Listen to the full episode here: Apple, Spotify, and Amazon.

If you’re thinking about throwing in the towel… 

This podcast episode is for you. No matter what is happening within your business, I’m going to go ahead and assume that sales have decreased if you’re thinking about throwing in the towel. Like a hesitant swimmer standing at the edge of a murky pool, contemplating whether to dive back into the corporate waters, fearing the judgmental eyes of family and friends who might perceive failure in every stroke no matter if you’re continuing your business or sending job applications out on Linkedin.

Or maybe the clients you’re attracting are causing you migraines with the constant scope creep. Sweaty palms clutching onto hope like a lifeline, as if afraid to let go and drown in the sea of doubts about the viability of your business, but you have to keep the online-business lights on and thus you return to setting hard boundaries with the client that never should have been allowed back on the roster.

Or maybe the projects you’re landing aren’t aligning with where you want to be in your business, but you haven’t had the chance to pivot your messaging because you’re so busy with said projects. And like a weary traveler with three cups of coffee in hand on a Sunday evening, there you are clicking through and navigating through the sticky and sometimes venomous webs of online strategies, feeling the weight of exhaustion settling like an anchor in their bones. 

Or maybe you’re at this point kind of manic manifesting and hoping the quantum leap is on the other side of this next live launch. Breathless and yet manifesting hope like a desperate magician, frantically waving their wand in the air, praying for a quantum leap to transport them to a place of success beyond the current struggles.

Our Main Points This Week: 

• The social playground and why you might be accidentally connecting with the exact clients you’re trying not to attract

• Your connection-first approach being the easy way to begin building the messaging you’ve been meaning to craft and curate 

• Knowing how to sell like your ideal client wants you to – speaking their love language instead of your own 

Exploring The 4 Common Buyer Types

As a reminder I teach buyer types from a state of buyer love languages. 

Here is a bit of a refresher from the last episode. The last episode is a perfect sister episode to this one and I would arguably say a better starting point than consuming this episode first. It’s called “Mastering Sales Psychology in 2024 and Beyond”. 

Buyer Types as Buyer Love Languages:

• The Power Buyer
• The Friendly Buyer
• The Logic Buyer
• The Attention Buyer

The Power Buyer is interested in seeing how the purchase they make with you will elevate their status in the social playground. They’re interested in being seen as an authority in their own right, they disown hierarchical relationships, and they’re quick to share their points of view. They sit in the more logical stance of purchasing power and will be interested in social proof, analytics, case studies, and hard evidence that your process and products are working in the market as you proclaim they are. Luxury markets are often rooted in this buyer, as well as the Attention Buyer.

The Friendly Buyer is interested in being led. They’re interested in hearing your opinion and why you believe they would be a good fit for an offer and service. I see this buyer often fall from the customer journey before conversion because female founders may not invite this specific buyer to be in an experience to be led because there’s a desire for folks to just jump in and join without the handholding. Friendly buyers enjoy the hand-holding with online services in the same way that we might ask a boutique owner if they like one dress or another better on you or if they think this purse and these shoes go together.  

The Logic Buyer is interested in much of the same that the Power Buyer is, but if you try to console the logic buyer with emotion, persuade them, or stroke their ego then you will lose the sale. Whereas the Power Buyer has such an interest in status and exclusivity that they will be interested in an ego stroke more often than not. The Logic Buyer is all data in visual aids like graphs and spreadsheets and percentages. They’re going to ask about ROI more than anything else and they’ll very much consider their return on time as much as the return on investment. 

The Attention Buyer is interested in, you guessed it, attention. They want to feel like they are your VIPs, your OGs, your day 1’s regardless of where you go and grow. They’re interested in being seen, heard, and invited to be a part of the process of creating offers, marketing offers, selling offers, and are often your best affiliates and referral partners. Luxury markets love to market to this type of buyer, as well as the Power Buyer. 

I want to explore these types more by providing you with actionable items to add into your marketing and sales plans immediately. 

