Effective Persuasion with Amanda Abella

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Well, this is George G. And the time is right. welcome today’s guest strong and powerful. Amanda, Bella. Amanda, you’re ready to do this. I am so ready to do this. I was born ready. Let’s Let’s go. Matt is an award winning content creator. She’s a keynote speaker, a business coach, best selling author. She specializes in helping business owners activate their persuasion prowess, so they can make more money and live a more affluent life. Amanda excited to have you back on. It’s been a number of years. refresh your memory. Tell us a little bit by your personal life some more about your work and why you do what you do. Yeah, so last time I was here, you said October 2018. Oh, man.

Amanda Abella 0:53
That was the precipice of me changing my entire life. Where do I start?

So in November of 2018, I hired my first employee, and we started scaling a business. I think last time we talked, I literally just quit all my financial freelance writing clients, not too long before then. And so really, really right after you and I spoke, I started the process of scaling. And now in 2022, we’re pretty sure we’re gonna have our first seven figure year. Amazing, amazing and you know, there was a pandemic in between there.

mavens going on, might still be going on through a lot of things for a loop. You know, lots of things have changed in the world and also in my life. But mostly what I do now is I train women owned business owners how to do sales, because one of the biggest issues I saw, particularly in 2020, when all the shutdown started, and I mean, we all know what’s been going on since 2020. And the beginning of it, and people’s businesses getting shut down and the panic and everything going on, I said, Oh, well, the world is about to find out the difference between internet marketers who are really slick, and people who actually know how to sell. Because we’re about to have a moment where the emperor has no clothes.

And that’s a lot of what’s gone on. And particularly in like the female side, I don’t know if it’s going on in the male spaces. But the female centric coaching spaces, there’s been a lot of the emperor has no clothes. And there’s been a lot of people still teaching things that worked in 2012. And basically, I had women knocking down my door being like, I need to learn how to sell because all the things I’m like, my webinars aren’t converting like they used to my Instagram, no one’s seeing my stuff. I have people in my DMs, I don’t know how to talk to them. How do I make money? And I said, Oh, we’re going to be teaching people how to do sales. So that’s, that’s pretty much where we are now.

george grombacher 2:56
Nice. Well, certainly congratulations on making a leap of faith, certainly in yourself and investing in yourself. And now almost four years later, it sounds like it’s really paying off. So congratulations. Thank you. And now it’s time to get back to work. Not that you’ve taken any time off at all. So people are saying it’s just I’m not making money like I used to, used to be just throw something out there and people would bite on it. But now the emperor has no clothes, the The tide has gone out and people are standing there without their swimsuits on.

Amanda Abella 3:30
Basically, that’s a lot of what’s going on. I think, you know, the markets also changed. I’m sure you’ve seen this, you’ve seen it been in the online spaces for a while. There’s a whole lot of people out here who have gotten burned, you know, investing in a lot of things that didn’t work out for them. And if you’re a business owner, you’re dealing with a lot right now you’re dealing with people who’ve been burned. So you’re dealing with the memory of the three people who came before you. You’re competing with a pandemic, you’re competing with people’s uncertainty. I mean, you’re up against a lot. And if you don’t understand sales, because sales is what overcomes those things and understanding people is what overcomes those things. It doesn’t matter how many things you post on Instagram, it’s not going to matter. Or another example would be remember, knocked in October 2021, when Facebook and Instagram both went down. And people were in the middle of launches and panicking and the whole world went crazy that day. I actually had my best sales week ever that week, because I was actually on the phone calling people. I was actually having conversations. So I feel like in a really interesting way these old school things are coming back.

george grombacher 4:44
Yeah, I appreciate that. So people are coming to you. They’re saying, what’s what I was doing isn’t working. And that’s a very jarring sort of a thing. So how do we have How do you get started? Is it we need to assess where you’re at and figure out sort of your skills gap? Because maybe you just have no idea about sales? Or maybe you’re just doing things, small things here and there that we can click kind of tweak.

