In today’s episode, we’re going to be talking about something really exciting for me.
It’s something that I have presented at conferences, it’s one of the keynote speeches that I give, and I’m going to get a little more practical today.
I’m talking about SELLING and in particular, the difference between masculine-oriented sales and feminine-oriented sales.
Let’s dive in!
I’m going to be a bit controversial here and say that a lot of men actually deny that this is true, and a lot of women deny that this is true.
The way that men and women sell is actually quite different.
Our levels of comfort with different types of sales strategies are also quite different.
If you think about how a man sells something, he will just say, “Hey, I got this awesome thing. Here’s why you should buy it. You definitely need it.”
You buy it. He takes your money. Off you go. That’s it. It’s done.
If you think about when you – as a woman – have tried to sell something online, I don’t know how many times I’ve had women say to me, “Ugh, look, I was going to launch. I was going to get it out there. But I just worry that this isn’t good enough.”
And then, even when they do make the sales, they’re like, “I don’t think they like it. I don’t know if they’ll love it. Maybe I should offer them a partial refund. Have I done it 100% perfectly?”
I’m not here to debate why men and women sell differently, who’s better, or any of those sorts of things.
But I just want us to acknowledge that there is a fundamental difference.
That fundamental difference can, therefore, impact the way that we show up in our businesses.
I’ve seen this reflected really beautifully and demonstrated super clearly in a number of different Facebook Groups.
I belong to some Facebook Groups that are all women, and some that are a mix of women and men.
In the groups that are a mix of women and men, even the women answer the questions that I ask about sales very differently.
An example of this is when I went into a range of groups and I asked a question about course completion rates:
“Do you pay attention to course completion rates?”
“How do you increase your course completion rates?”
“What are your concerns about people not completing your online courses and programs?”
In the groups where it was just all women, all of the things were:
“It’s a big priority for me.”
“I focus on it.”
“I ask people lots of questions about where they get stuck.”
“Each month I spend a bit of time doing live support to help people get over their barriers.”
All these sorts of things are being discussed.
Those answers did not appear in groups where it was men and women combined.
I had a number of men say to me:
“It’s none of your business whether people finish your course. Your job is to create a great course. Get out there and sell it. And that is it!”
“As long as people have access to your materials, it’s not your job to make sure they finish it.”
I don’t have to tell you that I was a little bit cranky with it.
But it was really good for me to get fired up about it because I completely disagree, and I think this is the difference between masculine and feminine sales and business.
I believe that we are a combination of masculine energy and feminine energy, and I truly do believe that we can bring different levels of masculine and feminine energy to the fore when we’re running our businesses.
If you are completely dominated by masculine energy, then some of these sales traits may start to appear.
I had women in that mixed group telling me that if you create a quality course, the completion rate will take care of itself.
“There’s always going to be a large percentage of people who never do the program but as long as you focus on selling it to as many people as possible, then you can impact more and more lives.”
Even though there was this thing about wanting people to get the results, there was also this mentality of it not really being your job. Whereas in the groups that were women-only, there was a completely different energy to the answer.
What I wanted to do today was to actually look into the masculine and feminine sales and marketing approaches, and how you might like to dial up the feminine approach to your sales and marketing because what I am starting to see is that more and more women who embrace the feminine-style of marketing and sales are actually getting better results.
If you think about the sell-and-run mentality and that way of creating and selling courses or programs or services, then chances are you’re going to feel like it’s a little bit out of alignment for you.
And I’ve definitely felt that way!
I’ve done the PLF-style launches before, and I got to tell you that it felt horrible. I cut it out halfway because I couldn’t do it anymore.
It was like giving the answer but then making people jump through another hoop. And then doing that again.
I’m sure if I had seen that through, I would’ve made plenty of sales. It would’ve created great results, but it felt so out of alignment for me that I just couldn’t see it through.
Instead of trying to force myself to sell more like a man or dial-up that masculine energy, I decided that there’s surely a way for us to do this successfully without getting out of alignment with our masculine and feminine balance.
That’s what I’ve been dedicating myself to when looking at how I teach launching, how I launch myself and the strategies that actually work for me.
What I’m finding is the more that I dive into and dial up the feminine side of my marketing strategies, the more sales I’m making in my launches and the less I’m getting refund requests – the more my business is starting to get momentum of its own and starting to go a little bit viral.
I really feel like it’s created significant change for me.
I must say, I’ve always tipped more to the feminine energy in my business. But the more I learn about strategies that are aligned with feminine energy, the more successful my business is becoming.
I wanted to share some of that with you today.
For me, the point of this is not to tell you to sell more like a man. That’s what a lot of sales and marketing coaches out there will be saying to you.
They’ll tell you that you just need to get over it because you won’t be successful otherwise. Or you need to outsource it as much as possible so that you don’t get freaked out by it.
To be 100% honest with you, that’s not how I want to show up in my business and I don’t expect you to do that either.
