, the people who viewed. Then on that first story slide and on your last story slide, you're gonna look for past leads that came back, you're gonna look for current leads you're talking to, and you're gonna look for anyone new. When you find anyone new to you, maybe you probably haven't followed them. I want you to go to their Instagram, I want you to think about if they would be a good fit, and if they are, I want you to find something about their content you relate to and send them a message. We had a whole debate about this for a big client the other day who's trying to scale volume. I don't give a fuck about the comments, and no one's gonna change my mind. I don't care. If you want to like their post, like their post. But like your one-sentence comment is not gonna get you a $10,000 buyer. Like, you can do it first, go for it. But I have a team of seven working on DM sales, and we just like it waste invaluable time that I'm paying them for. And as far as I've seen, it doesn't actually move the needle on making sales happen any faster. So I'll DM them. I'll DM them that piece of content they made to them, relate to it and ask a question, or I'll just mention it in the DMs and relate to it and ask a question. Either way, if they're a potential lead, I'm DMing them. I'm not commenting them like, oh my gosh, I went to Kentucky Kingdom. That's our old amusement park. I went to Disneyland too. I also love hamburgers. I don't like hamburgers either. Um, it's too much bread for me and not enough like meat. So, anyways, I would go straight to the DMs. That's stories viewers. Look at the people on the first slide, the ones that are coming back, like older leads, the ones that are current leads or recent, and anybody new that you're gonna go to their page, see if they're an ideal fit, and send them a message. If you have questions about how to see if they're an ideal fit, that's really bespoke and customized to each of you, so you can DM me and ask about that as well. And then last story slide is incredibly important. I, Emily McDonald is the one who first said this to me. Well, my stories views drop off. Your stories views are supposed to drop off. You want that. If I see Steph and Steph and Molly and Megan at the beginning of my stories, and they watch a couple and they drop off when I'm selling something, that's what I'm looking for. I want to see who looks at me selling something, and then even further, who makes it to the end of that segment of stories because they gave me their time. And if I'm worth putting their time into, I might be worth paying also. So I look at the first ones mostly to catch new people. The first stories viewers, the people. Again, not the analytics. I look at the last one not to catch new people. I mean, if they're new and they watched all the way through, that's awesome too. But I look at the end of my stories viewers to see who's actually the most ready to buy. Then you can also look at people that like or comment on your last nine post. I try to find the most recent. When I go to my notifications, so I look at stories viewers first and last slide first. Then second, I look at people that like and comment on my recent nine post. Then number three, I look at my notifications mostly for new followers. But if I see that Jess has liked 12 posts, that's probably at least a medium intent buyer. I'm not gonna let that go unnoticed. I don't really consciously look for somebody that liked a bajillion post. They're probably already in a conversation with me, or my sales team has started one, or they're gonna respond, but definitely something worth noting for you all to consider following up as well. So those are all the places I look first. And that takes me like maybe 10 minutes. But the people that are already engaging with you are the most like have the most potential for sales, in addition to anybody in your lead tracker that you already are like further down the line with. Or might be on a different platform. Maybe it's LinkedIn, email, paid membership, text message. One of our clients texts people and gives us like updates. I'm like, okie dokie then. I don't do business via text. Ain't nobody getting my fucking phone number. One of my team members has my phone number, Katie, what up? And I told her, like, if I'm in the hospital dying, we will text you and you can text back. Otherwise, we don't need to be chatting about business in text. We can talk about whatever else. All right, that's where I find them. Instagram stories, first and last slide. Then I look at my last nine posts, reels, carousels, posts, whatever, and I look at likes and comments, then I look at new followers and anybody that's liked a shitload of posts. Um, and then we get to the actual DMs to inbound and current messages. Really quick note: if you have some or very little stories viewers or post comments and likes or new followers, it's up to you to go get them. It's not actually up to like reels and the Instagram lords to bring you new clients. Reels can get you more followers, but until you or them, but until you take ownership, send a message, see if they answer, see if they see it, see if they answer, ask them questions, see if they're qualified. Like, reels ain't your sales lifesaver. I promise you, I'm not making close