Martin Stellar - Coach & Consultant for ethical sales and business growth

Martin Stellar - Coach & Consultant for ethical sales and business growth

Doing it right as an entrepreneur or creative professional

Three Questions That Determine Whether They’ll Buy – And the Second Gets Way Too Little Attention

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Yes, of course: people need to know you, like you, and trust you, if they’re going to buy your thing.

But Know, Like & Trust, aren’t enough.

On a very primal psychological level, evolutionary style, everyone subconsciously asks three questions when dealing with others:

Do I like you?

Can you help me?

Do I trust you?

And that middle part – the other’s belief in your ability to help – is something often overlooked.

Think about it:

A buyer needs to have the conviction that you can help them  their problem. Without that, they’ll never buy.

But saying that you can do X or Y for them doesn’t cut it.

Whether you say ‘I make a good breakfast’ or ‘I fix your SEO’ or ‘I help you get really good at enrolling buyers’ (that would be me saying it) does nothing to convince someone.

It’s data, information, a statement.

For someone else to believe it – to trust that it’s true – that you can help them, something has to happen in their mind.

A doubt or question needs to be addressed in such a way, that they go from ‘Can they?’ to ‘Oh wow, they can!’

Saying it won’t make it happen.

Persuasion doesn’t make it happen.

Nor does a list of awards, education, resume or bio.

For a buyer to believe that you can help, they need to have an insight that leads to conviction.

They need to know that yeah, you’re the guy or gal for the job.

That’s when people buy.

So is there nothing you can do to have a buyer go through that process?

Sure there is:

1: Have a conversation, and frame it as an exploration into goals, current situation, and obstacles inbetween those.

2: Sell them on one thing only: your care and concern for them as a person and as a business owner. Be genuinely interested, in finding out exactly what their needs are.

3: Ask questions that invite the other to try out different perspectives.

And the best way to do that?

Talk to people – especially past buyers – and ask them specific questions, so that you get to the full understanding of their needs.

That way, they’ll realise that yes, “This person can, indeed, help me!”

This is why the IP to Profit system starts with research, and it shows you exactly which questions to ask.

Pay what you want for the 1-hour training (until Friday, then the price goes back up to $49).

Access the training here.

Cheers,

 

Martin

 

 

Business Struggles? Everything Is Different, but One Thing Will Never Change

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I know, it’s tough trying to keep business going when literally nothing is the same. Society, business, mobility, economy: it’s all different now.

In that sense, the world has never seen a situation as wildly VUCA as the one we’re in now.

Where the term stands for Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity.

It’s a concept from the military world, designed to help gain insight and make better decisions when the playing field we find ourselves in is foreign, and we don’t have a map.

Kinda like what the business world – society at large, actually – is in.

But not everything is different.

And there’s one very important element that can keep a business running, and it will never ever change, not so long as there are people.

What will never change, is people’s needs.

And even if your people aren’t buying your thing like before, they still need your work.

And, it’s on us as business owners to find out what their new needs are, and what new method, package, or offer they’ll buy, in order to fulfill those needs.

You just can’t afford to rely on methods and offers that used to work, because VUCA. Everything is different, unknown, volatile…

Except needs. Those remain.

And your people need you, that remains as well.

This fundamental truth – people need things – is what caused me to build the IP to Profit system when lockdowns started happening last year, because it’s a step-by-step process for identifying exactly what your past buyers need, that might help them right now.

And if you know how to implement, it can get you new sales from past buyers, in as little as one or two weeks.

Get the training at pay-what-you-want (only until this Friday) right here. 

Cheers,

 

Martin

 

 

Stacking Your Assets for Fun & Profit

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Far too little attention gets given to the assets a business has, and the way they can be made to leverage each other.

And we all have assets, but most of the time we don’t make them work for us, and then we end up spending more time and money on driving new sales, when we can easily get sales from our customer list.

Because yes, a list of past and current customers is a terrific asset to leverage.

If people have paid you before, there’s a good chance they’ll do so again – provided you show up and talk to them.

