Why Selling from the Stage feels schmucky (and what to do instead)

But those to me never felt authentic because they were going to go do it again the next weekend at their next conference.

By the end of this masterclass, you'll know why your current presentation style is getting big smiles and praise , but not converting into tangible results. Hello, new email subscribers, packed webinars and sold out programs. You're also going to learn how to structure any talk. You see my 4 part magnetic talk formula, whether it's a three minute IGTV episode or a keynote presentation.

You'll also learn the 4 types of virtual stages you could be actively speaking on right now to fill your business with leads hotter than any Facebook ad could afford you and why they're so easy to get on spoiler. I'm going to share with you an easy script that you can swipe and send out and get a yes to speaking on a stage like within a few days. You'll also get first dibs on my 12 week programs Speak Up to Level Up.

You can choose either the digital course option or my VIP level that comes with coaching with me. Now there's only 12 seats for that. So you're going to want to jump in early, like throw those elbows to jump in the front of the line, if you've been wanting to get in. Now, here's the thing, like I said, this is your chance to see a pro show up live on a webinar .

If you consider doing your own webinars, you've been thinking about stepping in the spotlight this year, get yourself into this master class. Bring it on baby! We're going to have so much fun together. I can't wait to spend this time with you head on over to heathersager . com/webinar to check out which dates and times are coming up. They're only going to be offered for a very short amount of time. And depending on when this episode airs , I'm not sure how many are left. So jump in now!

Okay. Let's jump back into it.

We're going to have an open discussion around - open discussion, me, myself and I around the topic of selling from the stage.

You can even steal and borrow scripts from other people, but at the end of the day, you have to show up as you and make decisions that feel authentic to you and your brand.

Now, the reason I think so many of us are uncomfortable is this idea of selling and let's just first hit this.

And I think what makes me so damn good at what I do is I blend those two things together. But still outwardly so, I am not a advocate of blindly selling from the stage. Again, I'll talk to you a little bit about why that is. What's so fascinating to me is when I see these sales trainings, when I see a classic selling workshop, usually the image that's portrayed in that workshop is they have you envision imagine a classic salesman . In our minds, we all imagine a used car salesman.

Someone who's pushy, someone who's super annoying. Somebody who's shoving something at you that you can't afford, that you don't even want. That's the image that we have created. You're smart. I'm smart. Like, you know that that's not true. You know, businesses - incredible businesses all around us are selling to us every day . And we're so grateful for that . Like, we're so grateful for businesses selling us things that we actually want.

I mean, sometimes of course we find ourselves going down, rabbit holes, buying things online that we know we don't need. And then package is showing up our door and then having to explain to our families what the hell all the packages are, like of course we make some interesting decisions, but for the most part, like the things that we buy, we are sold to, and we're totally and completely okay with it. For some reason we think of the concept of selling, we get a little weirded out.

Now, depending on where you are in your journey as an online entrepreneur, you actually might not be as familiar with the concept of selling from the stage. So let me take a moment to just talk about what exactly do I mean by that.

And, Oh my gosh, are you missing some moment of enlightenment? Like, are you not one of the appointed ones? Because you're not understanding why the heck you need this program, but other people seem to be drinking the Koolaid and it's going to change their lives. And you're like, Holy crap, should I be doing this too? That's the image that a lot of people have in their mind when it comes to selling from the stage.

That's what's schmucky like, what's funny is most of those programs are offered outside of those, buy it in the back of the room sessions. But there is this yucky marketing thing where there's a false sense of scarcity and urgency. You know, when it comes to marketing, you do have to create scarcity and urgency to have people take advantage of your offers. But those to me never felt authentic because they were going to go do it again the next weekend at their next conference.

I have one more coming up next week. That is my webinar. It's a free webinar, but I also quote unquote sell from the stage. That's how I educate and make an offer about my signature program, Speak Up to Level Up. Side note, if you want to see selling from the stage in action , come to that webinar just to see it. So you can see that selling from the stage doesn't have to be schmucky, and honestly steal some of my tips and strategies and go sell your stuff.

But selling from the stage, it doesn't have to be that 'go to the back of the room' weird thing. If you choose to sell from the stage, especially at live events, at virtual summits, you have to know what you're taking on. I think so many of us think that there's only two camps for this.

Camp #1is like, Oh my gosh, if I sell from the stage, it's going to be so schmucky, or if I sell from the stage in the right way with the absolute perfect effortless weave of all of my content into my sale , it's going to be rainbows and unicorns. Damn, I'm really into the voices today. Are you getting into these too? But you see what I'm saying? People think that it's either one side or the other. I think it's way more of a spectrum than that .