Amanda Abella 5:15
Yeah, usually it’s not having an understanding of sales. So I will give an example. I was on a call earlier this week, it was a lot of women, they were already making half a million a year. And they were really frustrated because they’re like, why am I not at a million dollars yet? I don’t understand. I think I think I need a new marketing thing. I think I need to, maybe I need to get on Tik Tok. Maybe I need to do this thing over here. Maybe I need a new launch. Maybe I need this. And I was like, Wait, hold on, let me start asking some questions. How many people are on your email list? 5000. And I said, you don’t have a marketing problem. Your marketing is working, you have a sales problem. Is there anybody on your team calling people who are clicking around on sales pages? Is there anybody on your team calling people who are opening up your emails? Or is there any direct outreach going on at all? So we can start moving people through a sales process? And the answer is usually no.

george grombacher 6:08
So it’s okay. So that’s a super important thing. Do people commonly understand or not understand marketing versus sales? That it’s

Amanda Abella 6:17
not they do not commonly understand marketing versus sales? And I think a lot of times when we’re talking about it, they get conflated, right? Everybody’s like marketing and sales, and then you think it’s the same thing, but they’re not. So the way that I teach it is marketing is how you attract the leads to you. Sales is actually closing the deal. And technically, you can do sales without any marketing. You don’t actually need it. Of course, it’s helpful. And it’s part of a good business plan and stuff like that. But you don’t actually need to be doing a whole lot of marketing in order to close deals, you need relationships in order to close deals.

george grombacher 6:55
So we have their attention. And it sounds like a lot of the folks that you’re working with. And I’m sure that you’re working with folks who are just getting started, and they’re trying to figure everything out. But if you do already have people’s attention, you’ve got a healthy email list, and you’re doing a great job. You’ve made quality products. But were stalled out for whatever reason. So where do we go from there? It’s because sales is big, right?

Amanda Abella 7:20
Sales is huge. I mean, I’m teaching a program now it’s probably going to take me a couple years for mastermind clients. Yeah, it’s a massive topic. But what I would say to someone in that position is like, alright, we got it, train you up on sales process, like what is the process of moving someone from there in my database to I’m closing them as a client. And that usually starts with outreach. So what is the outreach that we’re going to do? What are the scripts that we’re going to say? So for example, let’s say, this is a really common mistake, I see a lot people will not be tracking who’s clicking on a sales page. And I said, Okay, let’s start there, right, let’s set up a tag and your email marketing system. Anytime somebody clicks on a sales page, you are immediately notified. And then either you or someone on your team needs to make a phone call, and say, Hey, I noticed you were clicking around on our sales page. I just wanted to make sure you know if you had any questions about it, if I could answer it, you know, where would you say your biggest struggle area is in marketing or sales. And that’s just what we teach marketing and sales, insert whatever your business is here. So we would have to figure out okay, well, what is the outreach process? Then what do I say? Then? How do I prequalify them to make sure they’re a good lead to begin with? That’s a whole area that needs to get trained, then how do I book them on a call, then how do I make sure they actually show up to the call? Because then there’s the whole situation with no shows? When I have them on a call? How do I do the presentation? How do I actually drop the price? If they give me objections? What do I do? How do I close it? And if I don’t close it, what’s my follow up process? So you’re right, it’s a lot. So and each part honestly, I could teach on each part for like, a month, at least. But I would start there, I would have to give them like a higher level overview of like, this is what a sales process looks like. Now, let’s start going into each individual part of it and start building this out.

george grombacher 9:22
It’s interesting, right? Because I imagine when you’re talking about people that are our high income earners and high achievers, and they’re they’ve experienced success, that many of them want this now. So how do you have it structured so that you give people the right amount at whatever pace they’re interested in consuming?

Amanda Abella 9:42
Oh, well, in our training program, we’ve got people I mean, we’ve had people close $14,000 sales in two weeks. We’ve we had a client now who’s just been here a few weeks and she just said, I’m getting 1000 extra bucks for clients. Just from following your videos and your training program. We had clients close 325 $100 sales in three days, that was after spending $25,000 on a business program and nobody told her so.

george grombacher 10:08
So it can happen fast.

