SALE is a four-letter word that spells another four-letter word in the business world- fear. Whether you are the seller or the one being sold to, being at the opposite end is as equally distressing. Unfortunately, sales is an indispensable component of business development. The good news is there’s a way to ‘befriend’ sales. It starts by shifting your mindset from the concept of selling to the idea of serving. Today’s episode expounds on this topic with today’s guest, Ursula Mentjes. She’s going to teach us how to avoid an uncomfortable sales transaction and lead any business relationship. She also explains why systematizing the sales process and doing follow-ups contacts can result in a successful sale. Sales is not only for the extroverts. Ursula enlightens us on the valuable skills and strengths introverts can tap into when making a sale. Tune in and learn how to be a “professional, persistent, problem-solver.”
“Selling is subconscious. What we aren’t saying is more important than what we are selling.” -Ursula Mentjes
Highlights:
01:30 SALE vs SERVE
05:26 The Opposite Ends of Sales
09:41 Stray From An Icky Sales Transaction
11:50 How to Lead a Relationship
16:37 Systematize your Sales Process
19:50 Don’t Neglect to Follow Up
23:19 Sales From Better to Best
24:34 What If You’re An Introvert?
Resources:
Book
Tribes-We Need You To Lead Us by Seth Godin
Podcast
Double Your Sales NOW! With Ursula Mentjes
Get Ursulas’s Gift
Get 50% Discount on Ursula’s Sales Course
Quotes:
06:51 “As sales professionals and business owners, we aren’t truly serving our prospects if we don’t offer them the opportunity to buy from us. Because if we don’t, we’re doing them a disservice by not allowing them to make a change in their business or their life that could take them to the next level.” -Ursula Mentjes
10:45 “When you give first, when you think about how you can help the person that’s in front of you that’s when you start to open up that relationship to something bigger.” -Ursula Mentjes
12:09 “When you lead and lead with giving, the rest of it starts to fall into place.” -Ursula Mentjes
14:05 “Selling is subconscious. What we aren’t saying is more important than what we are selling.” -Ursula Mentjes
20:52 “Your prospects expect you to follow up and when you don’t, they’re going to make the assumption that you don’t want to do business with them.” -Ursula Mentjes
22:18 “You can’t be responsive if you don’t speak to your clients.” -Arlene Gale
25:15 “Selling is way, way more about listening than it is about talking.” -Ursula Mentjes
Meet Ursula:
Ursula Mentjes is the Founder of Sales Coach Now, a company geared to help entrepreneurs multiply their sales goals fast. She is also an Award-Winning Entrepreneur, a Sales Expert, an International Speaker, Trainer, and Author. Ursula was promoted from Account Executive to President of an international technical training company in just five years at the young age of 27 when the revenue was in the tens of millions of dollars. Today, she’s geared into helping her clients level up their sales.
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Transcription:
Arlene Gale: Welcome everybody. I want to especially welcome my new listeners in Italy, France, and Spain, and a big welcome to my neighbors from the North Canada. Welcome everybody, thank you for being here. Please keep listening and share the information about the podcast with your friends and family, your neighbors, and I want to invite you to send me an email to arlene@arlenegale.com, that’s A-R-L-E-N-E-G-A-L-E.C-O-M. If you have a program idea, or if you know someone who can talk about a specific myth, or mindset, or limiting belief that you think would be a great guest, please send me an email information about them, or link to connect with them, or an email introduction to them. I’d love to do that because I do this podcast for you. I want to hear from you and know what you think so that we can transform this time together into time well spent. And with that, we’re going to talk today about the myths and mindsets related to ready, drum roll, SALES. I had to cover my ears because I could hear the screams from around the world, I hate sales. After all, S-A-L-E, sale is a four letter word, right? Most people do not like to sell or be sold to. Okay, so I have to confess, I used to be one of those air quotes, those people until I shifted my own mindset.
