Amy Vaughan:
Hello, everyone, and welcome to our weekly power lounge. This is your place to hear authentic conversations from those who have power to share. My name is Amy Vaughan, and I am the owner and chief empowerment officer of Together Digital, a diverse and collaborative community of women who choose to share their knowledge, power, and connections. You can join the movement at togetherindigital.com. And today, I am absolutely delighted to welcome Katie Nelson, a powerhouse sales leader who has transformed the way businesses approach revenue generation. As the founder and CEO of Sales Uprising, Katie has spent over three decades mastering the art and science of sales, personally closing more than a hundred and 150,000,000 in products and services through her remarkable career. Way to go, Katie. She is on a mission to change the troubling statistic that 90% of businesses fail to reach their sales goals.
Amy Vaughan:
As a three time business owner herself, she brings a unique perspective to our ongoing debate In a chicken or egg scenario of business growth, which comes first, sales or marketing? With her signature approach that brings fun back into sales, Katie helps entrepreneurs transform their ideas into thriving profit generating businesses. Her expertise in creating workshops, mastermind courses, and business retreats has equipped hundreds of business owners with the tools that they need to succeed in an increasingly competitive world. Today, we’re going to explore why Katie believes cash flow is your business’s oxygen and how every business action can ultimately become a sales conversation. So whether you’re leading a marketing team, running your own business, or looking to strengthen your strategy, Katie’s insights will help you rethink the relationship between marketing efforts and sales results. So, everyone, please give a round of applause. Yay. And welcome, Katie, to the Power Lounge. We’re happy to have you here.
Katie Nelson:
Thank you, Amy. I couldn’t be happier to be here.
Amy Vaughan:
Fantastic. Yes. We have a common connection from our fantastic Molly Ruland, who’s a member and our podcast team leader and producer and sponsor. We love, love, love Molly. So, again, whenever it’s, like, good people connecting good people, you know, it’s just gonna be a good thing. And, you know, sales and marketing, you know, our organization, we let we lead more. God. It’s Friday already.
Amy Vaughan:
Lean more towards marketing, and we shy away from the sales. It’s scary making the task and doing the thing. But before we dive into that main topic that I know a lot of our members are ready to hear about, could you share a little bit about your career journey with our listeners? What led you to become a sales expert, and eventually finding a sales uprising, after three decades in the field, which I don’t think that’s right. That can’t be possible looking at you. Great.
Katie Nelson:
I’ll take it. Although I will tell you a secret underneath all of this purple hair is a full head of gray. I will. So how I got into sales, I think, like, started at the dinner table when I was eight. I know that sounds crazy, but both of my parents own their own business in the house that I grew up in. And it was forever a struggle or a worry that business was gonna go somewhere else or payroll wasn’t gonna be able to be made Yeah. Or whatever. You know, all hashtags, all the struggles of business ownership.
Katie Nelson:
And I think somewhere in my head, you know, I was an energetic eight year old kid. People liked me. I would sell campfire candy door to door. So I just kinda thought, you know what these people need? They just need someone who loves their stuff and sells it for them. I mean, it was super simple. I think it’s kind of the thought that got stuck in my head, and I took that and ran with it as soon as I was of legal age to go work. I worked in a call center selling stuff part time, you know, to earn movie money.
Amy Vaughan:
Yeah. I did that for a hot minute. Worst six weeks of my life, but a good education.
Katie Nelson:
I loved it. It was amazing.
Amy Vaughan:
What did you sell?
Katie Nelson:
I sold book clubs. I sold Gevalia coffee, which is still around now. I sold Gevalia coffee subscriptions. I sold the very first retinol a face cream over the phone
Amy Vaughan:
Nice.
Katie Nelson:
Before I even had a ring on. I sold windows.
Amy Vaughan:
Windows. That’s not fun.
Katie Nelson:
No. They tried it. So I was 15, and they tried to get me to sell credit card insurance programs, which, let’s be clear, when you work in a call center, comes with this huge script. If yes, then this. If not, then this. Right? So and you just kinda memorize it, and then you put your own sauce on it Yeah. If you will. And when they handed me the script and I read through it, I’m like, look.
Katie Nelson:
I don’t qualify for these programs. I don’t know what insurance is.
Amy Vaughan:
I’m Alright.
Katie Nelson:
I can read all of this and understand the language, but nobody is gonna buy this from me.
Amy Vaughan:
Mhmm. Yeah.
Katie Nelson:
So I think that’s how I ended up selling, you know, golden books book clubs to stay at home moms.
Amy Vaughan:
That one might not be, I might have been a little bit better at that than Windows. It was just like the scripting and the over, like, formula ization, whatever the word there would be. Yeah. That’s right. Trying to do this. That was the hard part for me.
Katie Nelson:
Oh, I found so much I find that so interesting. I found that part to be the best part because somebody had already collated all of this amazing data to say, if this is someone’s objection, this is the information that they’re looking for. So I never really had to think about it. So for me, the script was literally just a script just like it was in a drama. Right? Sure. So you’ve got your lines. Yeah. But every single one of us gets to bring us to any part that we’re playing.
Katie Nelson:
You know? Okay. And so I guess I kind of enjoyed that part.
Amy Vaughan:
This is your zone of genius for sure. Maybe not so much of mine. And then I’m kind of curious too, like, find founding and creating, like, your own business with sales uprising. What was that journey like and about?
