Selling Without Being Salesy

Subscriber-only episode

Are you uncomfortable promoting your own products and services? That reluctance might be costing you clients who simply don't know what you offer. 

Many entrepreneurs struggle with the fear of sounding "salesy" or like they're bragging when talking about their business. They know marketing is necessary but feel like a pushy used car salesman whenever they try. This podcast tackles this common dilemma head-on with a transformative perspective shift that makes promotion feel authentic and natural.

The solution isn't to stop selling—it's to change how you sell. Most potential clients won't dig through your website looking for services. They need to hear about them repeatedly. But rather than focusing on yourself, redirect attention to the people you've helped. When you highlight client successes, you naturally showcase what you offer without the uncomfortable self-promotion.

Through practical examples—from retreats that inspired new programs to cookbook testimonials that demonstrate expertise—this episode provides a blueprint for weaving your offerings into compelling stories. Learn to use testimonials not just as confidence boosters but as marketing gold that illustrates your impact. By creating a collection of client success stories, you'll always have authentic material to share across your content platforms.

Ready to transform how you talk about your business? Listen now to discover how sharing client wins becomes your most powerful, comfortable marketing strategy. Then start gathering those testimonials and crafting stories that naturally showcase the amazing work you do!

Chapters

• 0:00 The Fear of Being Salesy
• 0:37 Why You Must Talk About Services
• 1:23 Sharing Client Success Stories
• 3:19 Weaving Products Into Your Content
• 4:29 Using Testimonials as Marketing Material

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

On the daily I hear from clients that they are not good at selling their products. They feel that they don't want to be salesy. They feel that it shouldn't be part of what they have to do. They know that they have to do it, but they just really feel like they're bragging when they're talking about their products and services, that they're being that used car salesman. And what I want you to understand is that it doesn't have to come from that place of pushing your products. What it needs to be is you have to continually be talking about them, because otherwise people don't know that you offer those services. They are not going to do a deep dive into your website to see what kind of services you offer. They're not going to know if something actually exists unless you're talking about it, unless you're letting them know that, hey, I work one-on-one with people or I offer a group program or I do an in-person retreat. You have to be talking about the services that you offer, and for a lot of people this is difficult because it feels like you're just gloating, you're just talking about yourself and all the wonderful things that you do for them, but in reality, what it needs to become is you need to start talking about the clients that you are helping. By talking about the clients and the people and customers that you are helping, you are naturally letting them know that you offer those services. When I talk about different things that came about from the retreat, the fact that I now offer a 90-day plan came from hosting an in-person retreat where I was able to handhold people through their businesses, look at their customers and who they were actually trying to reach, and to be able to map it out with a plan that was going to work for them. Now, if I hadn't hosted that in-person retreat, I likely wouldn't have created my 90-day plan program and workbook that goes along with it. There wouldn't be video content that walks them through the principles of creating a customer persona and how to figure out the customer journey and what that's going to look like for your audience and the journey that they are on. So, really starting to talk about the different ways that you are helping people, different ways that you are helping people, the testimonials that they have, using those not just to have on your sales page but to be able to say so-and-so saw that they were able to save this much money by using my frugality tips that I offer through a home energy guide.

Speaker 1: 2:42

Whatever it is that you offer, talking about those types of people that have seen differences in their lives from what you offer is what's going to make the difference and let people know that you offer it. So if you have a cookbook any sort of testimonials, reviews that you have gotten on that cookbook about how it saved them time, how your chocolate chip cookies are the best they've ever tasted in the entire world, you don't have to read it. You can talk about how you were able to tweak your recipes so that your audience learned how to make the best chocolate chip cookies that anyone had ever had them been able to teach them how to create before. It's all about your positioning, the way in which you put it in front of your audience. So continually talking about it, having it kind of weaved throughout your stories that you tell, so that when you're doing a live training or you're doing a podcast episode or YouTube video, pulling in stories to show that what you teach is a success by those stories that have happened within your community is how people are going to understand that you have a product or service that they need and can implement.

Speaker 1: 3:59

So if you are creating a podcast episode and you are a therapist and you offer a course on child therapy. That is, through play therapy, being able to have a specific kind of example of where your clients have made growth from their play therapy that they've been able to implement with their kids in their home because of your course is your marketing? Is that part of the story that you were telling to take them on the journey that they need to see that your product is the right fit for them? So I really want you to start to think about those stories. Pull them out. Have a folder of testimonials that you've received and these testimonials are not meant to like ooh, let's boost my confidence, let's make me feel better about myself and what it is that I'm doing. These testimonials are meant for you to remember the stories that you can pull from those testimonials in order to show that the products and services you offer are going to benefit your audience.