What was that shift about? Well, for me, the mindset shift came from not thinking about sales at all, but rather thinking about serving. For example, I’m not trying to sell you my book writing business coaching programs. What I am trying to do is to serve you, serve you with my decades of knowledge and experience to make your book writing process easier and actually doable so that you can hold your finished product in your hands. Because I know marketing and I know writing for the book business better than my clients do, and that’s the service that I bring to the table. So I can talk about or sell my passion for marketing and writing, and combine my passion with your passion for your business. Let me say that a little differently. I don’t do sales. I use my passion for marketing and writing to serve you, not to sell you, but to serve you in such a way that will feature you or help you expand your passion for your business so that you can serve your clients better too. So that’s kinda my mindset shift. When I speak to someone, first and foremost, I don’t want to push a product. I don’t want to, it’s not a transaction. I don’t hear (sound) when I’m talking about working with somebody. For me, first and foremost, it’s about a relationship. Getting to know you, getting to know how we might work together and serving you, not selling you. So that’s the ideology that the position I come from, does that sound any different to you when you think about it? Well, this mindset shift worked for me, but luckily for all of us, we have a real sales expert as our guest today, and she’s going to help us discuss and unpack some of these issues.
So my guests, my sales expert, extraordinaire, Ursula Mentjes, is going to help us unravel all of this. But first, a little bit about Ursula. She’s an award winning entrepreneur, a sales expert, international speaker and author. She was promoted from account executive to PRESIDENT of an international technical training company in just five years at the young age of 27, when the revenue was in the tens of millions of dollars. Wow. I wish I knew some of the stuff that I didn’t even know I needed to know at that 27 years old. But anyway, Ursula’s clients included Aflac, Ebenezer, Keller Williams, Fairview Hospitals, New York Life, Paychex, Union Bank, Claire Group, and much, much more. And I want you to listen to Ursula’s sales brilliance here. And then at the end of the podcast, we’re going to connect you to her Double Your Sales Now! Podcast so that you can continue to learn from her brilliance.
So welcome Ursula. How are you today?
Ursula Mentjes: Doing great Arlene. Thank you so much for having me.
Arlene Gale: Oh, I’m excited. So let’s jump right in here. I’d like to get your comments on, there’s two sides to this sales coin, people who don’t like to sound, but then on the other side there are people who don’t like to be sold to. It just feels icky, my professional word, it feels icky. So why do so many people dislike being on either side of sales?
Ursula Mentjes: The perfect place to begin. Arlene, unfortunately I think, and I think you said this already, sales or sale is, you know, it’s a four letter word and it’s a word in our country that at least in the West has a very negative connotation. And often, when I meet with prospects or clients, they think a used car salesperson like that. By the way, I know some great used car sales people, so don’t take this the wrong way, it’s just what people say. They don’t want to be perceived as being too pushy, or greedy, or fill in the blank. And I definitely think that those people who don’t like to be sold to, if they’re in business for themselves, or if they’re a sales professional, they also, like, dread selling, it’s probably not their favorite thing. So like you, like you did, it’s really important to identify your limiting beliefs about selling, the myths about selling so that you can overcome them, and comfortable place of serving. I mean, you said it so eloquently and beautiful at the beginning, truly as sales professionals and business owners, we aren’t truly serving our prospects if we don’t offer them the opportunity to buy from us. Because if we don’t, we’re doing them a disservice by not allowing them to make a change in their business or their life that could take them to the next level.
“As sales professionals and business owners, we aren't truly serving our prospects if we don't offer them the opportunity to buy from us. Because if we don't, we're doing them a disservice by not allowing them to make a change in their business… Click To TweetArlene Gale: Absolutely. And that reminds me of a dear friend. I don’t know, you probably, since you’re so successful, you probably have these friends too that are brutally honest, brutally annoying, but great accountability partners who, you know, I have one that comes to mind who says: “How dare you rob me of the opportunity to benefit from your knowledge.” What do you say to that?
Ursula Mentjes: Absolutely. I mean, just like you, I’m sure you can think of clients who, maybe in the moment you weren’t even sure that, it felt like you knew they needed what you have, but maybe you made some assumptions about whether or not they could afford it, or whether or not this was the right time but you know they really wanted it. I can think of a client of my own who is a single mom of three kids at the time she came to sales camp for the first time. She had a young son who had special needs, so she was at the hospital a lot, and she had two teenage daughters. And I remember when she invested in herself to come to sales camp because her company would pay for it, the company she worked for, she was a sales professional, and then she invested herself to be in our sales coaching program. And what was really interesting is there was a part of me that thought, Oh, like here’s a single mom whose company will pay for this. She wants to be number one in our company, like I had that moment. And then another part of me that said, this could be the biggest game changer of her life. Like you taking me, you meaning ME, taking away that opportunity for her to invest in herself. Like where does that leave her? Or do not believing in her? So I was lecturing myself in my head at the same moments, I had this argument in my head. Anyways, so she, I don’t think she would have carried. She invested in herself, and within a few months had tripled her sales. I hear from her often now, a few years later, she went from making about $80,000 a year to $300,000 a year as a sales professional. That is what I would have been standing in the way up. So I always think of her, and the disservice I would have done if I hadn’t opened up that opportunity for her to say yes to herself.