Or consider your specific, individual talent or ability: whether you call it Intellectual Property, or intellectual capital, or your ‘Zone of Genius’ work: it’s a super valuable asset.

If you package it into a programme or system, meaning you can & clone yourself, you can get your work into the hands of more people.

(Incidentally, to help you do that is exactly why I built the IP to Profit System)

Then there’s your values – the things you’d stand on a barricade for – that too is an asset, because when you identify and connect with people who have similar values, you instantly have rapport with them.

And there’s more: your team, your intelligent ability to think up solutions or systems, your likeability, your network… lots of assets, and each can be put to use for greater results.

So many assets to leverage!

So then, how do you make most use of your assets, and get all you can out of everything you’ve got – how do you ‘stack your assets’ in the simplest, fastest way?

Simple: you take your customer list, you analyse and segment it for needs and urgencies, and you create an offer based on your intellectual property, and you ask your past buyers if they want it.

How?

That’s precisely what you’ll learn in the IP to Profit system. Until this Friday it’s pay-what-you-want, and you can get it here.

Cheers,

 

Martin

 

 

A Lesson George Bernard Shaw Wants You to Learn

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“The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.” — George Bernard Shaw

Ok, it’s presumptuous of me to speak for Mr. Shaw – but, whatever.

I’ll take that liberty, because I’m sure he’d be happy if more people realised the wisdom of his words.

Because yes, we often think we communicate, when actually we don’t.

That is: we think we communicate thing A, and then act all surprised (or even upset) when it appears that the other person heard thing B.

If you’ve ever been in a situation where you found yourself thinking ‘why are they not getting it?’, then that’s what happened.

You said one thing, but the other heard another thing.

Of course you can blame the other for being stubborn or contrary, and in some cases that may be at play – but even then, that does not exonerate you from the responsibility of communicating in a different way, and trying to find out how to get your message across.

And this applies everywhere: In business and selling; at home; with your spouse or kids; with your students or team mates or prospects:

It’s on us to find the way ‘in’, and figure out how to get the right message across.

Misunderstandings are not ‘their fault’ – they are ‘our responsibility to fix’.

And here’s the secret: saying more won’t help more.

In fact, when you think that communication has taken place but it hasn’t, the more you keep talking, the bigger the misunderstanding will become.

Put differently: if the other person doesn’t seem to get you, explaining harder will be counterproductive.

Instead, ask questions.

Because unless you learn more about the other person and what they heard and what they think of it, how are you going to accurately adjust your message?

When you find that a buyer (or friend or team mate or spouse) isn’t getting what you mean, ask yourself this:

What did they hear me say?

How does it differ from what I meant?

What should I ask them, to figure out how to adjust the message I’m trying to communicate?

A useful tool in all communication – and especially in the context of selling and signing on clients.

Incidentally (actually: intentionally) that’s why the IP to Profit system I designed to help you generate sales from your customer list, starts with asking questions.

It’s the only way to figure out what current, pressing, costly problems your past buyers have – and you need to know that, if you’re going to make them offers that they’ll want to pick up.

Doing so will enable you to keep serving and keep earning, even when right now everything is so complicated for most every business. 

Check out the system here…

And in case you missed it: you can access the 1-hour training at whichever price you like, even free – it’s pay-what-you-want, but that will go back to the normal $49 ticket soon.

Cheers, 

 

Martin

 

 

When a Buyer Says “I Don’t Have the Money”

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Really annoying when that happens, isn’t it?

You’ve spoken with the person, they love what you do, they have a clear and present need and want, you’ve made your offer…

And then they say “I just don’t have that kind of money”.

In some cases, they’re stating a fact. Sometimes, people just don’t have the funds to pay for your offer.

In many cases though – if not most of the cases – what they’re really saying is “I don’t have the money for that”.

Where ‘that’ means: the value that could bring the, but that you didn’t manage to adequately show.

More often than not, people hem and haw about buying your work and the cost of it, but then they’ll turn around and buy a TV or phone or an extension to their home.

Because that, to them, is value they want, and so that’s where they allocate their money. They have the money for that.

