PETER BOOLKAH — 00:10
Hi, Peter Boolkah here, and welcome to today’s edition of The Transition Guy.
Joining me today in the studio is Michelle Rockwood, author of Joyful Selling: A Better Way to Yes for Heart-Centered Coaches.
Welcome to the studio, Michelle.
MICHELLE ROCKWOOD — 00:27
Thank you so much. I’m excited to dive into this conversation.
PETER BOOLKAH — 00:30
Your book was recently released. What was the inspiration behind it?
MICHELLE ROCKWOOD — 00:38
Great question.
This book came together out of exhaustion, which I know you’ve discussed on your podcast.
I teach selling and I simply could not say these things to my clients one more time. I was going to fall over.
I thought, “I’m either going to quit and run for the hills screaming, or all this information is going to die with me if I get hit by a bus.”
I decided to take a year and thoughtfully write it down.
That way, when people come to me, they already understand the methodology behind what I teach in Joyful Selling. They can start from a place of confidence, we don’t need to have the same back-and-forth conversations and it makes my life easier.
Now, Peter, I can say, “You want to work with me? Go and read the book. I’ll see you during our first call.”
It’s now a requirement for everybody who works with me, and it’s really special.
PETER BOOLKAH — 01:43
Thank you for that.
“Joyful selling” is something some people would probably consider an oxymoron.
How can selling be joyful when most people actually dread the sales call?
MICHELLE ROCKWOOD — 01:55
Absolutely.
For some people, it’s as terrifying as public speaking or death. It doesn’t have to be that way.
I’ve tried to research the origins of how we arrived here, but we keep building upon traditional sales practices from the past. We carry those practices in our minds as a society, and it has to stop.
Selling doesn’t need to be that way.
Particularly through the pandemic and everything that happened, we realised that the person on the other end is a human being. They have a family, needs and desires. So does the salesperson.
When we tap into that and remember that we’re speaking with another human being, we can use some of the tools I teach—and which I know you use with your team—to create a different type of meeting.
We create a connection that clients remember for the rest of their lives.
That has almost become a tagline of mine: host sales calls your clients will remember for the rest of their lives.
Mine do.
They message me years later. They don’t remember anything I said during the sales conversation, but they say, “I remember how you made me feel.”
I’ve received hugs, tears and messages about how I made people feel during those sales conversations.
The thing is, I remember it too because they mattered to me. I knew what I was helping them move forwards into.
Just as in your business, we’re helping them move towards something really big.
My words, my presence during that call and my ability to connect with them really matter. I take that seriously.
PETER BOOLKAH — 03:44
Here’s something interesting.
I hear what you’re saying, but what I’m also hearing is that people in sales environments are damn confused.
We used to conduct face-to-face meetings and visit people. Then there was the telephone.
During lockdown, video became much more common. Now the world has opened up again and people are wondering how the heck they should sell.
Do I pick up the telephone? Do I visit somebody? Do I use video?
They’re really confused and don’t know where to start.
How have you overcome this dilemma in your business? Given how much we’ve transitioned during the last five years, how have you managed it?
MICHELLE ROCKWOOD — 04:36
No matter how you host sales calls, it’s important to do it in a way that feels good to you.
If you’re terrified of a certain way of connecting, whether that’s face-to-face or something else, it will never work for you. Either somebody else has to do it for you or you need to change.
In my business, and in what I teach, it’s really important to establish boundaries.
One reason salespeople don’t feel good is that they meet whenever the client wants to meet, at the time the client chooses and using whatever method the client prefers.
They’re also frequently the person telephoning the client. That creates what I call chasing energy.
What works in my business and for my clients is having a boundary that says we meet face-to-face, with cameras on, through Zoom and at a set time.
The boundaries aren’t harsh, but they lovingly support our clients.
We don’t reschedule missed calls.
When you establish those fierce boundaries, you’re different.
People see the appointment appear in their calendar and think, “What? No rescheduling of missed calls? I need to appear face-to-face.”
You can communicate that in a loving, kind way. It doesn’t need to be rude.
They sit up straight, arrive on time and lean into the conversation.
That’s how we want to begin—not by catching somebody on a Sunday while they’re mowing the lawn and their children are running around.