Arlene Gale: Absolutely. That’s fabulous. So that brings me to, when you meet this person and you don’t know their story, and you’re at the point where you’re handshake, hi, I’m Ursula. Hi, I’m Arlene. So many people are so desperate to just throw up all over you what they want to sell you. How might you take that point of meeting and make it so it doesn’t feel like an icky sales transaction.
Ursula Mentjes: Yeah. So at a lot of our events we talk about something called extreme networking, and often we’ll have time at the end of sales scamp for all the things that we’re doing for our clients to experience this, and it’s a different way of networking. So it sounds extreme, because that’s what we call it. It’s more like speed dating, but in a way that’s really supportive. So I always tell my clients, I’m like: “Take this process to other networking groups that you have.” And the process is very simple. Arlene, if we were meeting for the first time, we would both introduce ourselves so we would know who we’re talking to, and then one of us would go first. So let’s say I would go first, I would talk about who I am, the problem that I solve for my clients, and you would know really quickly what I do, and one thing that I have a need for right now. So then you could say, then you would understand what I do. And you could think, is there a way for me to help Ursula? Yes. No. If not? Can I refer somebody else? Whatever it is. It’s a fun way to know people. And then we would switch. So then you would tell me who you are, the problem you solve for your clients, and you would have one ask, and I can think about how I can help you. And the reason we do this exercise is because when you give first, when you think about how you can help the person that’s in front of you, maybe it’s through my business, maybe it’s not. That’s when you start to open up that relationship to something bigger, and I always find that when I come from a place of just showing up to serve, especially in a networking situation, the opportunities will unfold in ways that I couldn’t even think of. But I’m not leading with selling, I’m leading with serving.
“When you give first, when you think about how you can help the person that's in front of you that's when you start to open up that relationship to something bigger.” -Ursula Mentjes Click To TweetArlene Gale: Well, and you said something that I think is interesting too because not everybody we meet is going to be a client that we can sell to, but does it hurt or help our credibility to be there and talk to them, and offer other connections?
Ursula Mentjes: Absolutely. Absolutely. I think the more you can lead in a relationship or a conversation and be the person, be the connector, be the one who makes those introductions, right? We were both at Debbie Allen’s event, Debbie Allen is the queen of connection. She’s so good at saying: “You two need to know each other.” She said that to us.
Arlene Gale: Exactly, absolutely.
Ursula Mentjes: You know Debbie, someone I’ve hired at different times, multiple times, we’ve worked together on many different parts, we have a relationship but we both lead with supporting other, and referring each other back and forth. So it goes back to that, how do we lead relationships? I think, with all of our clients, they’re always like, what’s the next level for me? And it’s simple, the next level is leading, leading your company, leading relationships, leading your industry. Because when you lead and lead with giving, and helping other people, the rest of it starts to fall into place. And let me be clear though, because I think people can get confused. I’m not talking about just giving away all your time. We’re not charging what you’re worth. Like I’m assuming that all of those things are in place — it’s important to lead, show up to lead.
“When you lead and lead with giving, the rest of it starts to fall into place.” -Ursula Mentjes Click To TweetArlene Gale: Absolutely. And you’re connecting and building relationships that doesn’t feel like selling, but it really is because you’re giving your knowledge to person A who now knows, well, they need this item that you don’t particularly provide, but somebody else can. Now this person and the person you referred them to now become part of your sales force, quote unquote, because they know you better, right?
Ursula Mentjes: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And it’s just, it’s really a circle of prosperity. I mean, feeling like you have, you already have more than enough allows you to be in that space of giving and receiving what wants to come back to you. And it’s a delicate balance. I can certainly say when I first started out in business, I didn’t feel that. Like something [inaudible] Hey, but I just need to pay the bills, and I get that. I get in the beginning like it feels there’s so much more pressure, and there’s that piece in the back of your head, what I will say is, yes, you might have to hustle more, you might have to be out there more, but still, when you lead from a point of giving, if the business will show up, you’ll see it, the opportunities will keep unfolding in front of you.
