The Fierce Business Babe Podcast Ep 275: Selling Through The Holidays
Today, I am diving into everything you need to know for selling during the holidays. From myths on selling during the holidays to how you can sell during the holidays, I cover these topics and so much more! If you are wanting to learn how you can sell in your business during the holidays then this is the podcast for you.
SELLING THROUGH THE HOLIDAYS
By: Melissa Lin
Welcome back to another episode of The Fierce Business Babe Podcast! Happy December! Time is just flying by, 2024 is right around the corner, it's so wild and so exciting. I'm getting excited for the holidays. I actually just got back into town pretty recently from visiting my sister over in Hawaii and vacationing, had an amazing time over there. While I was over there everybody was starting to put up holiday decorations, so definitely feeling festive as I got back into Seattle. We’re starting to put our own decorations up and our town has decorations up, so we’re definitely getting excited for the holidays, which is perfect for today's episode. I started Christmas shopping for friends and family, starting to map out what some of our meals are going to be, what we’ll be cooking, all of those things, and again, it’s perfect for today’s episode, which is all about selling through the holidays. I feel that today’s episode is so important because I have people in my audience every year ask me, “Melissa, do I sell during the holidays? What does that look like?” Clients will come to me and ask,” well, how am I supposed to sell during the holidays? Am I really allowed to? Aren't I supposed to take the month off? Isn't that what most folks are doing?” “What if I don’t want to work during the holidays”? And I'm going to dive into this even more in this podcast episode.
Really at the end of the day this is your business, so you get to do whatever feels good to you. I'm going to give you so many examples of what you can do during the holiday season with your business, how to show up in your business, and how to sell in your business. At the end of the day it really is about how you want your business to run. If you want to take the entire month off, amazing. Let's set up a plan so that you can take the entire month off and still have cash flow coming into your business and still have some of your programs fill or some of your courses fill, because yes, you can truly have both. I've had some months where I’ve taken half the month off and we still signed clients, we still filled the programs, and we still supported our clients. We continued to grow the business. You truly can have it all. It's definitely a little bit about deciding what it is that you want and how can we set up some systems and structure and support in your business so that it can look like that.
Today is all about selling during the holidays and we're going to dive even deeper into that. We're going to get all into myths on selling during the holidays, how to sell during the holidays, some tips to hit your sales goals before the end of the year, and so, so much more.
MYTHS ABOUT SELLING DURING THE HOLIDAYS
I first want to touch on some myths that I hear about selling during the holidays, and I've heard everything. Some of the top myths that I've heard over the years are that people want to save money, people are waiting for the new year before they spend money, that there are good and bad seasons to sell, that no one wants to buy during the holidays, they only want to spend money on others for gifts, people are waiting to spend until they get their tax return. There's so many different stories and myths that I hear. What I first want to share is you can tell yourself whatever story you want to, but is that story actually serving you? Think about yourself, for example. Have you ever invested in yourself during the holidays? I know I have. Have you ever bought yourself something to treat yourself during the holidays? I know I have. In terms of whether people want to save money or not, if we look at this from a business standpoint, it actually is the opposite. Most business owners want to make an investment this time of year for potential tax benefits, right? They want to reduce some of their taxes that are going into the next year, and they can do so once they take a look at all of their numbers in their businesses and add in a few more business expenses before the year wraps up, which is right now. It's during the holidays and this last month of the year. I see so many folks investing in their businesses and themselves during the holidays and I want to debunk these myths for you and share evidence on why you can sell during the holidays, because it serves you and it serves your audience. It serves everybody when you do get out there and sell it because selling is serving, you are helping others. Can you sell? Yes, you can and you get to. This is your permission slip to sell during the holidays.
