Most of my content is to make the usual strategies that you hear of, that you know of, and that you have signed off of because they’re not introvert-friendly to feel more introvert-friendly.
I do this by bringing in a different perspective so that you can adapt a strategy to yourself.
Marketing and building connections with people have no strategy as such. They mainly need you to want to connect with someone, that is all.
Now, if you go to a coffee shop, you’re not building deep connections with the barista. You’re going to pick up your coffee and as much as you don’t want to have small talk, you’re going to have to go tell them you need so and so coffee. This is what you want in it and they’re going to tell you how much it costs and you’re going to make the payment. And that in itself is conversation.
So, when I hear from introverts, “I don’t like having conversations.” It makes me curious as to why. Do you not like any conversation? Truly?
I want you to get curious about what kind of conversation you don’t like. I do not enjoy small talk because it leads to nothing and I genuinely have no interest in how the weather is in your location unless you have something special going on. Whether it’s extreme weather, whether it’s causing some kind of a different reaction in people.
Coming to the topic of conversation, why are consults the best strategy for introverts?
Like I said, I try to help you see a strategy that you are aware of, that you have written off, is the best strategy for you as an introvert. Because as much as it sounds interesting, there is very little to do in marketing other than building connections. When you build the connection with your
ideal client about the offer that you have, then it becomes a no-brainer to say yes to you.
Sometimes, even though it’s a no-brainer to say yes to you, they do not have the energy to get up and take the action of buying from you.
That is where your marketing presence, your visibility, and your social media presence in the spaces where your ideal clients spend more time matter.
That is why you need marketing, that is why you need to get visible.
Now coming to consults, consults are also known as discovery calls, fitting calls, or any conversations where you and your potential client are concluding whether both of you can work well together or not.
That is what a consult call is, that’s what a sales call is.
Because it’s so difficult for you to get behind the idea of consults, let’s distill it to its bare minimum. At the bare minimum, a consult call is supposed to help you make decisions. Like,” oh, this person seems like they have a desire that I can help them achieve. I would enjoy working in helping them, but this person looks like they are not ready yet. So, I probably shouldn’t work with them.”
That’s the decision you are making.
Or “ I’d love to work with them. I hope they say yes.”
It’s a yes or no from your end. And it’s a yes or a no from their end.
Like, “Yes. I have this deep desire. I know I need this desire fulfilled but are you the person? You’re using the right words. But can you deliver? Looks like you have proof because you’ve worked with other people. But will it work for me? My extremely special situation?”
So they are deciding to say yes or no to you on the call. That’s all that a consult call is supposed to do.
Irrespective of what you’ve seen, what is being marketed as a consult call, this call has just one job.
You’re deciding if it is
- The right person,
- The right problem or desire, and
- I know how to do this, or I can figure out how to do this.
And your potential client is figuring out if
- You are the right person,
- You know what you’re talking about, or at least can, ultimately get them this result that I so badly desire, and
- I’m willing to pay what’s quoted,
That’s all. The objection handling techniques become less scary. Your desire for the right words, right scripts and all reduce. And you get
into the mindset of I can figure this out if I just have to help her make a decision.
I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking about how you can just use social media and avoid speaking to people as far as possible. I’ve had that thought so many times myself.
But here are the drawbacks of relying only on social media.
Social media is time-consuming.
Not just in the fact that you need to be on social media to connect with people, but also to create content. It also takes time to convert a total stranger into a client.
They need multiple touchpoints on social media. For someone to be able to say “Okay. I want to get on a call with her.” Or to say “I just want to see what she’s got to say” takes multiple touch points. 16. Around 16 at this point.
It’s not always going to work instantly, mainly because the algorithm takes a few weeks to learn about you, learn about the kind of content that you’re posting, and learn about who is the best person to see this content.
So, social media feels overwhelming when you don’t understand how the algorithm works. It takes time and effort to learn anything new.
It takes time. And you have to give it time for it to make an impact in
your business. So social media is time-consuming.
Social media is overwhelming.
At first social media is energy intensive. Whether it is the one on one conversations you have to have or in creating content that is going to help people say yes to you.
But you cannot ignore social media. Or you shouldn’t ignore it. You could find other ways for promotion. Any other way you can to broadcast your message. Social media is just the place with the least resistance.