You, my friend are gonna have to develop your resilience and your tolerance of being uncomfortable in a variety of ways. Let me break this down for you, by giving you some examples. I'm actually going to give you some examples of some events I've attended in the last six to 12 months and some three specific examples. I'm not going to get names for these, but three specific examples in some lessons that I've taken away from them.

Again, the point of this is not to tell you what to do, or even give you the tactical strategies. I want you to start being aware of your relationship with selling. This can be selling from the stage. It also though, could be your relationship with selling in general in your business. You figure out how this resonates with you. I think all of these topics, all three of these examples, are going to get you thinking.

What I want you to relieve yourself from is stop trying to look for the specific sales strategy that's going to save you so you can sell all your stuff. No! I want you to start focusing on who are you has a personal brand and how do you want to show up and sell in alignment to it. That's what this comes down to regardless of what platform you use to sell. Okay, let's dive into this. I want you to make a decision that feels right for you. Let's set the stage. You know, I talked about this before.

I attended a lot of live events. I'm really missing it right now. I haven't been on an airplane in over three months, which is very weird for me. I have been traveling, 60 to a hundred thousand miles a year by airplane for the last 10 years. And I have to say, it's super nice to be at home in my own bed every day, but I am missing those child-free nights at a hotel. Attending live events, I can't wait 'til I get to attend them again and speak at them again.

There was one specifically, this first event I'm going to talk about is a well known online marketer that we all love and know had an attempt this last fall. At the event, here's the selling from the stage moment that happened. On Day 2 of the 3-day program, she opened up the doors to her digital program, which is a program she only opens once a year, but given the fact that she had a live event, people were so excited. She opened the doors to that program just during that live event.

So hello, positive scarcity and urgency. Now, before she even started winding into the pitch and making the offer, there was a woman in the audience who jumped up, like literally there's hundreds of people in the audience. I mean, I think six to 700 hundred people. This woman jumps up screaming with her credit card in hand and just said, 'take my money.'

I thought it was a beautiful - a beautiful context to provide an offer for a product that the audience needed.

But also I recognize that I don't want to abandon, how should I re-phrase this? I don't want to abandon, or trigger people, or create unnecessary frustration when not needed. What I mean by that is, for me personally in my business, I pick and choose when I would make offers from the stage. So that first example, I thought that was a beautiful timing to make an offer. I think it was a really good location in the lineup. I thought everything about it. It worked well.

And of course, I'm a speaking coach who does sales. I would make some recommendations for a smoother pitch, but I think it worked really, really well. And the fact is you're going to piss people off. So if, and when you choose to sell from the stage, you got to know not everyone's going to love it. And that's okay.

You also have to understand that there is, especially if you're an online entrepreneur and you serve other online entrepreneurs, there's this feeling of obligation that happens when you're in someone's session, and they do a pitch even if that pitch is not for you. There needs to be a level of mutual respect that when people are offering free content or low cost content, that is the price you pay is to sit through their pitch. Now it doesn't mean the pitch needs to be painful and unrelevant.

No, it should be a good quality pitch that helps people. Just know if you're annoyed by it, it means the pitch isn't for you, or if you're neutral by it, and just kind of like, 'All right , 'shaking your head. 'Here we go. We got to get through this.' I can't say that I love that that feeling is going to happen, but also guys, that feeling might happen. But let me tell you this. This is the tough love moment here.

If you're a business owner, do not sit here and complain when another business owner provides you exceptional free content and they make a pitch. Do not be one of those people who shows up to webinars, griping, and complaining for the audacity of someone to make an offer. You know better. You know how marketing works. Also, it's not a charity thing, people! Like this is not a nonprofit where people are like, here's all this free education, like mama's running a business.

I say this because you get back what you put out there. If you have the mindset that it's wrong and it's unethical and it's gross for people to sell, well, you're bringing that kind of energy into your sales process and that's not helping you. That's part of what this episode is, is I want you to evaluate your current relationship with selling and how you view other people selling and ask, how is that impacting your effectiveness when it comes to sales?

Like, if people are going to be pitching me, their products, I'm not coming.' Now, I'm sorry to make this woman a little crazy town, but she was irate and very angry about it. Again, if you've had this thought before, maybe gut check that. You've probably had a negative experience in the past, but also business owners selling is not a bad thing 'cause you gotta do it. It's part of the job. But it did invite this really interesting dynamic conversation.

There were hundreds of responses to this post, where people were saying all their piece around selling from the stage. Here's what came out. The company who was hosting this event, made a position and said, this will not be one of those events. In fact, people are not allowed to sell anything at this program. Now this company did sell a lot of their stuff at the program, but that's a topic for another day.

But this, what happened here is they were really, really clear around what would and would not happen on the stage or the conference.