to 24 going on 30k months from my reels. I'm not an influencer. As we discussed on the webinar today, like that 90 seconds you talk in reels is not gonna make me pay you 10 grand. Like, it's it's not. I mean, the contract we have for my CRO is 18 grand. Her reels did not get me to pay her. Her carousels and her Instagram stories did get me to pay her. Hands down, and she knows that, and I would tell her that, and she'd be happy for me to tell you all that. Her carousels were like high level, high quality as fuck. Incredible branding, but also even if you don't have that, incredible quality, the information was laid out well, unique point of view, led to her like support and expertise, aka her offers. Like, that's why I bought, that's why I buy. Do you have high-quality carousels? Do you have Instagram stories? Which shows me that you're gonna fucking show up. Like, it's fine if you take a break from business. It's fine if the kid is sick, or if you're sick, or if you're on vacation. Like, obviously, sometimes we're not gonna be around for a little while. That's fine. But in general, if I've known you for three months, six months, twelve months, two years, and you're not making consistent Instagram stories at least four or five times a week, I wonder what the fuck you're doing over there. Cause like I know you can make five minutes. I know you can make five minutes. If you want to make money, you need to make five minutes to make stories. Really, you need about 15 to 20 minutes. I would advise 30 minutes to make stories and then go talk with people in the DMs and start new DMs. But you could at least be doing five minutes on stories, you could at least be doing 15 minutes to make stories and then answer current people and start a few new conversations. All right, let's go through the process. So we already talked about how you can start a new conversation or resume a current one. This is rapport building. As I said earlier today, if you've ever been to a like awkward networking event, whether it's virtual or in person, hopefully you got a lot less awkward, then you know how to rapport build. You know how to have a conversation. The DMs is no different. Like start a conversation, find something you guys have in common or something you're curious about, DM them that piece of content, or just bring it up and relate to it and ask a question. That's it. Number two, if you like this person, if you like their content, if you like how they're talking to you, if you like the topic, then we can start getting to know them by asking about what they're working on. And I'll say that, like, hey Rebecca, it's I'm so glad to meet you. I'd love to know a little bit more about you and your business. I'm curious, what are you working on for me? That's a pretty standard question. A lot of people ask it. Like it it flies. It's way better than how long have you been in business. Way, way better than that, in my opinion. So, and it works better for sales, like way better. I don't like I don't want you all asking somebody how long they've been in business unless it's like directly pertinent to that conversation or your ICA. Um, or like how long have you had your podcast or you know, whatever it might be. So that's number one is rapport. Number two is goals. Number three will be when you go into goals for number two, I'll also share what I'm working on. So, like, hey Rebecca, I'm so glad to meet you. I'd love to get a little bit, I'd love to get to know you and your business a little bit more. I'd love to hear what you're working on for May. Over here on my side, I'm working on, you know, just departing operations hell and hiring a lot more sales team members and finally getting back to being able to do my daily DM sales. What about you? That's it. That tells her about me. That's reciprocity. I've opened up. I've opened up and been vulnerable on what I hate in business. On what's not working, on what I don't like. I'm not saying like everything is perfect for making a bajillion dollars, everything is easy, have no problems. That's not what I said. In fact, one person that told me once a few months ago that I've mentioned this in another podcast episode. So stupid. She was like, this is completely unsolicited, uncalled for, unwanted. She was like, you should never admit vulnerability in the DMs. Why would people trust you if you've struggled? What the fuck are you talking about? Like, I don't know about you, but like, have you ever been a human being? Because most human beings struggle. In fact, you'd be hard-pressed to find one ever that doesn't. And my business is a part of my life, and my life is a part of my business. I'm not gonna pretend to you that everything is perfect. Not like before, during, or after it's not perfect. But I will be open and vulnerable with people about my business, even. It doesn't have to be about your family, but I'm gonna be open about how business is going, what I'm good at, what I'm struggling with, or else why should they share with me? Right? They don't know you yet. You gotta give a little to get a little. Then that's rapport number one. Number two is goals. Number three is actions. This is the part I was saying is pretty natural. If we're talking about like our goals, actions will probably be included in that