So if they clearly need and want your help, but they tell you they don’t have the money or it’s too expensive, remember this:

It’s your job to have a buyer see the value of what you’re offering.

And if they don’t, it means you didn’t get that value expressed and perceived.

And, it’s not necessarily game over at that point.

You can still continue the conversation, and still get the deal – but only if you ask questions that have the buyer see for themselves what the value is.

And one very powerful question to ask is:

“If money weren’t an issue, would it be a yes?”

You’ll be amazed at where a sales conversation can go if that’s your reply to “ain’t got the money” or “it’s too much”.

Do you ever get into situations like these, where people want your thing but they didn’t see the value?

Then check out the IP to Profit system… it’ll show you how to create an offer that’s so aligned with their needs and wants, they’ll easily see the value – and buy into your offer.

For the time being, you can have the entire training system + slides, at any price you like, even for free. (normally: $49, but right now it’s pay-what-you-want)

Check it out here. 

 

Cheers,

 

Martin

 

 

What If You Want to, and Need It, but You Can’t?

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Here’s something that just occurred to me:

What if you have a business challenge you want my help with, but it’s out of reach because of price?

Look, I’ll be the first to admit: I’m not cheap.

And while there’s a good reason for that (working with a client for three months straight means you purchase a very large piece of mental real estate from me), that very same three-month setup puts it out of reach for a lot of people.

I mean, not everyone is able to invest $8K in one go.

Which means that I don’t get to serve as many people as I’d like, and it also means that someone such as your good self might not be able to get the help you need. Not good.

And as the year starts to unroll, I’m experimenting with different ways of working with ethical entrepreneurs.

One of those ways is by setting up alliances, and another is offering one-off sessions.

I never used to do that, because a coaching programme gets more impactful as time rolls on and the coaching process compounds.

But hey, not everyone needs a coaching programme.

So, what if you have an urgent problem in your business that you’d like to solve, now please, without any long-term commitment or large investment?

Well, now you can.

After all, Sam Walton of Walmart had it right when he said: “I’m the worst salesperson in the world, so I need to make it easy to buy”. So here’s me, making it easy to buy.

And here’s some ideas of what you can get my help with 👇

If you:

👉  Have an opportunity with a large client and you want to make sure you close the deal…

👉  Want a professional review of your landing page or salespage, to make that puppy convert at a higher percentage…

👉  Need some fine-tuning on which niche to go for…

👉  Want to improve your sales script, or your pitch…

👉  Want some high-level adjustment to your business strategy…

👉  Are seeing too many people ghost you after you issue your proposal, and you want a rock-solid strategy for restarting the conversation…

👉  Are not happy with the number of prospects that turn into buyers…

👉  Have a database of previous buyers, and you want to re-activate them and help them again…

Then as of today, you can get that, on an as-needed basis, and for the time being it’s yours at $195 per hour.

In other words: If there’s some kind of leak in your business and you need it plugged now, you can get yourself a cork.

In a sense, it’s kinda dumb that I never did this before – I mean, even yesterday someone told me it’s something they’d want, and that sure wasn’t the first time 🤦‍♂️

So:

If want to simply book a call and get help with any aspect of your marketing or sales, without any hassle or commitments, go here to make it happen.

Cheers,

Martin

Start the Year Off Right: This Is the Quickest Road to Sales & Revenue

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Back in March when Spain went into lockdown, I realised things were going to get really tough, for businesses all over the world.

And since I have what my coach calls ‘solutions-bias’, something occurred to me – something that might help most any business.

So I built a solution, and right now, you can get it for free.

Read on 👇

See, every business has two massively valuable assets.

And if you combine them there’s a really good chance that you can keep generating revenue.

I mean, it has done and still does, for tons of companies.

The first asset is your list of past customers.

These people have paid you money, which means they’re the most likely candidates for buying something from you again.

And, you’ve already paid the cost of acquisition – your marketing, overhead expenses, ads, content creation, you name it.

So offering something to past buyers is the single most sensible thing, from a perspective of ROI, but also in terms of ease-of-opportunity.

But what then should you offer them?