With the Power Buyer, you’ll want to focus on:

• Building relationships with folks that are already interested in status and exclusivity. You’ll notice this by the clothing they wear, the masterminds they’re in, the clubs they’re a part of, and if they choose to fly economy or first class. 
• Giving space to your ideal clients to share their perspectives with you and on your platforms. 
• Inviting those buyers to connect with so and so from your network because they’ll be a good fit; coordinating a new relationship in a social club way.
• Share social proof, case studies, and the analytics behind your clients’ success stories with you. Remember that status is queen here. 

With the Friendly Buyer, you’ll want to focus on:

• Building a relationship with them and seeing through conversations if they seem to be someone that asks for others opinions a lot.
• You’ll be able to see this in their public-facing content, too. If they’re a regular question-asker instead of an opinion-teller, you might have a Friendly Buyer on your hands. 
• Consider asking their opinions in conversations you’re having with them to see if they easily share their opinions or if they’re a bit waffling in their declarations and pass the mic to you instead.

With the Logic Buyer, you’ll want to focus on:

• Similar points to the Power Buyer with analytics, case studies, and social proof, but if you’re actively in a sales call or conversation with one of these buyers… do not try to hold their hand.
• Emotional moves will influence them to see the process as weak and unstable; they want data. 
• They’re very disinterested in status and exclusivity; they want results and you’ll have to show the ROI and return on time through your content, sales pages, and sales assets.

With the Attention Buyer, you’ll want to focus on:

• Hyping them up in every which way. Comments, DMs, all up on their stories and in their emails (responding to their email campaigns) like you’re 3 cups of coffee deep at a café ready to chitter-freaking-chat.
• The sales process with this buyer is like a wine night; it’s chill, it’s a vibe, you’ll be hyping them up and listening to them more than you’re talking, but when they ask you to talk or there’s a space for you to talk… your words will still need to directly encourage and impact them versus put you on a pedestal.
• It’s a great time to bring in affiliate marketing with them if they’ve already been a client and they’re going to be your favorite UGC creators. 
• If they share a powerful perspective or piece of content on their feed, re-share it to your stories or highlight it in your newsletter because they want and crave that attention so much. Treat them like day-1’s and they’ll stay your forever-1’s. 

Exploring the way to infuse their buying habits and psychology into your content allows for you to consider the social playground you’re playing within and why you might be accidentally connecting with the exact clients you’re trying not to attract. If you don’t want to work with Power-forward buyers then you’ll want to focus more on the actions in the Friendly and Attention Buyer lists. 

The Connection-First Approach

I like knowing people’s love languages and buyer love languages so much. My love languages are words of affirmation and acts of service. Surprisingly, I am more often a Power Buyer and Logic Buyer though. My love languages in relationships are a bit softer than they are in my buying process. I used to be an Attention Buyer, and still do enjoy receiving attention for expressing my love for the brand and my advocacy for the brand, but being a Power and Logic Buyer is easiest in my relationship with my husband as my business partner. 

It’s truly out of necessity at this point to come home with a powerpoint presentation of why I think this next investment is a good one. We discuss and decide a lot when it comes to larger purchases and it’s felt so supportive for me as someone that used to be a lot more splurgy in my teen and early twenties. 

That being said, pivoting this conversation to a connection-first approach… This is the easy way to begin building the messaging you’ve been meaning to craft and curate within your marketing strategy and sales assets.

Your messaging is in your clients’ mouths.

Your marketing shouldn’t just populate from ChatGPT and your competitors’ websites and social platforms. 

Their clients and your clients are still going to have differences, especially if you’re running a personal brand business that’s rooted in you as the main character. 

When you approach outreach with a connection-first approach you’re going to be noticed. Some examples of where this will come into effect: engaging with ideal clients online, in group settings, via comments on Instagram, or in webinar chats that Linkedin promoted. If you roll in like a Power Buyer, prepped and ready to show off your own perspective with a haughty chest then you’re going to detract from the possibility of rapport being built.