This might be very different to some of the advice that you get about how to make great sales and how to market yourself, but honestly, the more I do it, the more it’s working and I would love for you to feel that aligned and see the result from this as well.
I’ve actually seen a lot of big-named women out there start to have this realisation in their businesses.
I’ve seen posts by some very popular women in the online business world who are saying, “You know what? Last year, my sales strategy went a little masculine. It went a little pushy, and I didn’t really enjoy it as much.”
I’ve even seen women close down their businesses because they’ve got so deep into the masculine side of their sales. It feels completely out of alignment for them, and they don’t even know how they can come back from it.
It’s really fascinating for me to see this and observe this from the outside in the online business world, and I’m really excited to share some of these strategies with you.
1. Align more with the feminine energy
Not necessarily get rid of all the masculine energy.
As I said earlier, I believe that we are a balance and it’s about finding what’s really aligned for you.
A great example of the difference between marketing strategies if you’re in the feminine-aligned or the masculine-aligned is this principle of admiration marketing.
You may have heard me talk about KLT or KLTC.
KLT is a very well-known marketing term for how much people Know, Like and Trust you.
When you’re building up a relationship with potential clients, you want to build this KLT factor.
The extent to which they Know you, Like you and Trust you.
In a masculine-oriented marketing approach, it would be KLTA.
Not only are you building up that KLT, but you also want people to Admire you – the I’ll-have-what-she’s-having effect. Standing on a fancy yacht. Wearing your beautiful Prada clothes. Having your photo in front of Ferraris.
If you think about the way that men bond, it’s over their toys and their accomplishments. It’s that “Ooo, look at me. I got this new amazing thing. Let’s all go out and check it out.”
Talking about your accomplishments and it’s creating that Admiration factor.
When guys admire each other, they connect with each other.
On the feminine side, if you think about how women connect and how they bond, it’s based on Connection and vulnerability.
I don’t know any men who talk about calorie-counting.
Women talk about this stuff and we bond over it.
We talk about periods, nipple chafing and all sorts of things.
We connect over our humanness.
For the feminine side of marketing, I talk about KLTC – the extent to which people Know, Like, Trust and feel CONNECTED to you.
They have the same fears as you – the same vulnerabilities as you. They feel like they really know you and they could reach out and ask you a question.
We love feeling really connected to those people who we admire and those people who we love but through a different lens.
Think about how many celebrity magazines fly off the shelves when the cover is celebrities without makeup.
We grab those off the shelf because we want to know that the people that we admire are human.
That’s really what we love.
In your marketing, it’s actually a beautiful permission slip to be yourself.
I do Facebook Lives without wearing makeup and without doing my hair and being fancy.
I have turned up to live support calls for my peeps in my programs fresh out of bed, just chucked a hoodie on.
When I lived in Bali, there was no point in wearing any makeup so for a year and five months, I was pretty much makeup-free everywhere.
You know what? It actually created a deeper sense of connection with my community.
It also comes in to play in the sales process.
If you think about when you purchased a course or a program, if we’re aligned with the masculine style of marketing, it’s that kind of drip-feed, teaser kind of thing.
What you’re doing in that masculine style of marketing is you’re:
- Making people jump through hoops
- Making them prove that they want it bad enough
- Creating that FOMO factor
- Making people feel that they won’t succeed without it
In the feminine model of marketing and selling courses, I talk about empowering people to make a smart decision for themself.
It’s not about convincing people that they need this thing, it’s empowering people to make the right decision.
That takes a lot of faith that your stuff is amazing and that it will help people.
If you think about it, at the end of the day if you’re trying to convince people to buy something that they don’t really need, how aligned to that are you going to feel? How much are you going to sabotage that?
One of the lovely ladies that I love to follow who talks about money mindset is Denise Duffield-Thomas.
She talks about when she goes to networking events and conferences, when she says to people, “I help women overcome their money blocks.”
Men will nine times out of ten say, “What does that mean?”
They don’t even understand what a money block is because it’s not as big of a thing.
For us, particularly if your feminine energy is dialled up, you want to hang around when you deliver a course or program.
You want to empower people to make great decisions.
If you’re not feeling aligned with that, money blocks will appear.
You’ll actually stop the income coming in, or you’ll get lots of refund requests because you’re energetically repelling the sales and the money.
It’s feeling out of alignment.
What I recommend that you do is align with that feminine energy and think about – upfront – what is the sales process or the experience that you really want to create for your customers? How can you make that feel more connected? More real?
Make yourself feel a bit more human.
Give yourself permission to be more vulnerable, flawed and imperfect through that process. How can you empower people to make the right decision rather than trying to convince as many people as possible to make the one decision?
2. Contribute to the conversation
If you think about masculine business models, it’s let’s-all-climb-over-each-other-to-get-to-the-top-of-the-pyramid. You want to be the best – the best business coach, the best marketing strategist, the best health coach, the best bootcamp facilitator, the best yoga instructor.