Arlene Gale: Then that reminds me of when people have a fear of selling, or they feel that desperation, it’s kind of like that the same comes to mind. I don’t know why that dogs can smell fear and they’ll come in for the kill. But when you go to a networking meeting or you go into any environment, and you feel desperate because you’ve got to pay that electric bill, you’ve got to pay the rent, does that impact how you come across to other people?
Ursula Mentjes: I think so, right? I mean, I think so much of selling is subconscious and what we aren’t saying is more important than what we are selling. And I know what networking groups people will get annoyed if someone’s taken out their business cards right away. Like, there’s some — if you haven’t done a lot of networking, people don’t know. So you gotta want to keep those business cards tucked away unless someone asks for it, or if you’re setting up an appointment with someone. But yeah, I think prospects can smell fear, I definitely think they can sense that desperation. So that’s why, I mean, again, that subtle shift of just being the person who leads the conversation, who asks the questions, like I would say, Arlene, what’s the number one problem you solve for your clients? Tell me more about your ideal client. Like who do you want to sell to? And I actually, I mean, I’m coming from a place like you, I’m really curious about that because I probably have clients that I can refer to you, which I already have, right? Like I can refer more. So when you come from that place of curiosity and you lead that conversation, even if you do feel fearful or desperate, that’s not what people will sense. People will sense the front of that desire to learn more about them. And we love talking about ourselves, right?
“Selling is subconscious. What we aren't saying is more important than what we are selling.” -Ursula Mentjes Click To TweetArlene Gale: Yeah, absolutely.
Ursula Mentjes: But asking questions, people will answer them for sure.
Arlene Gale: Absolutely. So Ursula, thank you for that. We’re going to take a quick break and come back with Ursula, and I want to discuss a couple things with you about,? can you survive in business without sales or without some sort of sales system and what are the limiting beliefs or myths around that? As a place to start as we get into the second half of our program. So everybody stay there. We’ll be back with Ursula in just a minute.
So welcome back everybody to Mindset Meets Mastery with Ursula Mentjes, and we’re having a fascinating conversation about shifting our mindsets and our limiting beliefs related to sales and business. So I kind of set this up before we went on the break, Ursula, can you survive in business without sales, or without some sort of a sales system?
Ursula Mentjes: I think it’d be tough to survive without sales, but I think more to the point of without a sales system, here’s the thing, it makes me think of a client from past times who grew up a very successful multi, multi six figure business, high six figure business, and had a lot of success for one year, okay. Like grow, grow really fast and a lot of success and then the market shifted and sales dropped significantly, then they found us and wanting coaching. So when we sat down with them, the one thing that became really clear is that they didn’t have a sales system. So there was no way for us to go back and look at why they had that massively high multi-six figure year. They had no idea, they didn’t know where the sales came from, they didn’t have a sales system in place, there was no way to duplicate it, and they had to start from zero again. So I definitely think you could have some skyrocketing success, but if you don’t systematize your sales process, and if you don’t track where your leads are coming from, where your sales are coming from, who your top 20% of clients are, it’s very difficult to build systems so you can duplicate that year over year. So that’s the piece, I think you could have some success for a while, but I think if you don’t systematize, you’re going to get into trouble at some point.
Arlene Gale: So a system basically, if you take a good system and apply it to something you dislike doing, it helps you set priorities and makes this easier? Is that what you’re saying?
Ursula Mentjes: Absolutely. From start to finish, or we can even think about it, the systems that you put in place to manage your customer journey or your client journey, so how does a prospect find you? How do you quote unquote as my, the other coach in my business, Rebecca Hall, a master coach, she always talks about dating, right? How do you date that prospect? How does your prospect decide to hire you, or buy your product, or service? Then what’s next after that? Dd they become a recurring client? Are they part of your top 20%? And within that, what are all the systems that you have to make sure that they’re happy, to make sure that you’re following up, see if they need anything, to make sure that you stay in touch. You know, I just got an email from a client today who’s hired us in our coaching programs, I think four times now. And she just reached out again. And because of her, we’ve actually developed additional coaching programs because she wanted more. Well, we stay in touch with our clients, we stay in touch so when they do need us, we’re still here, and they remember that. So it’s setting up that system so that you’re supporting your client or your customer all the way through, and then still staying in touch if they need more in the future. So that’s what you want to think about, what does that client journey? How am I staying in touch? How am I supporting them through that space, so that if they want us again, they can hire us.