That’s where the second asset comes in:

Your Intellectual Property, or if you prefer: your Intellectual Capital.

You know the body of knowledge and expertise that nobody in the world has, but you.

Which translates into that thing you do, in a way that absolutely nobody else could copy.

So how do you combine those two – how do you generate revenue out of those two assets?

Well, that’s exactly what I created a solution for – and right now, you can get it for free.

It’s called “IP to Profit”, and it’s a complete, step-by-step system, to help you identify – with high precision and probability – which segments in your list of past buyers are most likely to buy again.

And, it enables you to see what exactly what they would be most likely to need, at this point.

There’s a one-hour training video that explains the system in great detail (heads up: it’s dense and very complete), and if you roll up your sleeves, it can get you fresh sales from your customer list in less than a week.

It’s available on Gumroad, you’ll get the slides as well, and most importantly:

While it’s normally $49, for the time being it’s ‘pay what you want’.

Get it here:

https://gumroad.com/products/AAKEu

Cheers,

Martin

Upgrade Yourself & Tune the Human Machine

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Last summer, just when I’d finished a new page on my website, I clicked the wrong button, and completely nuked my website. Oops.

Normally I’d try and fix it, but this time, I decided to rebuild it all from the ground up.

The experience was deeply transformative, and the lesson I learned might be relevant to you, because the process wasn’t just an upgrade to my website:

It involved an upgrade to my branding and positioning, but more importantly, it was an upgrade to the self: a change in self-identity.

And when you’re trying to sell your services, that self-identity is massively important.

Are you a mere provider, someone who needs the client to please ok your offer and give you money?

Or are you the holder of specific, unique-to-you skills, and you qualify the prospect just as much as they need to qualify you?

In many, many cases, it’s the former.

Far too many people position themselves as a supplicant.

“Please mr prospect, will you please validate me, and buy my thing?

That’s wrong on many levels.

For one thing, where’s your self-esteem, your positioning, your confidence?

But also, it’s wrong because it gives the wrong signal to the buyer.

It shows neediness, and that drives people away.

When you seem needy, the buyer will have alarm-bells ringing in their subconscious.

Instead, show confidence.

There’s a million potential clients out there.

But there’s only one of you.

So that self-image you have – what does it look like?

How do you perceive yourself, what’s your stance, what’s your attitude?

Would it need an upgrade?

If so, maybe it’s time to ‘tune the human machine’ and upgrade yourself and your self-image.

And, provided we’re the right fit, maybe I can help.

More info here…

Cheers,

Martin

It’s the Singer, Not the Song: Your Revenue Needs More Than Just a System

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When I launched the IP to Profit system back in spring, for developing a new revenue centre out of your customer list, my coach said:

“In such uncertain times, how do you know that a system will work?”

Brought back memories of that Stones song: It’s the singer, not the song.

Because he’s right.

Not just in uncertain times, but always:

We can’t ever know if a system will work, because any system depends on how you use it, how well it’s executed.

Everything hinges on how we show up to a task or a project.

How we operate, implement, execute.

The song (i.e. the system) might be good, but if it also ‘sounds’ good (gets you sales) that’s because of the ‘singer’ (you, the one operating the system).

And the IP to Profit system is no exception.

Sure it’s really well-built even if I say so myself, and yes it’s got all the steps to go from market research, through the copy you need to write, through selling and optimising your campaign.

And yes, you can make a revenue centre around your Intellectual Property, even at times like these…

…but it’ll require the best of you.

Meaning: By itself, the IP to Profit system itself isn’t enough – it’s down to you, and your dedication and attitude and execution.

If you’ve got those in place, then you *might* be able to make your IP earn you money, even if the business world right now is in full VUCA (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, Ambiguity).

Point is, if you don’t use some sort of structure or framework or system, it’s hard to know what to do, and in which order.

And from the actions you take, it’ll be hard to measure what worked best so that you can iterate and optimise, if you’re not using a testable system.

And that’s why the IP to Profit system is so useful:

Not because it promises the end-all solution, but because it gives you a framework in which to operate, enabling you to indeed show up as your best self, and get the most out of it.