Some of those myths that I shared earlier are not true. Honestly, most of the time in my experience since being in business since 2014, money is not the reason someone is holding back from working with you. 95% of the time it's not actually the money. It's usually something else. Usually the money is masking a deeper fear that you as a coach, or you with a business owner, gets to help them push through. And what I've also experienced is people do you want to gift themselves. They do want to invest in their health, their businesses, their lives, their relationships. So in order to help them with that, we get to make sure that we are telling people about our offer. Instruct them on how to apply to work with you, on how they can sign up to work with you, to DM you, to book a call. Now you may have the belief or the story at the moment that nobody will buy during the holidays or at the end of the year or before the month wraps up if you're getting close to the end of the month and listening to this episode. And because of that, because of the stories you are telling yourself, the stories are not serving you, you're holding back from selling in December and your potential clients can feel that limiting belief that you have in your content and in your live trainings, when you show up on your Instagram stories, when you show up on your training that you do, when you pitch, on your sales calls, everywhere. So start to really reframe and shift that story and shift it into one that actually serves you. Get out there, start selling, do not use the holidays as an excuse not to sell and share your gift. If you're telling yourself, “Well, Melissa, I really want to take the month off and not work,” amazing. You can have that and you can still sell and grow your business. You can pre-sell your 2024 spots (1:1 coaching spots, group coaching spots, etc). You can sell a hands-off through some type of automated funnel or something where you're not the one in the sales process. You can definitely delegate the sales process as well. So there's a lot of different things you can do to take the month off, or take two weeks off, or a week off, whatever that looks like for you and your business, and still have the business grow. Let's get that to continue, let's continue growing your business, even if you want to take the time off, because you can have both. Why not have both? If you've ever told yourself the story that you can't, this is your permission slip that you can, you truly can have it. I've taken weeks off at a time and we have continued to grow. Same with this December. I'm going to be taking the second half of the month off from coaching calls and different things in my business, but the business is still going to continue to grow.
SELLING DURING THE HOLIDAYS
Now, let's get into some of the how. How to sell during the holidays, what does this look like, and what are some examples. Something that I believe to be true is that there is no, and I’m air quoting right now using my fingers, there's no “good” or “bad” season to be selling in your business. And one of the non-negotiables in my business, and if you've been in my audience for a while, or if you listen to my podcast, you know that one of the non-negotiables in my business is to sell every single day because I'm running a business. I truly believe that selling is serving, so we can't help others with their transformation unless they know about our programs. I have some clients where December is their highest month in sales and I have some other clients where it continues to increase month after month. There really is no good or bad season to be selling them. A lot of these stories are stories that have been created in the industry or based off of things that we learned growing up, and I want you to know that you get to call the shots, you get to decide what feels good to you in your business. If you want to continue to grow your business and continue to bring sales, that’s amazing, let's do it. You get to get out there. Have it all. Start selling as you normally would any other time of the year, that is exactly what we're going to be doing and I have an example of what else we’ll be doing this year. We're always selling and we're always having fun with it because we know that selling is serving and I just absolutely love selling.
I want to share an example on what I love to do. I love incorporating, whether it's the time of year or the holidays, into my sales plan. For example, anybody that hopped into my Six-Figure Mastermind, which it’s got a lengthier name, it’s called the Six-Figure Fierce Business Mastermind, if they hopped in last month during my Black Friday sale they also received a bonus month inside with us so that we could also support them with their own Black Friday sale and end of the year plan. Anyone that hops in this next month will be receiving support on how to map out their December plans and starting to map out 2024 sales calendars and sales plans so that 2024 can be their first six figures a year. We have our January cohort of my higher-level mastermind called Fiercely Scale, which if you haven't heard about it, I actually haven't talked about it too much on this podcast, is my 6-month high-touch mastermind to scale you from six figures to multiple six figures, and it's actually the only way to have full private access with me. Meaning daily private voice/text access, monthly private calls with me, access to my team, and before the end of the year they get extra coaching time with me through the end of the year. So if you hopped in today, for example, and I'm recording this episode in mid November and we're already over half full, so if we have spots left by the time this episode airs, you’d receive private access instantly through the end of the year, private coaching with me before the group gets started together in January so we can make sure that you have an amazing game plan to wrap up the year, hit your goals before the year ends, and start off so strong in January so we can schedule you to multiple six figures in your business.
So I always love incorporating different seasons in my business. Earlier in the fall we also had a fall bonus. I always have some kind of birthday bonus in the summertime. So I always love incorporating different seasons into my business and you can definitely do something similar. You definitely don't need to, I just want to share different ways that you can sell during some of these seasons, such as the holidays and how you can have fun with it. I love incorporating into my business. I have some clients where they've been doing some fun Halloween challenges and holiday challenges to really incorporate the season into their businesses as well.
HITTING YOUR SALES GOALS BEFORE THE YEAR ENDS
Now I want to chat about how to hit your sales goals before the end of the year. So far we’ve talked about some myths around selling during the holidays, how you can start selling around the holidays now, and utilizing different incentives to get people in the door before the year ends. I have a lot of clients raising their prices in 2024 and so this may be the last time where your clients can work with you at your current rate if your rates are going to be raising next year as well. We can talk about some examples if you wanted to brainstorm what your end-of-the-year could look like. If you set some big goals at the beginning of the year for your business, I want you to know that you can still hit them. There is still so much time left for you to reach your goals. I know a lot of people tell themselves the story that December needs to be taken off for business, or that nobody wants to buy in December, that you need to take it slow and you need to rest during December. I believe that December gets to be whatever you choose for it to be. If you want to bring in way more sales this month, go for it. Yes, there is no rule that says you can't sell in December or that in order for you to hit your goals before the end of the year you need to add in an extra 20 hours of coaching calls with new clients or private calls.
