How to Network for Revenue (Not Just Coffee Chats)

In this car episode, I'm breaking down the real purpose of networking and why showing up as the authority (not the friend) is what gets you paid. I just wrapped a coffee meetup and I'm sharing how to network without being self-serving, why fast action takers get rewarded, and the exact language I use to help people see what staying stuck is actually costing them. 

Plus, I'm calling out the biggest mistake people make in sales calls, what a free vs. one-cent lead magnet study revealed about barrier to entry, and why your past might be holding you back from being seen as the expert you are today. If you've been beating around the bush with prospects or getting stuck in the friend zone with potential clients, this episode is your wake-up call.

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Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey, welcome back to the Sales Mama Podcast. I'm your host, Sasha Davis, and today you get a R episode. I'm actually on my way back from a coffee meetup with a gal who is in a business networking group with me. I'm actually part of a quite a few business networking groups, and I try to network on a weekly basis just so that we can grow our brand, grow our visibility, grow our reach, grow our audience while trying to give back to our community. So my question for you today is how often are you doing meetups both in person and online with no real agenda? We don't want to just do networking to pitch ourselves. That is not the purpose of this. The purpose of networking is to tap into new audiences and broaden our horizons, expand our reach, expand our visibility. And so when we meet with these people, we have to make sure that we are being of service and of value for the other party. It is not just a selfish, hey, are you interested in buying my services? So for example, the gal that I met today owns a really cool company, and she has pretty cool goals for next year, and so I told her, you know, this is what I do, this is what I offer. You know, feel free to pick my brain. I'm happy to help however I can, you know, with your, you know, give you ideas on social media and how you can attract more clients, how you can land more clients, how you can promote yourself more. And so I gave her, you know, whatever whatever nuggets of wisdom she was looking for on my behalf, right? She's able to take it or leave it. She did ask me about what you know what it looks like to work with me, and she is interested in working with me. But in no way, shape, or form did I pitch her immediately in this session. It was, hey, how can I be of service? Hey, canal, how can I be of value? Asking her questions about her business, genuinely being interested in her business. She's got a pretty kick-ass business, and so I would really love to see her succeed. Now, since this was the intention of this was to network and grow both of our visibility, I'm not going to push, push, push on getting her to be a client of mine. If she wants to, she knows where I am. Will I follow up with her and will I, you know, continue to uh be of support to her, both in her business and you know, if she wants personal life? Absolutely. That's the power of networking is this is how you meet business partners, this is how you collaborate, this is how you meet friends. And so I think a lot of times when we think about networking, we think about me, me, me, me, me, how can I help myself? When in reality, it's how can I help others, how can I serve others, how can I expand my reach so that I can get in front of more people so that more people know that I can help them. And that is really what the goal of it is. It's not, hey, I'm gonna network with this person in hopes that I land them as a client. If you do, great, that's awesome, but that's not the intention of it. The intention is for it to be mutually beneficial. And if you come there with an agenda, it's not mutually beneficial. It's not mutually beneficial. So think of how you do this in your everyday life, in your DMs, in your content, in your sales calls, in your networking. How often are you only focused on me, me, me, me, me, I need to make this sale, I need to make this sale, I need to make this sale, and not so much how can I help the other person? How can I help this person? How can I change their lives? And you guys have heard me say this before, but if you had the cure for cancer, you would shout it from the rooftops. You would shout it from the rooftops. And so this is where you take a stand for what it is that you offer and know that it changes lives. And the difference between a mediocre salesperson or a support person or somebody who's being nice and an actual closer, a real closer, is the ability to collect the money, is the ability to close the deal. Because you and I both know we can be nice all day long. Nice equals friend zone. And when you are in the friend zone, it is so hard to close a deal when you're in the friend zone. And so I do this. Like I can be friendly with people, but I can also be very down to business with people, and so I will shift hats. I will say, all right, I'm taking this hat off and I'm gonna put this hat on, and we're gonna get down to business. So tell me what's really stopping you. And the the difference between, again, a mediocre salesperson and a closer is the ability to ask the hard questions, is the ability to invest in themselves, is the ability to not get emotional, is the ability to not let their excuses take over. When you can do this, you will be a solid closer. You will be a solid closer. Whether you are a sales professional, whether you are in business, whether you are in our service-based business, does not matter. When you are so confident and have conviction in what it is that you are selling, and you have the ability to ask the hard questions that other people don't, this is what will make you a good closer. Where you can show up and hold people accountable to that vision that they want or dream of. And when or if they start to give you, oh, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, there's only so many objections that you can overcome before you have to bless and release. You just have to bless and release. And some people aren't ready, you know, and that's fine. And so you can leave the door open for a later time. You can absolutely leave the door open for a later time. But what I have found is that God, the universe, whatever you align with, money, all of those things, reward those who take action fast. Think about the most successful business owners that you know. They are not sitting around thinking and thinking and thinking and thinking and thinking and thinking. No, they are acting and acting and acting and acting and acting. And if they happen to fail or do something that was a misstep, great, they get back up and they keep going. But they don't sit and think about things and think about things and think about