Amanda Abella 10:09
It can happen really fast. I think what’s going on is people are not getting the right information. There’s a lot of people out here who keep talking about marketing and beat the Instagram algorithm and do this on a webinar. And I think it’s also us, like, let’s be real to like, people don’t want to do sales, because it’s terrifying. Let’s be honest about it. So they’re in the backend building funnels, thinking that they’re working. And really, you just got to go pick up the phone and close the deal. And it could be very simple. I mean, I closed the $23,000 contract two days ago, in the DMS in between meetings. Nice. You know, or, for example, this morning, I’m like, Oh, I’m working on this new thing. Let me call this person, they would be perfect for it. Now, there’s a $20,000 deal on the table. So it doesn’t have to be complicated. I think once people make the connection of Oh, okay. So if I actually, I think sometimes they’re just boggled by the fact that they’re sitting on so many leads, and they didn’t realize it. Yeah, what to do with them.

george grombacher 11:13
Right? I imagine that it is. There’s, it’s a function of fear and anxiety over it. It’s a function of overwhelm, because there’s probably a little too much. And so where do I start? How do I pick it up? I can’t find the handle kind of thing. And recognition or realization that it’s a lot. I don’t want to say it’s easier, but it’s simpler. It’s simpler than then we want to make it out to be. And there’s probably a lot of folks that you’re working with that are not used to using the telephone app on their telephone.

Amanda Abella 11:47
Yes, that’s a part of it, too. You know, and I think a lot of people talk success, because we saw the upswing right of all the the good side of social media algorithms. And now it’s not like that. And then you also have industries that are saturated, and the public is extremely distracted with things that have been going on in the last couple of years. So the playing field has completely changed as well. And people are now starting to realize, and I started calling this out two years ago, but now in 2022 is when they’re like, Oh shit. Oh, my gosh, what if my inbound flow dries up? What if Facebook goes down again? What if I get locked out of my account? What am I going to do if these get shut down again? And then people don’t have access to credit? Or they’re distracted? Or they’ve got all this stuff going on? What am I going to do? I’m only relying on this inbound stuff in social media, and it’s not sustainable, long term. Ah, yeah. So people are having the realization now, it’s very interesting.

george grombacher 12:51
Well, the you know, I think, because it’s certainly not too late, at least at least I don’t think so. Right? It’s, of course not. And it’s probably never too late. But it’s one of those things where now now is 100%, the time that you need to be sharpening your saw and putting new tools in your toolkit. I don’t think I can get another metaphor or analogy for you need to get your stuff together.

Amanda Abella 13:16
Yeah, it’s time to grow up and be professional. Yeah. That’s a part of it. Because if you look at more traditional businesses, I think in the online spaces, this is crazy. But if you look at more traditional businesses, they’re cold calling every day. In addition to all that inbound stuff, in addition to the paid advertising, in addition to the social media, they are also doing traditional sales, because any smart business knows that you want to be using every client acquisition strategy available to you. Yeah.

george grombacher 13:47
How do you coach people to to coach people to carve out specific time throughout the day for for sales? Or how do you how do you structure that

Amanda Abella 13:57
are, so I can tell you what I do. And then I can also tell you what I’ve told team to do. And I can tell you kind of what the statistics show. So the statistics show that the best time to do outreach and calls is actually between 10am and 12pm. I’m sorry, sorry, 10am and 2pm. I added an extra one there at 10am. And 2pm is the best time to get ahold of people. Now that being said, are we always in a space in our business where we can do 10am to 12pm? No, but you still got to make the phone calls. So just make the phone call one phone call is better than no phone call. The other thing I will say and I had a mentor teach me this and I will say it’s a game changer is the first couple of hours of every single day is spent on income generating activities. It’s outreach, it’s making connections, it’s follow ups How about this go to everybody who’s ever told you know, and follow up with them and see why you didn’t close them. So the first couple hours of the day focus on the new money Focus on the income generating activities. When I started implementing that it last year our business grew 162%. All the fires, all the client stuff, all the ops, all that can wait until the afternoon, first two hours priority is new money.

george grombacher 15:18
That other stuff will be there probably.

