How to stop selling transactions and start selling transformations with Finka Jerkovic
Your Dream Business
English - October 10, 2022 00:00 - 37 minutes - 34.6 MB - ★★★★★ - 34 ratingsCareers Business Marketing Homepage Download Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Overcast Castro Pocket Casts RSS feed
Today’s episode of the podcast is an interview with Finka Jerkovic, a Sales Coach and Expert who helps people to sell in their business, in a way that doesn’t compromise their purpose, people or profit.
Tune in to hear us talk about coming from love when you're selling and doing things that align with our values, and the energy in which we come from.
This episode is practical in terms of marketing strategies, but also touches on the woo, in terms of thinking about the energy that we bring when we sell.
KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST
● Why aligning what you love to do with what is most valuable to your client is the key to growing your business (not fear-based tactics!)
● The difference between selling from love and selling from fear
● Why we shouldn’t resist the experience of fear
● Why you need to stop buying into the stories that we make up in our head about selling
● Why we need to view putting an offer out as an act of love
THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE
Feel the fear of selling and do it anyway! But be kind and compassionate to yourself in the process.
HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN'T MISS
● Why love is the only antidote to the fear that is holding you back in your business
● How to sell with confidence, attract clients magnetically and build a business you love
● The three pillars to selling from love
LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY’S EPISODE
TRANSCRIPT
Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the podcast. As I mentioned last week, I am still in Nashville. I'm recording this at the same time as I recorded last week's and we're having another interview because of the fact of, well, one, I forgot to and didn't forget, I ran out of podcast episodes and I had to do some recording over here.
And because I don't have my normal setup and things, I didn't really want to do a solo. Because it requires me recording more and thinking more. And for some reason my brain isn't working today. So I'm doing some interviews, but these are great interviews. And you know what's funny? Because I pre-record the interview so far ahead, I literally have to go back and re-watch them to remind myself what we're talking about.
And. Finka's episode today, the lovely Finka who's being interviewed. We talk about coming from love when you're selling, thinking about service, when you're selling and doing things that align with our values and the energy in which we come from. So it's quite practical in terms of, you know, marketing strategies, but also it's a little bit woo woo in terms of like thinking about the energy that we bring when we sell.
And I recorded this at the point The Club was just per open permanently, and obviously now The Club has been open permanently for quite some time, and it's really interesting to hear some of those conversations and actually how some of those conversations have impacted me going forward on what I've done.
Today’s episode of the podcast is an interview with Finka Jerkovic, a Sales Coach and Expert who helps people to sell in their business, in a way that doesn’t compromise their purpose, people or profit.
Tune in to hear us talk about coming from love when you're selling and doing things that align with our values, and the energy in which we come from.
This episode is practical in terms of marketing strategies, but also touches on the woo, in terms of thinking about the energy that we bring when we sell.
KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST
● Why aligning what you love to do with what is most valuable to your client is the key to growing your business (not fear-based tactics!)
● The difference between selling from love and selling from fear
● Why we shouldn’t resist the experience of fear
● Why you need to stop buying into the stories that we make up in our head about selling
● Why we need to view putting an offer out as an act of love
THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE
Feel the fear of selling and do it anyway! But be kind and compassionate to yourself in the process.
HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN'T MISS
● Why love is the only antidote to the fear that is holding you back in your business
● How to sell with confidence, attract clients magnetically and build a business you love
● The three pillars to selling from love
LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY’S EPISODE
TRANSCRIPT
Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the podcast. As I mentioned last week, I am still in Nashville. I'm recording this at the same time as I recorded last week's and we're having another interview because of the fact of, well, one, I forgot to and didn't forget, I ran out of podcast episodes and I had to do some recording over here.
And because I don't have my normal setup and things, I didn't really want to do a solo. Because it requires me recording more and thinking more. And for some reason my brain isn't working today. So I'm doing some interviews, but these are great interviews. And you know what's funny? Because I pre-record the interview so far ahead, I literally have to go back and re-watch them to remind myself what we're talking about.
And. Finka's episode today, the lovely Finka who's being interviewed. We talk about coming from love when you're selling, thinking about service, when you're selling and doing things that align with our values and the energy in which we come from. So it's quite practical in terms of, you know, marketing strategies, but also it's a little bit woo woo in terms of like thinking about the energy that we bring when we sell.
And I recorded this at the point The Club was just per open permanently, and obviously now The Club has been open permanently for quite some time, and it's really interesting to hear some of those conversations and actually how some of those conversations have impacted me going forward on what I've done.
So if you are concerned about feeling and looking a little bit sleazy, salesy type thing, or you want sell from love and sell from service, but sometimes that doesn't give people the motivation to actually buy from you. Then this episode is gonna be perfect. So I will hand you over to the lovely Finka and I will speak to you soon.
Okay. I am really excited today to welcome to the podcast Finka Jerkovic. Finka how are you doing?
Finka: I'm doing wonderful, Teresa, thank you for having me.
Teresa: Oh, my pleasure, my pleasure. We've just been having a really nice chat before we got on about all sorts of things. Mainly the weather, cuz I'm British and that's what we talk about.