I was working with some of my clients last week about mapping out the rest of their year and also starting to plan out quarter 1 of 2024, so into next year, and I'll share with you what you want we sort of did during our brainstorm together and how you can start to brainstorm what does that look like for you and your business as well. So the first thing I want you to do is ask yourself these next few questions, and feel free to write these down if you want to. The first question is, where are you currently in terms of your sales goal? So if you set goals, whether that was at the beginning of the quarter or the beginning of the year, what did that number look like? Were you wanting to hit six figures? Were you wanting to hit multiple six figures? Half a million? A million? We first need to know what your goal was and how close are you to your goal? And then the next question is, what do you want your month of December to look like in terms of workload? Once you've got those questions answered, feel free to pause and take a few minutes to jot it down and then continue on, you know how much more you need to bring in sales-wise for your business before the end of the year. So, I want you to take a look at your current programs, your current products, your current offerings, and also look at the remaining capacity or availability for those programs for new clients. So, let's say, for example, I am just pulling in completely random numbers to help give you examples, so don't feel like this is anything that you need to do in terms of your goals, but let’s say, for example, that you're $20,000 away from your goal and you only have maybe two spots left in your group coaching program that’s a $5,000 program. So that means if you fill those two spots at 5K each, you've met half of that remaining goal. And so now we need to find a way to bring in an additional $10,000 of sales in your business to reach your goal because you were 20K away. So to recap, let's map out how much more you need to make, how many spots do you have in your programs left to fill, and what would that bring income-wise into your business this month if you did fill up the rest of your spots. Once you know what's remaining you can start to brainstorm how you want to fill the rest of it out because, again, you can still hit those goals and I have some ideas for you.
Something that I love doing, and this is what I always start with, I always like to start with selling the things that I already have. Whether it’s something I've created before, maybe it's an older course, maybe some mini courses, or an older bundle, something that doesn't require you creating something brand-new the very last month of the year, because if you wanted to take the second half of December off, it may not make sense for you to sell new private coaching spots for this month or launch a brand new course. However, something you can start doing is pre-selling spots for private coaching clients to start in January, or pre-sell spots to a course that you wanted to launch or plan to launch in January or February.
So, here's a few other ideas using things that you have, things that won't necessarily need to be created. If you have an old ebook or digital downloads, maybe you have some older mini courses, or a free workshop you’ve done in the past week that you can repackage into paid workshops since they are replays. You can host an intensive or pre-sell intensives for January. Again, if you have older courses feel free to bring them out of your vault and sell some of those. Package them into a bundle if that feels good. Definitely sell coaching programs and one-on-one spots, whether that's this month or early into 2024 if your spots are full or if you don't want to start any new clients this month. And again, if you want your sales process to be a little more hands-off during the holidays, this is something I mentioned at the very, very beginning of this episode, when I start getting ahead of myself, if you wanted your sales process to be a little more hands-off during the holidays, then you may need to or want to add in a small funnel into your business that would then push your leads into your offer this month. And yes, you bet I do have past podcast episodes around creating funnels and how to do this. So feel free to head to the podcast page and search the word funnels and those should pop up for you. If you're listening on Spotify can do the same thing there, I highly recommend it. Have fun with the process and know that whatever you want your December to look like, you can have it. You can take the whole month off if you want, half the month off, you can take no time off if you want, again, it's whatever you choose and what you desire. You can still grow your business, you can still be supporting your clients. I hope I gave you some great ideas in this podcast episode about how you can be selling during the holidays and how it's totally okay, this is your permission slip. Get out there and sell, sell, sell because selling is helping, selling is serving. So today we’ve touched on some of the myths on selling during the holidays, how to sell during the holidays, some tips and tricks to hit your sales goals before the end of the year, and so much more!
Topics we cover include:
Myths on selling during the holidays
Incorporating seasons into your business
Hitting your sales goals
Mapping out your December plan
And so much more!
Times to check out:
(06:51) My business journey
(10:36) Foundations for starting a business
(17:28) Mindset for that next step
(24:10) Tools to use in your business
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