Whatever it is, it’s this pyramid style of business and everyone is trying to climb over each other to be the best and to be at the top.
In the feminine style of marketing/sales, we’re all sitting around in a circle and we’re all contributing to the conversation.
My goal is not to be THE best or THE most successful coach in the whole entire world.
My goal is to fill the Forbes 500 list with all of my clients. Let’s all be successful together.
Setting goals around money mindset using feminine sales strategies
I don’t need to shout over someone, I don’t need to be better than someone.
All I want is to contribute to this conversation.
I want women in the online business world to feel like they can do this without having to act more like a man. They can be successful using feminine strategies and aligning their business with their natural strengths and talents.
In order for me to be successful, I don’t need other people to be silenced.
We are all contributing to this conversation – particularly other female business coaches who are all singing from the same song sheet.
The more of us that are out there talking about our way of doing things, the fewer women are starting to feel like they can’t succeed unless they act more like a man.
I don’t want to be the #1 in my industry. I just want to contribute to the conversation.
It takes a lot of pressure off again.
It makes me feel really comfortable to promote the work of my “competitors” because not everyone can afford to work $1,495 an hour to work with me as a 1:1 business coach.
I actually have a suite of business coaches that are very active in my community and that I support. If someone’s asking for a business coach, I ask them what exactly they need and then I recommend three or four women from the #ladyposse.
In the feminine model of business, we’re not competitors – we’re actually each other’s supporters.
A rising tide lifts all ships.
In the masculine model of business, that just doesn’t happen.
You may have seen this if you’re a health coach and you’ve joined a male health coach’s Facebook community.
You are not able to be a contributor to that conversation.
As a business coach, I’ve joined business coaching groups of entrepreneurial Facebook Groups where if you’re a business coach, you don’t get a voice.
“If you do something similar to me, you’re not allowed to have a place in this conversation except if you want to ask me advice.”
Think about how you can embrace being a contributor to the conversation rather than needing to be the most successful in your field or industry.
3. Sticking around
I think this is a big difference between masculine and feminine sales.
For me, I tried the whole “passive income” thing. My first passive income product was the 2015 Heart and Soul Planner for Entrepreneurs.
It was a passive income product. It was $19.95.
I sold about 70 copies and I reckon I would’ve emailed 40 people asking what they thought about it and how it was going.
For me, this was just a huge wake-up point. I realised that I didn’t want to just sell something to someone and hope for the best for them.
For me, I want to stay connected in delivery.
Nowadays, when I sell my planners, it comes with workshops so that we can go through and fill in the planner together.
I can answer any of your questions. We can talk about how to make sure that you actually implement the plan this time instead of it just sitting on the shelf and gathering dust.
It has made a huge difference to the results that people have got. Therefore, how much they recommend it to everyone.
I make more sales of that year every year without doing any different marketing or any more marketing of it.
It’s a very simple rollout. It’s getting a lot of momentum because I stick around in the delivery and that’s usually where other people find that planners don’t work for them.
Have a think about how you can stay around longer in the delivery of your courses and programs.
4. Empowering people through the sales process
How can you empower people through the sales process rather than push them through the sales process?
When I am advertising something, I’m very upfront about the price.
I don’t make people jump through hoops in order to hear the price.
I’ve listened to sales videos from dudes before where there’s no timer on the video. (They just got it embedded in a special way.) You can’t fast-forward. You can’t pause. And the first thing they tell you in the video is, “I’m not going to tell you how to buy this or the price until minute 23 of this video so you’ve got to stick around and watch it.”
I don’t know about you, but the first thing I did was to turn it off.
We don’t like to feel like we’re being manipulated.
We don’t like to feel like we’re being led in a specific way without choice and empowerment.
I know for myself, even with marketing videos from women who are more aligned with their masculine energy, I start to feel really uncomfortable by three-quarters of the way through the first video.
I’m someone who’s very susceptible to NLP in sales so I’m really mindful of it.
A lot of people say that they don’t want to us NLP in their sales, but if you’re doing this process of pushing people through and dialling up their fear and dialling down their empowerment and then coming in and being a saviour with your product, you’re using NLP for sales.
You might not be consciously doing it, but you’re disempowering people through that sales process.
For me, the more I empower people through the sales process, the more lifelong loyal fans I have.
The more I show up fully in my sales process, the more I feel like it’s really aligned with me and the better the results are becoming for me in each and every launch that I do.
Have a think about the ways that you can empower people through that sales process and really support them.
If this is the kind of podcast episode that gets you fired up and you’re looking for more support in this, I highly recommend that you come over to the Heart-centred, soul-driven entrepreneurs Facebook Group and share using #podcastaha and the episode number (148).
We can continue the conversation in the group and I’m here to support and encourage you as you move forward in your business.
Until next time, I cannot WAIT to see you SHINE.