Being a guest on podcasts is great. Collaborations are great but you have to interact with another person there as well. On social media, you can do a large portion of work on your own by yourself, as an introvert.
Social media is beneficial. But it doesn’t bring as quick results as Consult calls do.
Human connection and communication are super important to build trust. When there is a connection, it’s an easier yes than when there is no connection.
So, I think getting on a call with a potential client is the best thing you can do for your business when you’re not booking clients.
You are struggling to book clients. Stop thinking about how to create the best content. How to master Instagram? How to leverage LinkedIn? Awesome goals.
But instantly, like at this moment, what’s going to help you book a client? That’s going to be a discovery call.
So instead of getting people to just follow you on Instagram so that you can keep posting content and they can feel inspired to connect with you.
Focus on asking if they’d like to get on a call with you so that you can figure out if we are if you can help them with their problem.
It would serve that person best because it reduces their headache of figuring out who to hire to solve this problem, how to get this problem solved etc.
It’s great for you because you are immediately going to get to know if you can help this person or not and if you are a great fit or not.
Let’s get into the five reasons why consult calls are the best way for you to book clients
The very first one is, that it reduces the time to know, like, and trust you enough to say yes to buying from you.
That is huge. Even if you have the best offer but if you cannot be trusted, if they cannot see that you can help them, they will hesitate to hire you.
When you don’t have a big social media presence, social proof, etc discovery calls help build trust. It’s the quickest way to book a client. All you have to do to book your very first client is to keep getting on discovery calls until you have overcome all of your feelings about discovery calls and figured out a way to communicate without fear, without judgment, and without the pressure of how you can serve this person and why they can trust you.
Until you get to that point, discovery calls will not work and it’ll take work. You cannot buy a script, or download a free script and expect it to work instantly for you.
Even if that script is tailored to you, I promise you it’s not going to work during the first five attempts. Because you’re going to have so many other thoughts going in your head. Those are going to mess with the delivery and reception by the other person.
There’s not much you can do about how they receive it. But there is a lot you can about how you deliver. That’s in your control. And you master
that by doing it over and over again. Just like you mastered walking by walking more and more and more and more despite falling often, giving your parents a huge scare many times.
The second reason why a discovery call is best and why it builds trust is that the person can see your personality and you can see the other person’s personality as well.
Both of you are judging each other. Both of you are gauging each other.
It’s great to have them see your personality and help you see their personalities. That’s why a call is a better option than DMs even if you are
intuitive.
DMs take time. DMs in my opinion are a better choice when you don’t have enough time to sit and talk face to face.
The third reason to choose consult calls is that they allow you to get instant feedback about your offer, your messaging, your presentation, etc.
What thoughts are you thinking? That’s super valuable. When you are asking them to hire you and there is a barrage of thoughts in your head,
you’ll know exactly how much belief you have, like on a grade of 1 to 10 in your offer.
That’s a great indicator of what you have to work on in your mindset. When you are delivering and you feel like you could’ve done better, then it’s very clear, you need to practice this more.
Whether you do it in front of the mirror a thousand times, or do it in front of another human being and refine your process, I would recommend the latter to refine your process.
Either way, this is what is going to help you best. Some people are going to be kind enough to give you feedback, to help you refine. Some people are just going to give you non-verbal responses.
If they say, “yeah, this sounds very interesting but then,” you get an indication that your offer is valuable. You don’t have to change up your offer again. You have your answer right there. You just have to keep pushing it over and over and over again. Until you find those people who want to buy. Until you hone the skill of identifying during the initial conversation if this is the right person or not. For all of that. Discovery calls are great and quick. They are like those boot camps.
The fourth reason is that it allows your potential client to understand the value of your offer.
It’s critical especially for you when you’re new, you don’t have a big social media presence. You don’t have enough social proof to speak for you and your ability to deliver on the promise.
So how can you show the value of your offer? Through your content alone? It is a little unrealistic. A little unfair. Irrespective of how amazing your content is. That personality, personal connection, and the vibing of the personalities are a great replacement for the lack of social proof.
You can tailor and help them see the value of your offer based on how they are communicating.
It becomes a lot easier on a call rather than on a sales page, on a DM, through your posts, etc.