Amanda Abella 15:20
It’ll still be there.

george grombacher 15:23
Yeah, that’s a that sounds like classic avoidance behavior that I know that I certainly fall victim to still. And I imagine that as you’re training people who are new to it, it really is a function of dealing with that desire to do something that’s comfortable versus what’s really important.

Amanda Abella 15:42
Exactly. Right. It’s comfort versus what’s actually going to move the needle forward.

george grombacher 15:47
Yeah. And the innocent, it seems at least I know that where I live, I certainly don’t know if it’s a regional thing. I get a ton of spam, phone calls and robo calls and stuff like that. How do you coach people around that?

Amanda Abella 16:05
You have to know what to say. You have to know what to say. So for example, in our you have to know a couple things, right? So you have to know what to say. And then you also have to know that you’re up against the robo calls. So obviously, people are going to try and get you off the phone. I’m going to let you in on a little secret right now, the first thing that called comes out of someone’s mouth is just a reaction and doesn’t mean anything. So you treat it like it doesn’t mean anything. You acknowledge it and you move on to the next thing. I’ll give you a perfect example. Last year, last week, I had someone on the phone, and they’re like, oh, no, I really got to go. I really got to do this. I asked a very poignant question. This was in a different part of the sales cycle, but it’ll prove my point. It was toward the end, and I was handling her objections. And she’s like, Oh, I really, really got to go. And I was like, let me totally understand you’re in a hurry. I will make it quick. All I need is 10 minutes. I have a question for you. Is it the fact that you don’t have the money right now? Or is it the fact that you’re afraid of making a poor decision, like you did last year, had them on the phone for another 30 minutes after they were so in a hurry to get off the phone.

george grombacher 17:13
However, the right language is such a powerful thing and having the right questions,

Amanda Abella 17:17
and having the right questions and what a lot of people don’t realize, part of the reason why people are terrified of sales is because everybody’s had a bad sales experience. So it’s totally normal. But most people also don’t understand what it truly is. And that’s why they’re resistant to it.

george grombacher 17:33
What do you mean, what it truly is?

Amanda Abella 17:35
Most people, I’ll give you an example. Most people are like, okay, so I’m going to be like the used car salesman who like over talks and is sleazy or well hear from a lot of my clients is they don’t want to be a bro marketer. And are like, well, bro, marketers don’t know how to do sales. So that’s why they’re bro marketers. We’re a sales. Perfect example. Most people think they have to overtalk to sell something, you actually need to do more asking of questions and listening than actually talking. The prospect should be doing most of the talking.

george grombacher 18:10
Yeah, that’s a good rule of thumb right there. If you’re just talking and the other person’s not talking, probably doing a bad job.

Amanda Abella 18:16
You’re probably doing a bad job. Yeah.

george grombacher 18:19
And you just need to get better. I don’t mean to be negative, and say that you’re doing a terrible job. But you’re probably doing a bad job. You got two ears and one mouth, Amanda.

Amanda Abella 18:28
But hey, look, you got to be brutally honest. And that’s another reason why people don’t like sales is because you have to be so brutally honest with yourself. I train with my team every day. And I think the other thing that goes on is we have so much ego wrapped up in our businesses. And that’s part of what messes us up. I’ll give you an example. Right? When you’re doing sales correctly, it’s actually ego less. So what does that mean? It means I don’t care about being right. I’m just trying to get the problem solved. Most people care more about being right and getting the deal closed, rather than actually helping someone solve a problem.

george grombacher 19:08
I think that’s that’s really the key right there is, you’re in a position to you’re working to help somebody get what they want not do something to them or not sell them something to make them money. You’re trying to help them solve a problem.