Finka: And I'm Canadian and that's what we talk about.
Teresa: So we're very well suited. Very well suited. Finka before we get started, we always start the same way. Could you please tell my audience what you do and how you got to do that?
Finka: Ah, I am a sales coach and expert, so I talk to people about how to sell, how to get their work out there, how to get clients, and how to grow their business through this skill of selling.
Something that we weren't taught to do but are expected to do and know how to do for our businesses shows a super, super important thing that we know how to do. Feel authentic in doing it, and that for those of us that it has felt awkward or uncomfortable, how do you get at ease with doing it? So hopefully we'll talk a little bit about that.
How did I get to doing this wonderful work? I've been, I spent most of my career in corporate financial services, and I was either a salesperson, a sales leader, worked sales strategy, and then eventually became a sales coach. All of that done through two and a half decades in banking. And when I started my business back in 2013 as a part-time gig, and then in 2015 kind of said, Okay, let's put my big girl panties on. Let's do this thing.
Teresa: I love it.
Finka: You know, it was so funny because this thing that I had done all my life so naturally and so easily, I completely forgot how to do when I started my own business. And I had a theory about it, and I think I know two things. I have two theories. Number one, is it okay if I just jump in like this?
Teresa: Cool. You carry on. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Finka: Good. So theory number one is whenever we start something new, we get amnesia. We forget that we already have skills and expertise and transferable skills. We all of a sudden, like they seem so unrelated, like, I've done all this stuff in the bank and then all of a sudden I'm starting my business.
Apparently I can't do anything. Like I, I don't even have to tie my shoes. Like that's how bad it got, right? The other thing that had happened is that there is something uniquely different when you're selling a product that someone else made versus something that I made.
Teresa: Ugh, completely. And obviously my background is marketing. I'd marketed every type of business you could imagine from the most wonderful to the most ridiculous. And I know marketing, I can market myself. Yeah, no, no I couldn't no. Cause like you said, it's not when you're doing it for someone else. It's not you. It's not, you're not going out. They're going, I'm pretty amazing actually.
You're saying something about a product or someone else and it's easy to say. So I'm guessing like, did you fall into sales back in the corporate job or is it something that naturally you are very good at. You liked? Cuz that when you think salespeople, you think a certain type of character and I'm not getting that vibe from you.
Finka: So when I ended up in sales, I ended up, because I love to help people. I love solving problems. I loved helping people get what they want. And that's what's, I get goosebumps right now in my whole body's just kind of vibrating. That's what selling's about. And somewhere in our history, So, so I did my research, so the word sell.
Prior to the 11th century. So it was sell on, which meant to give. Somewhere around that 11th century is shifted. And it shifted to get something for the thing that you give. And so there was this transference of how this word initially was meant to be. That's why we feel like we can, we wanna serve, we wanna help, we wanna help people get what they want.
That's the source of the word selling. And later in years, you know, it shifted to me like, there's this exchange of goods and services. I give you this, you give me that, I get you this, you get me that. And so, that shifted in the after the 11th century. Hence why now we have these two very different experiences in selling.
I wanna help people, Oh, but then I gotta do this thing called selling. I don't wanna do that thing cause that feels icky and uncomfortable. But that's not what we're doing. We're actually just go out there, be yourself, show up. Genuinely wanna help people. Try to help them get what they more, more of what they want and the more we can forget about ourself in that sale. I'm gonna preface in quotations. The better we're gonna be at it. And now it was the problem that I ran into when I was selling my stuff. Because when I was selling my stuff, I was selling a course, I was selling a workshop, I was selling a keynote, I talk, or whatever it was. Part of it was I was selling me because I had a personal brand.
I had a type of way I was gonna deliver the content. The other thing I was selling in there was my thought leadership, because I had ideas of how we could solve these problems. There was a lot of me invested in my workshop, a lot of me invested in my program, and then it was so much more of I wasn't selling the solution I was selling me.
And that was the problem. Because now what if they don't like this product? It means they don't like me. If they don't buy this product, they don't accept me. And that relationship is very, I, I still get trapped in it every now and then, but I'm more cognizant of it to catch myself sooner than getting deep in the weeds and, you know, and I getting.
Teresa: I totally get it. You're so right. I think there are, you know, I have these conversations with myself, with my students, with people in my world, and it's like, you know, we did some exercises on value and we were talking about, you know, who, where do you get your value from? And it's like you need to get it from inside you, cuz if you're waiting for someone else to validate you through a purchase, then there's a million reasons why they might not purchase, which have nothing to do with you.
But even though I could talk about it and teach it, the the part that's still you, that's like, why isn't anybody joining? Or why isn't anybody buying? Or what is it that like, and, and especially, and I dunno whether you get this and I hope you do, but like, if you have someone doing something similar and you know, you know the quality is not like your quality.
One thing that I have always. Like, I'm all about quality. It's gotta be the best. If it's not the best, I don't wanna do it. And like, so you know, someone is not providing a quality service or something as good as you can do it, and yet someone's going to them than you. That is so hard to get away from. It's me, isn't it?