Those are all great resources. But they are not stand-alone. Your content
cannot stand on its own. It needs to be supported. And your content supports other parts of your marketing as well.
Marketing has multiple parts and they are all working in tandem. Just like your meal.
You can’t eat only greens or only carrots or only meat and say you’ve eaten a balanced diet. The balance comes from various aspects, protein, dairy, grains, vegetables, and fruits.
When you’re super hungry you can eat an apple or banana and sustain yourself for a bit. But in the long run, balance is essential for the body.
In the same way, in the long run you need different parts in your marketing. Content can bring clients to you on its own. But it’s not balanced so the results won’t be on a timeline of your expectation or in the manner you want them.
You need content, you need personal outreach, and you have to have sales pages and funnels. It’s a balance.
The fifth point is that consults help both you and your ideal clients work through any objections.
I know objections are a bother. Especially objections on discovery calls bother you because you feel like you’ve been put on a spot.
Trying to convince this person into believing that you have the best offer or you are the best service provider. You believe it is your job to make the best impression possible.
And that is true. It is your job and yet you cannot let it bog you down. So it’s a lot of mindset-related work. But objections often stem from either their inability to trust themselves to make the decisions because they fear the bad consequences.
Or they are genuinely not clear about your offer, your ability to deliver, or even what you are delivering.
Having that clarity for them is going to make it easy to say yes or no. Objection handling is not about convincing, objection handling is helping them get really clear.
People have a hard time trusting themselves to make the right decision. They fear that they may not be able to bear the consequence that comes if the decision is wrong.
So if you can help them understand that you will work through the consequences even if they happen to be undesirable.
For example, in coaching, I am going to be present for you 110%. I’ll go the extra mile for you. In helping you book your first five clients. But I cannot talk to people on your behalf. I cannot sell your offers on your behalf. Because that is not my job as your coach.
First of all, that is not what you hired me for.
Secondly, you know your offer a lot better than I would know. You know your ideal clients better. You are the right person to sell and connect with your people.
So the results we can achieve together, a lot of it depends on you showing up 100%. Not your 100% best each time but you need to be present in the coaching container.
However, as a developer, I knew this is exactly what I am going to deliver. So I could guarantee the results. They had to give me the content. If they didn’t there would be placeholder content. But the design would work. The website would work. That was what I was offering.
I could guarantee that nobody will leave the website because it’s slow, or because it’s badly designed, etc.
I couldn’t guarantee that it would have the best images. Or that the brand would connect with their visitors. I couldn’t guarantee those. They had to provide those to me.
I couldn’t guarantee that the messaging would be on point. That was their job. If they did their part and I did mine, together they had a high converting website.
Have that clarity and only guarantee what you are going to deliver when they deliver too. Tell them, this is what I bring to the table. And this is what I need you to bring to the table to get this transformation. Are you willing?
And you will then know immediately if they are willing.
Handling objections doesn’t mean obliterating objections. It just means helping them see how you are the right person to help them. And how your solution is the right thing to help them. And it is easier to do in a call when you are asking questions and listening to them. Rather than focusing on a script or on saying the right words.
These are the five reasons.
1. It reduces the time it takes to build know, like, and trust enough to hire you.
2. It helps you both, you and your potential client, see each other’s personality, feel each other’s personality and know if you’re a good fit.
3. It allows you to get instant feedback about your offer, your messaging, your delivery, your presentation et cetera. So that you can improve faster and book clients at a faster rate.
4. It allows your potential clients to understand the value of your offer and helps and allows you to show the value of your offer.
5. It helps both of you work through the objections you may be having.
These are the reasons why consult calls are a lot better than sales DMs for you as an introvert, as someone who hasn’t yet figured out how to book clients consistently.
Now, if you’re thinking, “okay, Seema, all this is great but I don’t know how to get people to come on a sales call with me.”
Then let me help you. I have a free mini-course, Book consults in 7 days. It walks you through the entire process of getting people on consult calls. There are only two things to do.
- You need to meet people and
- you need to invite them on a call
How do you implement these two steps? How do you do them effectively? That’s what I walk you through in the free mini course. It’s five days of emails delivered to you. Each day we tackle one part of meeting the people. What you need to do and
How to ask them in a way that it’s easy for them to say yes.
Sign up for the free mini-course here!