things. If something is going to get them farther faster, typically they will just say, yes, let's do the thing. I'm all in, I'll figure it out. And those are really the people that you want to work with, but you have to prep them and prime them and get them ready for that type of interaction. So, what do I mean by this? This is where we have a low barrier to entry for our freebie offers so that we can get in front of a lot of people. So, this is where it's really great to do opt-ins and free trainings and podcasts and collaborations and networking and you know, have your have your landing page with your freebies, have your podcast with your freebies, have all these things with these freebies so that people can understand what it is that you have to offer because free equals more eyes on your product or service. There was a study done, and I cannot remember where it was, but they did a study and basically put a free thing out there and something that cost a penny where it required them to put in a credit card. And this is for a free lead magnet, right? This is for a free lead magnet. This is to get eyes on your product, not necessarily closing each and every one of these people. Not everybody's gonna be qualified. But what we want to do is volume on the front end, and then we have qualifiers throughout this process so that we know who's ready and who we get on the phone with. So the study was there's a free lead magnet out there, and there is a one cent lead magnet out there. Which one do you think was the winner? Absolutely, it was the free one. The free one generated way more traffic and way more opt-ins, way more leads for a business because it had a lower barrier to entry. An even lower barrier to entry, this is kind of what I do, is I will have a ton of free content, a ton of free live trainings. For example, I'm doing a live training December 16th and December 11th. So this uh if you're listening to this today, um Sunday December 7th, it'll be this Thursday, December 11th at 11 a.m. Pacific time. We're gonna talk about how to uh how to grow your business, how to hit your revenue goal in Q1 right out the gate. We're not waiting till halfway through the year to be on track with our goals. There'll be more link, uh, the link in the show notes for that. But, anyways, so what I do to qualify or to kind of filter through my leads is I will do freebies, but instead of just doing name and email, because that is the lowest barrier to entry, I do name, email, and phone number because most people, that phone number requirement can be a deterrent for those who are not actually committed. So I'll do name, phone number, email, and those people will generally be a little bit more committed than just name and email. So that's for freebies, all right? And then when you do low ticket offers, if you keep them under a hundred bucks, typically that'll be you know a pretty solid entry point for a low ticket offer, um, you know, definitely under a thousand dollars for a low ticket offer, but low, low ticket, you know, under a hundred dollars. I have ones for 17, 37, 47, um, 67, and 97, I think, something like that. I'd have to go back and look. But I have strategic upsells after somebody opts into a free training. If they want to grab something at a fast action discount, that is the time. They can get it at 50% off, 60% off, 70% off, but it is only on that page and it is only available right then, right there, not again, not elsewhere. Because again, we want to reward those fast action takers. So think about that in your business. When somebody opts in, do you have an immediate upsell to that? Do you even know what I'm talking about when I say upsell or tripwire? Somebody opts in for something, and then it's like, oh, but wait, there's more. Reminds me of those infomercials uh when we were younger, and it's like, here's this sponge daddy, but wait, there's more. And then they just keep going. It's kind of funny. But that's kind of the concept of it. It's like, but wait, there's more. If you want this fast action deal, this is how you do it. Right here, right now, and putting all the information, all the details, all the data, all the client testimonials, all of that stuff. You put it right there so that they can take advantage of that offer immediately. And this will also help you determine who is next step qualified and who is not. And then if you have call booking forms or application processes or DM setters or any of those things, you want to make sure that you're asking the hard questions, not just surface level questions. And so this is something that I'm, you know, always coaching on in sales mama school is what do you really want to say? Not what do you think you should say, but what do you really want to say? And then say that thing. So many times we sugarcoat things and then people don't take us seriously because they know that we're bullshitting them and we're just reading off of something that somebody told us to say. All right. So what do you really want to say? Say that thing. And you can do this in a kind but direct manner. And when you do that, you are now the authority. And we want you to be the authority because when people take you seriously, they're more likely to give you their credit card information. Okay. And again, it's okay to be friendly with people, but you don't want to be friends with everybody because then that I don't want to say tarnishes, but that changes the relationship, the working relationship. And so now they view you as a friend and an equal instead of as their mentor or as a leader. And again, you can be friendly with your clients. I am friendly with all of my clients, and after I've worked with them for some time, I absolutely view them as you know, some of them as friends. But that's not where it starts. I always start off as an authority figure, and then I can become somebody's friend, not the other way around, because the other way around will be so much harder to gain that authority. Think of people who knew you in your past. This is what happens to me all the time, and why I won't work with people from my past is because they still view me as 16-year-old shithead, getting in trouble, drinking all the time, smoking cigarettes, you know, doing all that, stuff skipping school. They still think of that Sasha. And I am nowhere near that Sasha anymore. But everybody from that part of my life still remembers that version of me. And so it is hard for them to put me in an authoritative place because of that. So they take me less seriously as a mentor, as a consultant, as a business owner because of that history that we have with each other. So just know that your first impression or your history with somebody will also determine how you are viewed. And are you able to overcome that? Yes, absolutely. But it's not easy. And it typically takes others saying that you are the authority. It often takes credibility to say that you are authority. So who featured