Arlene Gale: Well, you touched on a couple of things that I think are really important. So many people are so bad at followup. Another confession, I stink at that. Follow up and you may meet somebody who’s a great lead, but if you don’t follow up then, did we hurt their feelers? Or do we just fall off the top of mind?
Ursula Mentjes: It’s one of my FAVORITE topics to talk about because it is a make or break for so many people. The MYTH and the limiting belief that’s there is that, if I follow up too many times, they’re going to think I’m being pushy. They’re gonna think like I’m greedy to pick up this whole story. And the reverse is true, because think of a time when you, the listener, you Arlene were being, you know, wanting to buy something, probably a service and maybe it costs thousands of dollars. Kind of something of a higher ticket item that you wanted to purchase. Maybe it was even remodeling your home or something like that. Think about someone that you really wanted to do business with, you’ve got a great quote from them, or a great proposal, and it was like you’re a dating and it seemed great, and then they never called you. They never followed up. What did you believe about them? Most people believe that they didn’t want their business.
Arlene Gale: They didn’t like me.
Ursula Mentjes: So that’s the flip side, right? So for Us as business owners and sales professionals, your prospect expects you to follow up, and when you don’t, they’re going to make the assumption that you don’t want to do business with them. Statistically, we need to follow up, sometimes more than five times just to close the sale. Because there’s steps in the sales process, and so, for all of your listeners, if there’s one thing that you could blast through is this limiting belief that if I follow up too many times or too soon, they’re going to think I’m being pushy. I want you to flip that to this sentence, one of my favorite sentences, it’s now on nameplates that I send out to our clients so they can put it on their desk. “I am a professionally persistent problem solver.” I am a professionally persistent problem solver. Because when you think about it, if you really believed that, you would follow up a hundred times to serve someone, if you really believe you could solve their problem, right? And when you shift it, it starts to take away that fear and that limiting belief that you’re going to be perceived as being pushy. Because the flip side is they’re going to think you don’t want their business.
“Your prospects expect you to follow up and when you don't, they're going to make the assumption that you don't want to do business with them.” -Ursula Mentjes Click To TweetArlene Gale: Yes. And the other great thing you said in that was, when you stay connected and listen to your customers, it becomes a relationship, and it becomes a give and take. You created programs based around somebody who’d already done work with you and they needed this, and so you added that you were responsive to your client’s needs. You can’t be responsive if you don’t speak to your client.
“You can't be responsive if you don't speak to your clients.” -Arlene Gale Click To TweetUrsula Mentjes: Yeah. If you don’t stay in touch, if you don’t stay connected to them, if you don’t create a sense of community, I love Seth Godin’s book from years back, Tribes, right? He wrote that book about creating your community, and I think that’s so important because in a community, we see each other regularly at school, or at church, or wherever it is we hang out, right? So you want to create that same sense of community for your customers, your clients so they can keep that connection to you. So when they need you, they can refer, or they can come and play again with you
Arlene Gale: Because what you did with this client who reached out and said: “I wanted this service.” You didn’t have that service but you listened, you didn’t have to sell them quote unquote sell them anything. You built a relationship, you built that trust, and so they came back to you. So you provided a great service. So being a successful salesperson, I’m hearing you say, means you also have to back that up by being a successful service provider.
Ursula Mentjes: Absolutely right. Whatever we’re selling, we have to deliver it at that highest level and keep in touch. And I think that when we’re running businesses, it’s hard to remember that piece, that delivery piece to make sure that it stays at the standard that we want it to. And getting feedback from your clients or customers is really important as well because they have great ideas on what they might shift. I mean, we’re doing that right now for a new program we just launched. And one of the people I have in there is another one of my service providers, but she’s actually in the program right now because I want her to make it better. I want her to experience it and to tell me every day, I want to hear from her, like, what would you want us to do to make the experience even better? Because it’s not where we want it to be yet, I know it can be better. And if you’re always working on going from better to being your best, I think then your service gets better, your customers get better, it just helps everyone get to that next level.
Arlene Gale: Absolutely. So I want to ask you this question that I hear a lot from people just talking about sales, but don’t you have to have a certain personality type to be a good salesperson? I’m introverted so I could never be a good salesperson, what do you have to say about that?