Amanda Abella 19:23
Yeah, so there’s a lot of ego wrapped up in it. You know, when we train our clients, we’re actually doing a long training now and be like, here’s how your ego is going to try and trip you up in sales. Another place where your ego will trip you up in sales, is when you’re critiquing yourself, right? You’re going to mess up. I teach this stuff, but I’m good at it. And I messed up on a call last week, and I was like, dang, I should have done that better. Right? I can pick it up and be like, Alright, next time I’m not making that same mistake. I made a different mistake next time. Now the good news is most people don’t know sales, so they won’t even know that I made a mistake. But the thing that we’re trying to get at here I want to improve my skills, I want to get better at this, I want to master this. So one of the things that I tell my clients is if you’re really freaked out about closes, if you’re really freaked out about numbers, if you’re really freaked out about rejection, your egos too wrapped up in this. So let’s take your ego out of it for a second. And instead of focusing on oh my god, I really want to close this person, I have to close this person, I have to pay bills, I have to make money. That’s where most people’s heads are at. Instead, focus on my only goal is to master this skill set. That’s what I did. I was horrible at sales, I was once rejected 60 times in one month, it was brutal. And I had to pick myself back up again. And I had to be like, Okay, I’m not I’m gonna master this skill set. And I made that my focus rather than the money.

george grombacher 20:47
I love it. Yeah. I think that thought that’s all really well said. And it’s such an important thing for people who are listening and and they’re reticent, they’re, they’re nervous, they think I could never do that. But the reality is, everything you just talked about, is the truth. And what we think is gonna stop us are just fears that aren’t real

Amanda Abella 21:11
fears that are not real, right. And I want to also be clear, a lot of the reason why people are scared is because you you don’t understand what’s going on. So someone listening right now may not know that if you call someone out of the blue, and then they’re like, I’m not interested. They don’t know how to respond to that. They don’t know that. It’s what a lot of sales trainers would call a reactionary defense response. And it doesn’t mean anything. They’ve just had telemarketers blowing them up, they and usually when people call, it’s bad news, you know, and they’re afraid of getting bad news or getting sold to. So they’re just reacting. But it doesn’t actually mean anything. Most people don’t know that. Right? Or most but not not until you get into sales training and understand it. Most people don’t know that if you’re on the later stage of a sales cycle, and someone says I can’t afford it eight times out of 10. It’s not true. Most people don’t know that a lot of buyers and prospects lie and manipulate to get out of uncomfortable situations. Because that’s what they’re accustomed to doing. And that’s what we’ve all been trained to do. But if you don’t know that, then of course, you’re you’re going to be kind of terrified because you don’t understand what’s going on in that moment. Now, your ego when you hear that, and this is a big mistake people make when you hear that your ego is going to want to come in and be like, Oh, these people are morons. They just can’t make decisions, or they’re trying to get me off the phone or screw them or they lied to me. Yeah, they’re gonna do all that. And your job is to know that they’re just having a human reaction and not get wrapped up in it.

george grombacher 22:50
Love it. That’s well said. Well, Matt, it’s so good to see you again. Thanks. Thanks for coming back on where can people learn more about you? How can they engage with you?

Amanda Abella 23:00
Yeah, so you can come check out our podcast and also our YouTube channel. It’s called Make money your honey. We do interviews on the podcast and on the YouTube channel. We’ve got sales tips coming out every week. And we also do complimentary sales trainings every Wednesday at noon, Eastern in our free Facebook group and all you need to do is text the word join 28333210314 Give us the number again. 833321031 for

george grombacher 23:35
excellent. Well if you enjoyed this as much as I did show man to your appreciation and share today’s show with somebody who also appreciates good ideas. Check out the make money, your honey podcast, wherever you listen to your podcast, check them out on YouTube as well. And Text Join 28333210314 and take advantage of the great resources and sales training that Amanda was talking about. Thanks. Good, Amanda. Thanks for having me. And until next time, keep fighting the good fight. We’re all in this together.

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