The reason why that woman in the Facebook group was so I rate, so put off by the concept of it is because her expectations for whatever event she had attended the past, the expectations was she was at a conference to learn, not to be sold to, or to be told that the real secret to the thing she wanted to know was behind a gated paid group. So it was about a mismatch in expectations. The truth is, it's all about setting expectations to get on the same page.

If you ever think about a time where you were quote unquote sold to, and you were uncomfortable with it, or really annoyed by it, it's because the expectations weren't aligned. What you thought you were getting into and what the person was actually doing, they were not on the same page. I'm sure this happened to you before. Maybe it was your first quote unquote free masterclass you attended when you got into the online space. You were like, 'Oh, here I go.

I'm gonna get this free training.' Then all of a sudden, out of the blue, that person is like pitching you their program. You're like, 'wait a minute - I signed up for a sale.' I mean, now I'm betting you understand that most webinars and masterclasses online are sales presentations. Now there's a dividing line where some of them have highly valuable content that you can actually do some new with. If it resonates with you, you can go deeper.

And some quite frankly are really, really shitty sales presentations, where there's this awkwardness of people trying to figure out how to teach and then figure out this weird moment of how do I move from teaching to buy my program. It's painful to watch. And I apologize if you struggle with this. You know, I can teach and help you with this. We're going to talk a little bit about those transitions for sales in the future.

The reason why it's so uncomfortable for both delivering the information, but also receiving the information is the mismatch. Mismatch, match, match, mismatch, mismatch . I don't know you insert the correct word there. It's a lack of alignment on expectations. This is really important when you think about live events, whether you're participating or your in the audience. I'm a big fan of telling people what to expect. A couple of things. You talk about your program way before you offer it.

If you're on a stage, whether that's throughout your content, you make mention of it or it's before an actual event. People are aware. I don't want you to think about your paid products being hidden or cloaked behind this like secret door. And then all of a sudden there's going to be a big unveiling. That is not setting you or anyone else up for expectations. Imagine this. I think I've talked about this before. The movie "Just Friends" with Ryan Reynolds.

How they're like kind of like brother and sister out the whole movie, except for Ryan Reynolds who was in love with the other character. And all of a sudden, one day he wanted something more. And she's like, 'wait.." The expectations, the rules of the relationship change , where she thought they were just friends and he wanted to be more than friends.

And she's like, 'dude, you're my brother.' I mean in that movie, it all worked out and they did fell in love and all the other things and went ice skating. Think about that, like if you are hanging out with your friend and all of a sudden, he tries to make out with you, you're like, 'what the hell are you doing?' And you most likely do that or have that done to you in business. Getting on the same page with expectations, do not think about it as this like unveiling.

It needs to be a logical next step for people. That's what selling really is, is taking the next logical step for those who are interested, for those who resonate with your content and teaching style. That's what this comes down to. Okay, let's go into example #3. Now I attended, it was actually one of the only conference. I attended a couple conferences before we went into quarantine. This one's my favorite.

I talked about this openly on the podcast and other places you'll probably figure out pretty quickly this was. I went to this conference. I had the opportunity to go with my husband and my sister in law. It was incredible. It was a blend of a paid event and a free event. So you could pay for a ticket, or if you were a member of certain programs, you got a ticket for free, which is a very normative thing in the conference space.

Depending on which influencers you follow, what kinds of programs they have most likely their events are going to be ones that have some kind of offer made.

I had like seven different ways, like notes around how, if I would have done it, I would do it better. Okay. Side note, let me go off on a side note real quick. This is a really good way to teach yourself. Notice what other people do. Dissect it and try to understand the underlining meaning of why they do it and then ask yourself, how could you replicate it? That's a big business lesson that you can use for so many different things but I do this all the time. We're doing that.

We go back to the conference. He continues to talk about it in the pitch. We both were kind of 'huh.' But it was kind of like one of those things where it kind of, it wears you down in a good way, where all of a sudden, you're no longer annoyed by the offer. You're now like starting to picture yourself in the offer. And by the end of the event, honestly, I was considering it. And this guy, this is a $10,000 investment for this program. We leave the event, I didn't sign up.

My husband and I fly back to Portland and on the way home from the airport, we're really quiet in the car. My husband's driving and he's looking straight ahead. We're driving down the road at the airports on. I remember this so clearly. I remember he looks at me at the corner of his eye and looks back straight ahead. He doesn't look at me and he says, 'Hey, so thing I want to talk to you about. I know you've been wanting to play at a higher level in your business this year.

Then I know you're really fired up right now. And I know quite frankly, you've been holding yourself back around what you're offering in your business, because you don't think that you have the specific tools you need to hit the gas pedal in the way that you want. Like I said, if you think that that program would help you reach that bigger goal and push you out of playing small, I want you to know that I support you and we'll pull the money out of savings.

If it's something that you want, you need to do it.'