Ursula Mentjes: Yeah, well, I’ve been told I’m an introvert. I actually think I’m an ambivert, I think I’m a little bit of both. But there are specialists who argue with me about that. Anyway, I know that introverts can be phenomenal salespeople, and actually EXTROVERTS can struggle a little bit for this one reason. And that one reason is because they talk too much. And extroverts are laughing right now because they’re like, they get into a sales conversation and they just want to talk. They want to tell them all about how awesome their product or services, and all the people that they help, and leave all the [inaudible] overwhelm, and they’re not even asking them any questions. So here’s where introverts really went, and what extroverts can learn from introverts is they’re great listeners. And selling is way, way, way more about listening than it is about talking. It’s one of the things we help our clients with is to remind them, you do not need to know everything before you go into a meeting. I don’t want you to even assume you do. I want you to get really good at asking powerful, open ended questions, and being a phenomenal listener, and taking really good notes so you can figure out whether or not you can solve their problem. And for a lot of people, especially introverts that take so much pressure off, extroverts really gotta work on that. Like some of them, they have to close their mouth and just sit there to listen. God bless them. Extroverts have many other great skills, they’re great at summing it up at the end, and they get excited about that part. But that’s the piece. Introverts, this could be a phenomenal skill set for you. And really Arlene, that brings me to the point that I also want to make sure listeners here, selling is a skill. We think of it as a four letter word often, but it’s truly a skill. Unfortunately, we’re not taught how to sell in elementary school, high school, college. You can even get an MBA and have zero classes just on sales, on marketing, but never just on sales. So it’s not something we learned along the way. You have to go out and get sales training, just like any other kind of training that you get to make your business better, or to make yourself personally better, right? So it’s a myth that selling something we’re just supposed to know. It’s a learned skill. So I just want to also take that pressure off everyone that it’s something you’re supposed to know. No, it’s something you can learn, but one of the number one things you can do to become a better salesperson is to just listen, ask powerful questions, figure out if you can solve their problem or not, and then offer solutions.
“Selling is way, way more about listening than it is about talking.” -Ursula Mentjes Click To TweetArlene Gale: And Ursula, I gotta tell you, this is one of the reasons, this is one of those times that I am so grateful that we’re not on video because I am rolling on the ground laughing and covering my mouth, and wondering how the heck did you get into my mailbox to read my mail. I have to put my hand over my mouth, so I — there’s so much I want to say kind of thing, so yeah, it is. I think that’s interesting, I hadn’t really thought about flipping that around, and that’s great ammunition you just now given me when I’m out and about listening to the introvert’s whine, I mean, that they can’t sell because their introverts. That’s great. That’s great. So as we wrap this up, I want to put you on the hot seat, and I was going to ask you for permission, but now I’m just going to put you on the hot seat, you ready? Okay, so FOR YOU personally, what mindset when it comes to sales, maybe when you were building your business, hindered you the most? And how did you get over it?
Ursula Mentjes: There were so many. So what hinders me the most? I was just talking about this to somebody else today, imposter syndrome. I went from being this really successful executive for somebody else’s company, and growing multi-million dollar lines of revenue, and then starting my own company and completely starting at zero, and then feeling like I’d forgotten everything that I knew. It’s like, and I’m sure many entrepreneurs can relate to this, but I left the corporate world, which was my identity, create my own company, my confidence just dropped below zero. I mean, I don’t even know what happened. And what was interesting about that though is it forced me to go on the journey that I’m on today. It forced me to become, I studied NLP because I wanted to understand my limiting beliefs. So I became an NLP certified coach. I got a master’s degree in psychology because I wanted to go deep into my own brain. All of the things that it forced me to do to work on myself personally, because what it helped my clients today, sing, ding, ding. I mean, most of us who are service providers, especially in the space of coaching and training, we teach people what we went through. So the imposter syndrome is a thing that, feeling not enough, or who am I to do this? Or what do I know? It’s like you forget everything you know. So just constantly reminding myself that I do have the experience, not only in other people’s businesses, but in my own of growing successful lines of revenue and selling, so imposter syndrome.
Arlene Gale: Okay. Now, what is one of the mindsets that you’ve had throughout your business building journey, throughout your life that has helped you persevere and overcome? No pressure, right?
