How to feel more confident about selling

+ a workshop to help you make slow, gentle and profitable selling your own.

Thank you for following along with me for the launch of Small business newsletter magic this past month. Your support means a lot to me 💌

One of the biggest lessons in my business I had to learn was “asking for the sale”—or, to put it differently, to explicitly tell my audience that I was selling something. I see this with many of my clients as well: they are hesitant to be too explicit, afraid they’re being pushy or too much.

In this post, I want to encourage you to share explicitly and frequently what you are selling. I’ll show you that you can do so consistently and gently, in a way that suits you and your business.

Hiding your offers

A year ago I landed on the website of a small business owner I’d met through an online community. She had previously mentioned that she’d launched a new course, and I was curious. But when I visited her website, it took me quite a bit of scrolling and clicking to discover more about it. This broke my heart a little bit. The offer she had mentioned before clearly sounded gorgeous to me, but she was hiding her amazingness.

As a new business owner, I so rarely mentioned that people could work with me.

It reminded me of when I was a new business owner. In my brand-new newsletter, I tried hard to be inspiring and practical. But I so rarely mentioned that people could work with me. For all I know, those early subscribers thought that all I did in my business was send out lovely emails with practical tips. Because I was too subtle in telling them otherwise.

This topic comes up a lot with many of my clients. In our work together, they realise that while they have everything in place to makes sales, they are being too subtle in sharing what they do and how people can buy from them. Part of the magic of my work is helping them share their amazingness with the world.

4 signs that you are being too subtle about your offers

• In your newsletters, you only mention that you are selling something all the way at the bottom of the email;

• On your website, it is not immediately clear what you do, what you’re selling and how people can buy. Visitors need to click and scroll quite a bit in order to find out about this;

• Throughout your marketing, you’re not being explicit repeatedly about what it is that you offer;

• If you do mention that you are selling something, you do so either just in one piece of content, or bury it in a longer piece of text.

If you recognise yourself in these signs, there’s so shame at all—we’ve all been there. I’m here to remind you that you can share and sell more explicitly, while still doing so gently.

Gentle and effective ways of sharing + selling

Many of us, especially those of us socialized as women, have an ingrained fear of being “too much”, of taking up too much space. We have implicitly or explicitly been taught that we shouldn’t ask people to buy from us.

And we might worry that in sharing our offers frequently and implicitly, we are being gross. That in doing so, we become like those big companies or overeager marketeers that keep spamming us.

I’ve definitely had to find my way around this. I’d been burned too many times by business owners sending me spammy emails, or engaging in “pain point marketing”, telling me that I had a problem I didn’t even know I had, or emails that left me feeling pressured.

Sharing, or asking for the sale, is not forcing

I have realised a few things since my early days in business.

The most important is that sharing, or asking, is not forcing. I have zero interest in forcing someone to buy from me (to the extent I even could). I don’t make impossible promises, I don’t do magic fixes.

I stick with slow and gentle instead, helping potential clients and customers make up their own mind about whether my offers are right for them.

But one of my three key values is also profitable, and in order for my business to be profitable, I need to sell. And in order to sell, I need to tell people what I offer and how they can buy from me.

That is the second most important thing I’ve realised. I need to be explicit about what I’m offering, and I can invite people to buy from me in a gentle way. A way that does not leave me feeling too stretched or too visible.

I know that every single one of you is putting something beautiful out into the world. Something that will make the lives of other people better, more joyful, easier—in big and small ways. What you are putting out into the world needs to be seen. But your potential clients and customers need your help in deciding whether what you offer is right for them.

Helping your potential customers to buy from you

Throughout your marketing, make sure that you come back to:

• telling your audience what you do in your business—preferably in a short and punchy way. I like this description from Huma Qureshi: “Thoughtful and Inspiring Online Writing Courses with Award-Winning Author Huma Qureshi”;

• telling your audience what it is that you sell repeatedly, whether it’s writing courses, or floral designs, or yoga classes;

• helping your audience decide whether what you sell can be for them. This includes whether certain products fit their life (as someone who is childfree by choice, reusable diapers have zero relevance for me). But especially, you need to help them see whether what you offer can be a part of their life—without suggesting that they are doomed without it. You need to tackle questions and assumptions that they might hold, like “coaching is not for people like me”, or “who am I to think that I can write short stories?”.

Often we are so much wrapped up in our own business that we believe that we are being very explicit about our business, what is it that we do, and that (and how!) people can buy from us. We cannot assume that it is obvious to them what we do and what we offer, if we do not tell them.

Some examples of gentle and explicit sharing

Make sure every piece of marketing (newsletter; social media post; etc.) includes a hyperlink to your website and your offers.

Share stories and examples from your business, from the kinds of products you design, how you work on bespoke products, to the kinds of questions you tackle with your coaching clients.

Review and tweak your website to make it very easy for visitors to discover what you offer and how they can buy(apparently, on average people spend less than a minute on a page!).

Share your new products or updated availability for services at the top of your newsletters rather than at the bottom.

Keep going. Reminding people of what you offer does not equal taking up too much space or being a bother.

And finally, remember that this takes time and practice. It can feel really uncomfortable to stretch your comfort zone in this way. Not all ways of sharing are for everyone, but once you’ve found the way for you, it gets easier the more you do it.

How do you feel about sharing about your offers, and asking for the sale? Is it something you do easily and frequently, or do you struggle? What helps you?

Workshop: a slow, gentle and profitable approach to selling

If you want to dive deeper into sharing your offers and asking for the sale, I have just the thing for you: a short workshop with worksheets that walks you through the emotional and practical side of selling, and gentle strategies to make your own.

This workshop will support you to tackle the emotions and stories that keep you from sharing, and experiment with practical strategies to ask for the sale. Being aware of the stories we carry and having a toolbox of strategies to use makes selling so much easier, in a confident and empowered way.

The workshop

I’ve created a 25-minute workshop to help you discover a slow, gentle and profitable approach to selling.

» Paid subscribers: you have immediate access to this workshop right here «

At the end of this workshop, you’ll feel more confident about sharing about your products and services, and know a variety of ways to do so gently and effectively. You’ll feel calmer and more confident, and slowly grow the muscle of asking for the sale.

» You can access to the workshop in two ways:

• as a paid subscriber you get access to this workshop, the previous ones on money mindset, creating your financial ecosystem and creating your business vision as well as behind-the-scenes posts and our community features (accountability club and mini-mastermind);

• or, buy the workshop as a standalone workshop for €20 here.

Take a look at the workshop 📽️

As always, thank you for being here, for reading and commenting. Have a beautiful end of the month! I’ll be back in your inbox in December, with reflections and invitations to end the year gently, and an annual favourites list. x

Female Owned is more than a newsletter. If you are ready to do business differently, I’d love for you to become a paid subscriber and become part of our gentle community of small business owners, freelancers and creatives. You’ll get bonus resources (the accountability club! the mini-mastermind! the new mini podcast series!) and behind-the-scenes posts right in your inbox.