PETER BOOLKAH — 06:11
What are the most common mistakes salespeople make during calls, and how can they avoid them?
MICHELLE ROCKWOOD — 06:17
I think this is the easiest thing people can change immediately: they don’t establish an intention for the sales conversation.
Let me explain exactly what I mean.
When you begin a sales conversation, I certainly hope you don’t dive straight into business. You create some banter and rapport, just as you and I did.
Where are you? What’s the weather like?
You connect as human beings.
The first thing you then need to do—regardless of what you’re selling—is establish an intention at the beginning of the call, or give the person a roadmap explaining what they can expect.
Somebody might arrive at a sales call with their body completely tense, thinking, “When are they going to pitch me? How much of my money are they going to take?”
Instead, you can say, “Here’s my intention for our time together. I’d like to understand your business, where you are and where you want to go. If it feels like a good fit for both of us, I’ll be happy to explain how I work with clients and what your next steps could be. How does that sound?”
You’re also telling them that you’re checking them out as much as they’re checking you out.
It’s only two sentences, but it helps.
This makes sense in other parts of life too. My child was terrified of football until he knew the rules and understood what was happening. Then he went out and kicked some butt.
You should be conducting face-to-face calls with clients, and you will visibly see them relax.
They’ll start with tense shoulders. Then you establish the intention.
You ask, “Is that why you’re here? Are you here so that we can discuss your business and I can tell you more about how I work?”
They relax and say, “Yes, that sounds great. I also want to make sure we discuss X, Y and Z.”
You can respond, “Great. I hear you. Let’s make sure we include that too.”
I listen to sales calls all the time and about 90% of people are missing this tiny thing.
It relaxes the client, relaxes the salesperson and provides a framework for the time you have together.
PETER BOOLKAH — 08:25
In your book, you discuss five golden rules. Tell us more about them.
MICHELLE ROCKWOOD — 08:32
I call them the five golden rules of sales-call setup.
Before you conduct a sales conversation, there are several important things to do. We’ve already mentioned some of them.
First, host the call face-to-face.
I know we can all be lazy. We don’t want to get dressed in the morning and we want to grab the telephone and make things easy for the customer.
But if you’re selling a high-ticket programme—or even something costing a few thousand pounds, dollars or whatever currency you use—it’s important to conduct calls face-to-face.
Otherwise, the client might be walking around a liquor-store aisle or through Target here in the US.
It’s important for them to be connected face-to-face.
When the call is booked, send a reminder email which mentions this a few times.
The second rule is to limit your availability.
People who are new to business often want to be available whenever the client is. But particularly if you’re a solopreneur, you aren’t available all the time.
You can’t take calls at seven or eight o’clock when it’s time to put the children to bed.
Limit your availability to three or, at most, four appointments a day. I would also suggest offering calls on only a few days each week.
You want the appointment to happen within three or four days.
Our brains are strange.
We might see one of your amazing videos, Peter, and think, “That guy is amazing. I want to book a call with him.”
Four days later, we start to forget—even with you. We start to forget the feeling we had and why we booked the call.
Time is of the essence. In my experience, booking too far ahead produces more missed appointments.
Third, establish a boundary that says you don’t reschedule missed calls.
If somebody fails to attend, the chances of them buying aren’t good. If somebody reschedules, the chances of them buying aren’t good.
Let’s nip that in the bud at the beginning and do it kindly.
All it needs to be is an asterisk at the bottom of the email saying, “Please kindly note that I do not reschedule missed calls.”
People think, “Who is this woman? She doesn’t want my business?”
Then they attend.
Those are three things you can do immediately.
The fourth will be slightly industry-specific, but everybody will have an appropriate time limit.
Limit your calls to 45 minutes.
A skilled sales professional following five steps can bring the client to a choice. That choice isn’t necessarily yes. It’s yes or no.
If we enter a sales conversation with the energy that says, “I must sell this person at all costs,” we shoot ourselves in the foot and end up going down a different aisle.
Instead, enter with an open energy: “I’m going to help this client use this short call to reach a choice—yes or no—about their best next step.”
When you work that way, the next step is frequently working with you.
You should generally conduct these calls within 45 minutes.
If you currently conduct 90-minute calls, work towards an hour. If your calls take two hours, work towards shortening them.