Finka: Mm-hmm. It is. It's hard. It's so what, what's different here? You know, you are, what you're doing is, is more qualitative that they can. And so what, what's what? What happens next? What? What do you think? So I'm like, so that's, it's the story I make up about it. Like it's the story I'm making up about it and that I'm making up that they are better than I am and we've personalized it again.
And again, why they chose that person has nothing to do with us.
Teresa: Nope.
Finka: Has nothing to do with us. And so I think if we can see that and understand that there was something else that happened that motivated them to go that way than your way.
Teresa: Okay. So can I just pick up on something you said then, because actually this is something that's been playing on my mind for the, my own point of view.
So I've recently, by the time, well at the time we're recording this, I've recently changed the model of my membership. So I used to do an open and close, so the doors had opened, four days closed. Open four days, closed, like twice a year, and that didn't start to sit with me as well as I would like because it felt that I was using some tactics that, I mean, they weren't underhand and they weren't sleazy and they weren't any of that.
Cause I wouldn't have allowed them to be. But it still didn't feel as, as giving and as sort of, you know, coming from a place of wanting to help because I wanted to help. I'd leave it open all the time for when someone's ready to join, which I now have done. But that motivation, you know, the thing I'm struggling with, and it's only just, we've only, literally, the doors have been open like less even a week, but that motivation of how do I make that motivation happen without those deadlines, without the FOMO, without the kind of things that are sometimes a little bit icky feeling.
Finka: Like, like I countdown clock or only a few limited seats. And, and I think there's a place that those are. They're useful because for the right person, they're gonna energetically get them motivated to say, I better say yes to this cause I need this change, I need this transformation. I think that place where you and I and people like us is like we start questioning, am I going to get people who aren't yet ready?
Teresa: Yes.
Finka: And because of the FOMO is gonna activate them.
Teresa: Yeah. And I don't want that.
Finka: I don't want, you don't want that for them because, you know, when I think about selling from love, so that's the, the contracept, we had to sell from love, but we sell from fear, right? Like, so the fear is I don't wanna be selling from that energy.
So even that place of, I will put the, the time clicker, you'll put, you know, limited seats because in genuinely there is limited seats. There is only so many days. All these things.
Teresa: Totally makes sense. Yeah.
Finka: Totally. We can totally still do that. But we have to go back to ourselves and say, Okay, the energetic experience you're having right now, does it feel fear based for you as a seller, the person putting it out? Cuz you're afraid of enough people won't buy in, enough people won't say yes, you won't hit, hit your how many people you need to run this program. You spent $50,000 of advertising and you gotta recoup those costs. Like see all those little variables? There's so many and they can affect how we sell and market our stuff.
And then, Right. Yeah. So then the other thing is we have to look at our client's experience, like what we just talked about. I don't want my clients buying from fear. I want you in this thing because it's the right thing at the right time, right now for you. Because the fear experience, we just breed more of it.
We breed more of it. And, and I believe like we are at this place of shifting how we market, how we sell, how we build relationships, not only us as providers of those services, but our clients, the, and I'll put in quotations, buyers. Cause I, I don't like that term, I don't like buyers and I'll like consumers, but that's the term that, that's, we know what we're talking about.
But our potential clients, our potential clients, they're more educated. So, you know, so they're more informed when they're making their decisions. So like we don't need to dumb it down and we don't need to, I don't know. It's such a scarcity, primitive, very much plays into our old brain thinking. I'd rather let's stick to their prefrontal, corti, our executive function.
Our new brain. Let's continue evolving that. And how we do it is how we show up this energy of love. I'm here to serve and do some really good work, amazing work with people, and I wanna find the right people. And that's our work up. Why we market that? Why do we advertise? Cause I wanna find them. I want them make it easy for them to find me so they can, we can work together and get this match.
Teresa: So you said something there that I wanna pick up on. You talked about coming from fear rather than love it being the opposite. And I, and I've done a bit of work with this with the members where I've talked about, you know, when we come from fear, we make some stupid decisions. Because like if you are coming from, I and I have done it many times when I had my agency, If I was losing a client or needed another client, then I would say yes to work that I didn't know how to do, or I'd say yes to work with people that I didn't wanna work with.
So coming from fear, Is is not a great thing. However, how do you, when you're in that fear, so when you are like, doors have opened, I'm inviting people in. I know I can help them. It's brilliant, amazing. You know, the people in it love it and people aren't buying. How do you then go. Okay. I know you are sat there literally panicking your head off because no one's buying, but we need to come from love. Like how in the moment do you swap that? How do you change that?
Finka: Mm-hmm. , you don't, You do not. You do nothing to swap it because we cannot deny the experience we're having. And the more we resist that experience of fear, more magnet, more energy we give it. And so Susan Jeffers has this beautiful book.
I love the title, read the book, Feel The Fear And Do It Anyway.
Teresa: I've read that it's very good. Yeah.
Finka: Right. So, So the same thing, we wanna use that mantra. You just noticed the fear. And you observe the fear and you sit with the experience of fear and you follow through and you look at, okay, how can they bring a little...