Ursula Mentjes: No, there’s so many things that, like my brain is just, I think I’m glad that I didn’t know how difficult the entrepreneurial journey would be at times, or how alone I would be at times. Like, I don’t know if I could have done, like I dunno if I would do it, I don’t think we realize as entrepreneurs how lonely this space can be, and how hard you have to work to develop those circles of people who really get you. And then as you grow and expand, there’s going to be new people that are going to be surrounding you, and finding that inner circle of support of people who really get it is so important because for me the mindset was to keep going, to keep going when things shifted. In one of my books I talk about surviving the great recession in California, and my husband and I basically losing everything. We had a lot invested in real estate, and one day it was there, and the next day it was gone. I had my business, and how we kept my business afloat and all the things that we did. I mean, there were just moments where we were on our knees, but the mindset piece that I went back to is, I kept the faith. I mean, I do believe in a higher power, I do believe that there’s more to this, and I really had to stop just relying on myself and to rely on something much greater than me to keep me remember that I’m here to serve. If there’s only one client I help today, that’s worth it for me, that’s why I keep going. It couldn’t be about me.
Arlene Gale: So the final hot seat question for you then is, what is, and either all of this, or something that comes to mind just now as we’re getting to wrap up, what is a little golden nugget of mindset wisdom that you can give the listeners that they might be able to start using and implement now on sales?
Ursula Mentjes: Yeah. Ooh, a good nugget. There’s so many. So if I give two, will that be a problem?
Arlene Gale: Okay. We’ll let you have two.
Ursula Mentjes: We talk about following up, but I want to circle back to that. Because following up more than five times is not always fun to do, but for everyone to go, I always encourage my clients to go back and look through their sales pipeline, and look at those people that you followed up with three or four times, and follow up with them one more time because you’ll find that they’re ready to buy now. So follow up again, and again, but go through, find those that you followed up three or four times, follow up one more time. Another thing is to starts to track. One of the things that we have our clients uses something called the work in progress report, and it’s a simple Excel spreadsheet. I definitely believe you want to have a CRM, the customer relationship management tool as well to keep track of all your prospects, but then track on an Excel spreadsheet your prospects in three different buckets. At the top, prospects that you’re calling on for the first time. In the middle, you move them from the top to the middle, which is your 99% close, meaning you’ve had an appointment with them, and now you remove them to the middle because they’re 99% close. And then move them to the bottom after you close the sales. And if you just keep remembering, you’re just moving them down the form, it gets really easy. And don’t have more than 25 prospects on there at a time because it’s too many to manage. So everytime you move one from the top to the middle, then add another one back, so you always have 25 at the top. That one exercise could help you double your sales quickly.
Arlene Gale: Wow. So if, there for the last few seconds, you felt like Ursula was all of a sudden speaking a different language? That is the language of sales and growing your business. So if you want to know more from our expert, Ursula, what CRM stands for and means, and how to track work in progress reports, and how to become, this is my takeaway, I AM A PROFESSIONAL, PERSISTENT PROBLEM SOLVER. If you want to know what that means and how to make it happen, Ursula, how can we connect with your podcast, and with your business?
Ursula Mentjes: Yeah, thank you so much Arlene. And Arlene, I can’t wait to have you on my show, it’s called Double Your Sales Now!, and you can find it on iTunes, iHeartRadio, Double Your Sales Now!, it’s also on my website. My website is salescoachnow.com, and if you go to salescoachnow.com/gift, and that is sales with an S. So salescoachnow.com/gift, you’ll find that we have cool download, it’s six secrets to doubling your sales. Just a fun little one sheet or two, just help you get to that next level, whatever that is for you right now. And also, if you’re interested in coming out and playing with us for two days, we had two day sales camp course that happens in San Diego, and it happens in Minneapolis, and because you’re one of Arlene’s listeners, if you go to salescoachnow.com/arlene, and that’s a lower case Arlene, you can get our course for 50% off. I would love to see you out there.
Arlene Gale: Ooh, that’s exciting. Well, thank you so much for doing that. I’d love to see you guys out there too because I believe in Ursula, and I know she’s going to take me to the next level. So I’m doing this course too, I can’t wait. So join me everybody. Thank you so much, Ursula, for being my guest today. Such great information, especially to start the year off, to get rid of, to shed the old skin of negativity related to sales.
Ursula Mentjes: Thank you. Thanks for having me, it was a blast.
Arlene Gale: It was a blast, and I can’t wait to be on your program either. So let me leave you listeners, dear listeners with my final thought. It’s my cheer for you, my positivity that I hope that you will take with you everywhere you go, and everything that you do in life, so let me leave you with this. “Do not let the world dictate your story. Be mindful of the stories you tell yourself about WHAT IS or IS NOT possible for you, because you get to choose to write your story, to live your story your own way every day.