However you would connect with a random stranger on the street when you both noticed something at the same time and laughed about it or the way you’d respond to a fringe friend that you see sometimes when you go to your favorite coffee shop and they’re always there is the same way that I’d like you to start connecting with ideal clients.

When you’re too power-forward and authoritative, it’s felt, especially by other females if you’re also marketing and selling to females more often than not.

Shift your language to be approachable, friendly, and accessible before you begin to show your authority through your own unique perspectives and opinions. We don’t want you to lose that ability because your opinion is so important, but connection first is the aim here. 

1 Key Step to Increasing Sales in 2024

Knowing how to sell like your ideal client wants you to – speaking their love language instead of your own – will increase your sales. 

When you’re trying to sell to a Friendly Buyer with stats and figures, they’ll be lost in the sauce because their favorite way to experience a sales consult is through emotional connection. They want to know that you’re going to be there for them, support them through the process, hold their hand more than slam down graphs that show the ROI.

Reversing this same equation, if you tried to hold a Power Buyer’s hand they might actually slap your hand virtually. Instead you’d want to show them the status that exists on the other side of joining your mastermind because they’ll be with like minded individuals, able to network with other 6 and 7 figure founders, and in rooms that they don’t have to be the smartest in but will be given a soapbox to share their opinions from. 

If the 2024 market has felt different for you, with decreasing sales and engagement and navigating the treacherous waters of corporate return feels like tiptoeing through a minefield of family expectations, each step triggering explosions of doubt and insecurity, then I invite you to consider how you’re selling and if it’s a good fit for your clients or just a usual routine for you.

If you’re already thinking about the holiday parties and sweat trickling down your back like icy fingers of fear as you contemplate facing your family to say that you closed your business, the weight of failure hanging heavy in the air like a suffocating blanket, then it’s time to consider learning a timeless way of selling that’s rooted in human psychology. I don’t teach trendy tactics because they’re a trend – they’ll be out by the end of this year. The Timeless Sales Method Course was created for those that are prepared to learn, apply, and continue to use the data that populates from the implementation to see both the intuitive data and numeric data that creates a story of why your ideal clients are or are not buying. 

If facing the prospect of declaring the demise of your struggling business feels like swallowing bitter pills coated in shame, each word uttered tasting like regret on your tongue, while your palms, sweaty as your pillow after a night terror, trembled with the anticipation of reevaluating your business in the unforgiving landscape of the 2024 market… then it’s time to take a step in the next right direction. 

You don’t have to figure everything out all at once. You can’t. 

But you can enlist others to support your re-evaluation and feel confident in the process that you’re taking a major step forward. 

I invite you to explore our services, starting with our signature course that teaches sales psychology, showing you how to connect and sell your best-fit clients with your own unrivaled approach. The way I teach is very similar to a lab or simulation; I provide you with the steps to take while asking you to bring in your personality, your own stand out characteristics that make your sales process different from your competitors and thus… uncommon in its own right. 

If you have any questions, we’re always here to chat. Connect via email or on Instagram for the quickest responses. 

Resources:

Listen to the full episode here: Apple, Spotify, and Amazon.

Mastering Sales Psychology in 2024 and Beyond

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Bio:

Ashleigh Henry has been in marketing, sales, and leadership positions for the last decade and it was exhilarating for Ashleigh to climb the retail, corporate, higher education, and start-up ladder holding positions such as Marketing Strategist, Copywriter, Social Media Strategist, Manager, Editor, Co-Editor…until it wasn’t. Alongside her degree, Ashleigh decided to bring all of her experience into the freelancing world until it became clear that she didn’t just want to pay the bills – she wanted to create a company that was foundationally built on cheetah print, legacy-minded marketing, and sexy sales structures that could stand the test of trend and time. The Cheetah Company, founded by Ashleigh, does this for female entrepreneurs through their education, coaching, and consulting services. Learn more about Ashleigh here.