in, published in this person said this or that person said that. It's other people's words and language that is then going to place you at that higher authority. And so while we're on this topic, this will also help give you credibility on your landing pages, on your sales pages, on your website, on your media bio. You definitely want to put all the places that you have been featured in as an authority figure. So, you know, magazines, other platforms, podcasts, you know, news outlets, anything like that that you have been a guest in or a feature in. Those will also give you instant credibility and authority so that it will be that much easier for people to say, oh yes, she knows her shit and she knows what she's talking about. Just a recap for today, because I know we're just getting about 15 minutes, is don't underestimate the power of networking. And when you do network, make sure that you come at it from a mutually beneficial standpoint and that you are not just coming in on your own selfish wants and needs because people will smell that shit from a mile away and they're not gonna want to help you. But when you genuinely want to help people, that is when your business will grow, and that is when people will share your stuff and want to invest in your products and services. And then I want to leave you with make sure that you are showing up as the authority that you are. Ask the hard questions. Ask the hard questions. There's so many people out there that beat around the bush here, and the ones who get the most transformation out of their clients are the ones that are holding them accountable and asking them the hard questions, getting them to see what it is really costing them by not doing the thing right now. So by by choosing not to start now, and this can be on your sales calls or in your DMs. So by choosing to not start now, you are actually choosing this and just being very clear in that. And I've said that with people before. So by not choosing this now, you are actually choosing to delay making five-figure months, and you are choosing to pay a higher price for sales mama school because pricing goes up in 2026. So just know that by saying no today, that if you tell me, because this is what people have said, oh no, not today, but I will do it in a couple months, or I'll do it in three months, or I'll do it in six months, or blah blah blah blah blah. Right. Totally your decision. Not like it doesn't hurt me one way or another. But what you are saying to me right now is that you are choosing to wait, which means you're putting off making five-figure months sooner, and you're willing to pay a higher price for that. And you're and if you're okay with that, then that is fine. Right? And so just being very clear with those people, and so you say that to your people too. It's like okay, so-and-so. If today's not the time, that's great. But just so we're clear, you're telling me that you're choosing this instead of this. And it's like you're choosing pain over the dream. You're choosing to stay the same over the thing that you told me that you wanted. And that is so eye-opening for a lot of people when they're saying, I'm choosing to stay stuck, I'm choosing to stay where I'm at because I don't believe I have enough time, I don't believe I have enough support, I don't believe I have everything ready, and I don't believe I have enough money. And those are all beliefs because those are all things that you can help them overcome. I can help my clients overcome. Okay. So just being very clear with someone who I would really love to work with you. But I know that you said today's not the time. But just so you know by not doing this today, you are choosing the pain point that they have. And by not doing this, you're also agreeing that if we work together in the future, that you're okay prolonging your discomfort, prolonging your pain, or in my case. Prolonging their discomfort, prolonging, you know, their um their business goals and making you know four and five figure months consistently. And then by doing that, they are now willing to pay a higher price for joining sales mama school because of that. Okay. So again, replace all of these with what your product or service is, and this is something that you can use for yourself. Because in a future episode, I will talk about how every year you need to do some type of price adjustment. Just think as if you were in your nine to five. You would get a you would get a price increase, or not a price increase, you would get a pay raise every single year. Standard, two to five percent. So you need to start taking that into consideration because every year there's inflation, every year the cost of things go up, every year you need to give yourself a raise because you know better, you do better, you get better client results. And there are some people that I've worked with who have not given themselves a raise in years. And it's because they're afraid that people will say no by increasing their prices. That's not the case. Every time you increase your prices, you are going to attract more aligned clients that are going to be willing to pay for that premium. It's just like haircuts out there, guys. You can get a $10 haircut and you can get a $1,000 haircut. It's all about the experience, it's all about the skill. It's all about what type of support you are looking for in the atmosphere and the type of people that you want to surround yourself with. So think about the people who are in the $10 salon and think about what type of people are gonna be in that thousand dollar salon. Okay? What type of people do you want to surround yourself with? So it's not just paying the thousand dollars for the haircut, it's the experience, it's the community, it's the support, it's everything that surrounds. That experience. It's not about that ten dollar haircut. Right? I hope this makes sense. So anyways, I hope you guys have a kick-ass Sunday. I had a kick-ass morning networking with this gal. I can't wait for my next networking. I'm doing these weekly networking events too online, and that's been really fun meeting with a lot of people there and with the book coming out next year. Um starting to talk about that and telling people about that. So I'm very excited, and I have 40 people who want to be affiliates for the book. So very, very exciting stuff. Anyways, uh check the show notes. If you want to apply for Sales Mama School, enrollment is open. The price will increase, the investment does increase January 1. So if you have been thinking about joining, now is the time. Now is the time you can do it. And then if you want to come to my next two live trainings, I'm gonna put the December 11th one in the show notes. That's this Thursday at 11 a.m. Pacific time. There will be a replay for those who register, and I'm also gonna be doing a couple of giveaways for those who show up live. So hopefully I see you there. And go make some money, honey. Catch you later.