But as soon as he brought that up, I had this deep feeling that I immediately, I knew I needed to do it.

I talked about it on social the last couple weeks. You guys know I'm a certified high performance coach now through the High Performance Institute, that was the program I bought into. It made a tremendous difference, both in my business, but also in my life for how I've been showing up these last 90 days. Here's the thing. When it comes down to, I don't tell you about it because the program so great.

I tell you about it because even when quote unquote, selling can annoy you, you can still fully recognize, and you can still full recognize that you're being sold to that is happening. You can respect that process, but you can't sell to someone who isn't looking for a solution. That training hit on something that I had been seeking for myself for years. And it spoke to me in that way, but it didn't right out of the gate.

It starts with me taking care of myself and being the best version of myself, the best little leader, the best person I can be so that I can show up even better for you and show you what's possible in your life a nd your business.

And I think you, if you really think about it, you feel the same way and so do your potential clients and customers. The question is what's the format that you do with it. This idea, this taboo nature of selling from the stage I don't think that's the only way that you can monetize or maximize speaking opportunities. In fact, you know, that I'm much more passionate about doing another strategy, which is making an offer for free content for people to go deeper.

I feel that the soft pitch, the 'Hey, here's this really valuable freebie,' 'Hey, here's a copy of my slides.' 'Hey, here's a worksheet to accelerate what we talked about today to go even further.' Those are the kinds of things that allow people to drop their guard and not be clenched and their seat being like, Oh man, what she's gonna say, what she got to try to sell me?

I feel like virtual summits, on podcasts, on virtual stages, on live event stages, when you take the pressure off that you're not there to swindle or convince anyone to buy something, you create a different level of respect and trust in your relationship. Coming back to all of this, this is what it comes down to.

Each one of us are building different brands and we are the only ones that can determine what kinds of marketing strategies, what kinds of marketing messages are in alignment with how we want to show up as a brand and how other people experience us. Personally, I've made the decision to be very conservative of how, and when I sell for me. I sell during live launches.

I'm in the middle of one right now, as you're listening to this, where I sell my Speak Up to Level Up program, through live webinars.

What experiences have you had that are leading to that perception? Question four, which I think is the most important. How are your perceptions of the above three questions impacting your ability to sell? How is your perception impacting your ability to sell? You know what I'm saying? I want you to think about this and let me wrap this up today, by offering you a shift, that's helped me throughout my journey of selling in different capacities over the years. Let me give you two analogies here.

We talk a lot about making the quote unquote pitch and instantly that that gives a visceral reaction of kind of like clenching up a little bit and being like, 'Oh, here it comes.' Or if you're the one selling from the stage, there's this moment where you're like, 'Oh my God, it's coming here. Here we go. I have to do that . I have to sell .' It's like, all of a sudden you have to throw a ball like the pitches, like a pitcher, you're throwing a ball.

It just doesn't create this good sense of feeling for anybody involved. So what I want you to think about instead is imagine you have some friends over to your home and you have a party and everyone's having a good time. And you, instead of going like, okay, like, there's this big like lobby pitch at the end. What if at the end where you, this actually sounds kind of creepy now that I've said it out loud, but I hope that you followed my thought process here.

What if instead you're opening a secret door and inviting people in that, 'Hey, there's this secret door here in a non creepy way.' If you're interested, like, 'Hey, come on over here.' Where it's not necessary for that person to succeed, to walk through that secret door. But if your content has been jiving with them and they like your teaching style by inviting them to go deeper with you. Well, that's pretty beautiful.

Instead of thinking about you pulling a fast one or throw in a pitch at your audience instead, think of it as an invitation to continue the conversation. Maybe that's a better way to say it than saying, open a secret door in a really creepy way.

I'm not cutting any of this out because you guys are getting the real me today, including my weird assessments to the events I've attended, which now who knows if I'll ever be invited to speak on stages at those events, but I gotta serve it up to you straight today, guys. I want you to consider this. What does, what could align selling look like for your brand? Where should you be selling? Where shouldn't you be selling?

Could you play some boundaries for yourself so that you can feel really good about it?

I will be bringing some content related to sales for the podcast, but you're going to get my best stuff of course in my paid programs. Now, remember when it comes to selling. Someone Is always going to be pissed off. Someone's always going to have something similar to yours that's cheaper. People are always going to be annoyed that you have the audacity to sell, but also someone's going to thank you for offering your program. Someone's going to thank you for saving their world.

Someone's going to thank you for changing their perspective. Someone's going to thank you for having the courage to go against the grain and make people uncomfortable.

Your reviews, especially the ones that you put a nice little love note with, thy're life in the podcasting world. That's how more people get this podcast in their ears. It's so good to be with you today, guys. And I will see you next week. Same time, same place