And, it enables you to get the most out of your single most valuable asset:

Your list, your database, all the people in your world you can talk to and help.

And to leverage that asset in a systematic way and keep your serving and selling going, consider getting the system: a 1-hour training, yours to have and own, slides included.

It’s pay-what-you-want (including free, if you want) until next Friday. Don’t miss it…

Cheers,

Martin

“Yes Martin, but Will That Sales Training Actually Make Me Sell More…?” Well, it Did for These Good People…

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Sale for Nice People: the cork that helps you get high returns out of your business building efforts.

Of course it’s a fair question to ask, and an important one, too. Especially since a training at $1500 is no small decision.

But it’s not something I can guarantee (nor should any sales coach or sales trainer, no matter how many 4-step closing techniques or 7 ways to handle objections they may have), because there are many different factors that play into landing a client:

From the way you generate opportunities, to the specific need and urgency a buyer has, to the way their industry is struggling with things like competition or a pandemic, to whether or not your internet happens to drop out right when you’re asking for the sale, to the specificity of the type of niche you’re looking to work with. Many moving parts.

What I can guarantee though, is this:

👉  You’ll see a very clear uptick in your confidence and your ability to step into a sales conversation

👉  You’ll have FAR less of that awkward feeling around the whole idea and process of selling

👉  You’ll develop an increasingly clear insight on which buyers are and are not the right fit, and for which reasons

👉  You’ll become SO much more proficient at diagnosing what specific problem a buyer wants to solve

👉  You’ll see a lot more results happen in your world, with the people you talk to: not just buyers, but also stakeholders in your business, team members, freelancers you hire – hell, even your interactions with your spouse and your kids will benefit

👉  And, very importantly, whenever you end up not landing a sale, you’ll be able to do a post-mortem and quickly identify where you missed the mark and what to change in the future

👉  Oh, and let’s not forget: you’ll also be confident in charging better prices for your work, without ever feeling that you need to give discounts

These are just some of the outcomes of learning ‘Sales for Nice People’, the way I teach it.

Why do I know, and guarantee this?

Because when you go through the 10 weeks of 1 on 1 training, you’ll turn all your human interactions into ‘making it about them’.

You’ll see the world and its people through a very different lense.

You’ll learn to get out of your own bubble, and really see the other person. And you better believe that makes people want to enroll in whatever you want to move forward on with them.

And if you then also have enough buyer opportunities, then yes, it’s extremely likely that you’ll sell more and at higher prices.

For example:

✅  Mairi Mickelson, a Scottish coach for family businesses that struggle (an extremely difficult niche to sell to) said the training really made a difference (can’t tell you more details – discretion prevents etc) on Twitter.

✅  Paula Mould, a former client and now a close friend, uses my methods to enroll artists (another super difficult niche to sell to) in high-ticket training programmes.

✅  Dusan Matuska, a Bitcoin educator, tripled his revenue.

✅  My friend Antonio Herrezuelo got his co-working space to $25,000 monthly recurring revenue in under a year with my help.

So yeah, kinda looks like it works.

Question is: will you?

Meaning: will you do the work of showing up to buyer conversations, and do the exercises I give you, and ask buyers for the sale, and fundamentally revise and upgrade the way you relate to and communicate with people in general, and buyers in particular, and raise your prices to what they should be?

Because if you’re only looking to add knowledge, the programme won’t help you that much.

It’s only going to be effective for people who want to turn knowledge into skills by way of deliberate practice, and change the way they operate and show up.

If that’s you, then yes: I made the 10-week training for you, and it’ll improve your business and your sales.

More info & an explainer video of how the ethical selling framework works, here 👇

Helping good people sell more and generate a bigger impact

Remember, the price goes up to $2800 on January 1st.

Cheers,

Martin

P.s. If right now you’re getting opportunities but you’re not happy with your conversion rates, basically there’s a hole in your bucket. This training is the cork that helps you get more clients out of all your marketing and lead generation activities.

© Martin Stellar 2020 All Rights Reserved

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