step. Like I'm working on going to my first 30k month. This is how I'm doing it. I've hired seven sales team members, we've updated our client sales SOPs, we've updated our lead tracker, we're working on targeting new, like higher ticket, higher income individuals. What about you? What are you working on? Those are the steps I'm taking to meet the goal that I specified. Then, number four, if they mention something as a goal that you can and want to help with, that's when I would like talk about your expertise or your expertise for a client. Oh, I've actually been able to do this for me. I've actually been able to work on this for a client of mine. I'm curious if that's something that you would want to hear about, how I could support you too. Women that buy things are not gonna be surprised that you said, I think I could help with this. I'd like to. Would you like that too? This is business. I I keep going back to whatever wherever the fucking quote is from. Like, I'm not here to make friends. Guys, I love you all. This is a company. I'm not looking to make lots of friends. I do make lots of friends. I have lots of friends, but if I'm having this conversation in this way, I'm looking to see if I can offer you paid support. There are plenty of conversations I don't have that way. Like my new friend Abby, who's also in business, whose podcast I'm gonna get to be on. All I did last yesterday at 5 p.m. was send her a three-minute voice note about how much I fucking hate the like rain in Denver. And she was like, Yeah, don't worry, it's gonna go away though. But like, I'm not trying to like offer Abby my paid support. Like, if she wants it, she knows where I'm at. But like I'm not trying to sell to her. But if I'm going through this flow, it's because I want to see if I can offer you paid support, or I am actively offering you paid support. So that's when we get consent number four for the offer. Hey, I've helped me, or I've helped so-and-so, or me and so-and-so with this, and we got these kind of results or transformation. I'm curious, don't use those words. Use real language. I'm giving you basically like a very template-y template for you to fill in as you. I don't do scripts at all, period. Ever. And would never recommend it to any of you ever for the rest of your entire lives. Don't do it, please. You're killing yourselves. Women don't like that shit. Really, no one likes that shit. Men don't like it either. Um, all genders. But, anyways, that's when we ask for consent for to give the offer and to offer the transformation first. And if they're interested, then we can talk about what the details would be, when they could start, what they would pay, etc. And then number five, track the lead. If they are a lead, if they expressed interest in the offer and aren't yet disqualified, meaning they would not be an ideal fit, I would track the lead. But if they are not an ideal fit right now because, but they could be in the future, like they really could be, like, well, I'm close to where I could pay you, or I need to hire these two people first, or I'll be traveling for a month that I'm busy, but could we check in then? If they warrant a follow-up because it's someone you want to help can help, and they would potentially want that in the future, that's when I'm attracting them. Or if they're saying that, you know, they would love help with this goal they're working on, or they're asking about the offer, if they're talking about like the goal and their actions, I put them in warm. If they're asking about the offer, I put them in hot. If those conversations don't become a sale, I'll put them in cold. Um I'll do warm holding for people I need to follow up with like months out, but honestly, I just deleted all those people off my list like an hour ago because like you know where I'm at. Like, you have my email, my Instagram, my LinkedIn, like I'm here. I have somebody, love you lady, but I've been talking to her for six months about working together. She knows I would fucking love to work with her. She's the only, she's a unicorn. She's the only person in her industry doing what she's doing, but she's not ready yet. And she knows where I'm at. So I'll be here when you're ready. I'm kind of over the whole like fucking follow-up shit. I'm all like, I'm over sending people proposals where I know they're not gonna sign that they say they might, but I know you won't. I know what you don't know. I know you're not gonna do it. I know even when you see the price and you like me and you see what we can do, like, call it fucking intuition. I stray from the woo-woo female words, but like I just I get a feeling, but I do. I know when people are gonna buy before they buy. I know when people aren't gonna buy before they don't buy, I know when people are wasting my time. Do this for 11 years and then come back and talk to me. But like, you've gonna get it. You're gonna get the feels. Alright, that's all that I've got for you all today. Please come follow up with me in the DMs with questions. I'm happy to support you all. And I think that's it. Check out all the resources, the sales content plan, the carousel candle templates, the lead tracker, the deck on the master class, all of that will be linked below, and I'll talk to you guys next week.