One reason is that you lose control or command of the call when it continues for that long.
You may be allowing the client to tell lengthy stories about all their problems.
Another common issue, Peter, is that you start coaching them on the problem. That’s a deal killer.
You need to coach them on the decision to obtain help with the problem, rather than starting to solve too much of the problem during the sales conversation.
How many rules have I covered, Peter? There’s one more, I think.
PETER BOOLKAH — 12:55
You have four at the moment.
MICHELLE ROCKWOOD — 12:57
Four. What’s the fifth one?
Host calls face-to-face. Don’t reschedule. Limit calls to 45 minutes. What was the other one?
We’re going to have to look at chapter three of my book—page 27—to get them all.
Here it is. This is a good one.
Only take calls at times that work for you.
That’s really important, particularly if you’re a solopreneur.
If you’re going to coach somebody or provide a service, but the only time your client is available is five o’clock at night and you’re never available then, you’re wasting your time.
You also aren’t going to feel at your best.
I always take sales calls at nine and eleven in my time zone. The children have gone to school, I’ve exercised, had my coffee and feel settled, relaxed and ready to connect with the person in front of me.
Every time I deviate from that, it doesn’t go well.
What we’re doing is working smarter and working in alignment.
As with everything else in the business, you need to tighten it up. How can we work smarter and smarter?
I feel great at nine o’clock. People enrol during that call. I feel ready to connect.
I don’t feel like that at five, six or seven o’clock. We would never be a good fit to work together anyway.
It’s about maintaining your energy and making sure you feel good after every call, even when the answer is no.
Then you’re ready for the next person instead of wanting to collapse onto the sofa and say, “This is exhausting.”
PETER BOOLKAH — 14:48
That makes complete sense.
Can you share an example of a particularly successful sales call and explain what made it successful?
MICHELLE ROCKWOOD — 15:01
I’ve had many, but there’s one in particular that stands out.
You might find this funny.
I’m a mother with three boys. It’s really important to me that I take them to school and collect them.
My youngest child was in preschool. I was committed to giving him as much attention as I gave the first—which, if you have several children, you know is almost impossible.
I wanted to conduct three sales calls a day while he was in preschool. If I drove him there and drove back home, I couldn’t do that.
Instead, I took sales calls from my car.
This was before Zoom became the rule and everybody started using it.
I still sometimes do this when I’m in a difficult situation, but thanks to Zoom backgrounds, nobody knows.
I was in my minivan, which is luxurious—the doors open and it’s fabulous—and I was speaking with a particular client about enrolling in a programme.
I can still picture where I was during that call. I remember which direction I was facing, what the weather was like, how I felt, how she made me feel and the connection we had.
It isn’t even the words I remember.
I simply know how special it was.
I knew it was an important turning point in that client’s life because she decided to join a coaching programme that changed the entire trajectory of her business.
She sold her business, started working for herself, now makes hundreds of thousands of dollars and supports her family as the primary breadwinner.
It was incredibly important—and it happened in my minivan.
I took the call at a time when I felt good and conducted it in a way that worked for me.
It’s quite bizarre, sitting in a parked minivan, but it was an amazing call.
There are many others I remember. I remember the book I was holding and how we connected through shared literature.
It’s about remembering that connection with another human being.
Those are the people who give me big hugs at live events and say, “How do I work with you? I didn’t enrol two years ago, but I remember how you made me feel.”
I want to create that for other clients.
PETER BOOLKAH — 17:13
How do you handle objections concerning budget constraints?
I’m asking because the economy is currently stretched around the world, and budget constraints seem to be appearing quite frequently.
What strategies do you use to communicate the value of your services to potential clients?
MICHELLE ROCKWOOD — 17:38
If you receive a money objection—regardless of what’s happening in the economy—we need to examine other parts of the sales conversation.
In my experience, and although there are exceptions, money is frequently not the real objection.
In American culture, and I’m sure in the UK as well, it can become a scapegoat used to avoid the actual objection.
I once had a sister-in-law who said she couldn’t afford to go to the cinema with me. The truth was that she didn’t want to go to the cinema with me.
We’re conditioned to say, “I can’t afford it.”
First, we need to make sure we’re conducting an appropriate, embodied sales call which helps the client understand their actual problem.
Even if you aren’t a money coach or specifically helping somebody with their business, there can be a real cost to remaining stuck.
Years ago, my marriage needed counselling. I’m still married and very happily married, but marriage counselling is incredibly expensive.
A skilled salesperson could have helped me recognise that—not in an unpleasant or manipulative way, but by helping me understand that I was already paying more than $500 a month for marriage counselling.
Add that up across a year.
There can be a real cost to remaining stuck.
It’s the salesperson’s job to explore that at the beginning of the conversation—not to wait until the end and start trying to overcome an objection.
Help the client understand the cost of staying where they are and the opportunity they may be losing.
Then have a genuine conversation and care about where they want to go.
What would that look like? How many times have they been passed over for a pay rise? How much would that rise have been—$25,000 a year?
That’s a hell of a lot of money.
We’re helping the client understand the cost.
If you’ve conducted the sales call properly and still receive an objection, I have a chapter called “Celebrating Objections”.
You need to shift your mindset.
When clients start objecting, those can be buying questions.
They might say, “I don’t have the time.”
You can respond, “That’s useful. Let’s talk more about that.”
See it as an open door to further conversation.
Your job is to reach the real objection.
If somebody says, “This is too much money,” ask them to tell you more and help you understand.
When you’re open about it, you can begin discussing the real concern.
It may be that they don’t believe they will receive the results you’ve discussed. If so, you can move the conversation towards that concern.
PETER BOOLKAH — 20:32
That makes sense.
How would you handle a situation in which the potential client appears disinterested or disengaged during the sales call?
MICHELLE ROCKWOOD — 20:43
You’re giving me some good questions, Peter.
Break rapport.
I just said your name. That’s a technique used to break rapport.
PETER BOOLKAH — 20:51
Right.
MICHELLE ROCKWOOD — 20:52
I took your attention away for a moment by saying, “Peter.”
You might even have to say it three times: “Peter. Peter. Peter.”
That breaks the existing pattern. You can take command of the conversation again and ask the client about what you’re observing.
You might say, “Typically, when people are on a call with me, they’re very excited about X, Y and Z. I’m not getting that impression from you.”
It’s important for a salesperson to be confident, speak the truth and say what’s on their mind.
That can snap the client out of it.
Say their name.
PETER BOOLKAH — 21:32
Do you know what? That’s simple, but how many people don’t do it?
MICHELLE ROCKWOOD — 21:39
It’s very simple.
The other problem is that, in polite society, we don’t say what we think.
During a sales conversation, whether you’re a coach, business professional or providing another service, your role is to be exceptional and different.
One way you demonstrate that difference is through the sales conversation.
If you allow the client to babble, remain uninterested or multitask without addressing it, you aren’t serving the conversation.
You don’t need to be unkind.
You can say, “Are you interested? How important is this to you?”
I say that frequently, and I conduct several calls every day.
I might say, “How important is this to you? It seems as though you might be here simply to gather some information. Is that true?”
You’re looking for a clear affirmative or negative answer.
They might respond, “No, I’m very interested. I’m sorry. Let’s start again.”
That’s the way to proceed.
It can be as simple as asking, “Are you sure? Do you want me to keep talking?”
They’re very simple skills.
PETER BOOLKAH — 22:46
Awesome. Thank you for that.
MICHELLE ROCKWOOD — 22:47
Yes.
PETER BOOLKAH — 22:48
Many people will find that extremely useful.
If people want to get in touch with you, learn more about what you do or connect with you, what’s the best way?
MICHELLE ROCKWOOD — 22:58
The best way is to head over to Amazon in whichever country you’re in and get my book, Joyful Selling: A Better Way to Yes for Heart-Centered Coaches.
You can use the book to learn more about what we’ve discussed today.
You can also visit my website, MichelleRockwood.com, where you’ll find free resources and can connect with me directly.
PETER BOOLKAH — 23:22
Perfect.
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If anything has resonated with you today and you want to know more, head over to Boolkah.com and get in touch.
Michelle, thank you very much for being such an awesome guest.
MICHELLE ROCKWOOD — 23:51
Thank you so much. This was a blast.
PETER BOOLKAH — 23:53
Thank you very much.
Remember: failing to learn is learning to fail.
Take care, everyone.