Katie Nelson:
That journey was like, climbing up a mountain and then falling down a mountain and then deciding to climb up a mountain again. So I became an entrepreneur for the first time Mhmm. On accident. And what I mean by that is I didn’t give too much thought to it. I was in my early thirties, and a mentor of mine in professional services and staffing said, hey. I wanna start my own business. And do you wanna join me? And, of course, he said it in a way that made it impossible to say no. And I was like, of course. But I didn’t think of myself as a business owner because I was just doing the same job that I had always done.
Katie Nelson:
Because when you’re starting a business, the money in the door is the most important and needed thing. So I didn’t really think of myself as a business owner. That business ended up sadly, never getting off the runway because now we had made 6 figures in twelve months. It was beautiful. We just didn’t have enough runway for what the market could bear at that time with sequestration and the continuing resolution. Some people may find that to be applicable today. Yeah. Unfortunately, because that was years ago.
Katie Nelson:
Yeah. And then that business, like, kind of morphed into the next business with a different owner. And we did generate a $6,000,000 run rate in under two and a half years and grew that business before sales uprising became a thing for me.
Amy Vaughan:
Mhmm.
Katie Nelson:
Before I realized, like, my true passion is teaching I spent so much of my time teaching these program managers how to sell to their government Mhmm. Front facing people, people who I had never seen Yeah. For the betterment of the business. But I just realized I maybe had a talent for it. Yeah. And that’s what I really wanted to do. I wanted to help the moms and dads around the dinner table with their kids who were stressed out about their business, and teach them how to sell and and grow their business that way.
Amy Vaughan:
I love it. Bringing it back to the eight year old you. I feel like sometimes that’s the way, you know, you’ve made it. We measure success in so many weird ways in our world and society. And for me, it was like that moment when I was like, oh my gosh. I just made my eight year old self so happy. I’m doing the kind of work that I did as a child before the rest of the world got to me. Like, would have loved to know that that’s where we ended up, and that’s what we were doing.
Amy Vaughan:
So, yeah, I love that. I love it. I love it.
Katie Nelson:
I am a sales uprising, man. I want everybody to have one. So, you know, I get a lot of interesting questions about the name of the sales uprising. So if you can close your eyes and, like, think of every small business owner in Main Street or behind their computers, like, throwing up there and this is for you too, Amy. I heard you, to say, on it. I’m just gonna go sell because at the end of the day, if that is the one thing that you did Yeah. If you could battle and have an uprising against all of your mind demons about sales, your business, and therefore your life and your customers’ lives would be better. So that’s where that comes from.
Amy Vaughan:
I love it. Yes. Because you’re right. I mean, I think all of us entrepreneurs could have a better relationship with sales. And women in particular, I think it is something where we struggle. Right? Because we’re not socially conditioned to promote ourselves, or it’s not seen as something that’s attractive in a woman if they do that, in professional societies in some circles. So, yeah, I can totally understand why some people hold back on it, but you’re right. It is the lifeblood of everything.
Amy Vaughan:
Like you say, it’s the oxygen to your business, which we’ll get to more soon. But, yeah, without it, there’s no money coming in. So let’s kind of get to that topic, a little bit about how we’re talking about whether it’s cash or clicks, sales or marketing first. Where do you mean, we can’t even know. But where are you staying on this debate, and what experiences have shaped your perspective on this?
Katie Nelson:
Oh, you’ll have to remind me of the second part, the heftier part of the question. With that being said, what I would say is there is no one size fits all when it comes to business. Mhmm. So if you’re a product based business, clicks might be the thing. So a mark a bigger marketing presence is gonna be, something that you’re gonna wanna have created. If you are a service based business, I would tell you sales is gonna be the thing. Mhmm. Service based businesses are much more dependent upon relationships.
Katie Nelson:
So if you think about it you know, there was a lovely woman in the Together Digital community that commented, and she creates genealogy Uh-huh. Like right? So Wendy. Legacy boxes. Right? So in an effort for someone to know my family, like, I wanna know who they are. So she has to spend much more time marketing ultimately, but the sale has to do with her relationship with the human. Absolutely. Bots don’t buy. No.
Katie Nelson:
If they did, I’m sure algorithms would be and they’d be even better. We would love them instead of hate them. You know, but that’s just not. I haven’t outsourced the buying of my life to a bot at the moment. So sales is really the thing, and I would tell you, you can sell without a website. You know, when you’re first starting your business, after you get your tax ID number and you set up your bank accounts and maybe you have some thoughts on your logo or your tagline or all of these things, you don’t really need to do a whole lot with it. You need to figure out what you want to deliver to your customer, see if it’s sellable, and then you can grow everything from there. You can have the most beautiful idea of who you are as a business, what your business is called, your taglines, your fonts, your branding, like the sexiest branding, and you know all the people that create that. Right? Yeah.
Katie Nelson:
And if it’s an idea that no one will buy, it doesn’t mean anything.
Amy Vaughan:
Ugh. I think you just made all of our members and listeners’ heads explode. You can sell without a website. What? Katie, what the hell about a website?
Katie Nelson:
Girl. Look. You know what? Oh my gosh. I’m gonna be right back. I have to go grab something. Okay.
Amy Vaughan:
Oh my goodness. I know, seriously, listeners, your heads are like, wait. What? Spinning. But, Katie, she’s gonna make it make sense.
Katie Nelson:
So I had to go get my Google profile verified. Has this happened to anybody lately? Right. So yes. I put up all of the things for all of my business, and I found this hilarious old piece of marketing. Mhmm. You guys see it?
Amy Vaughan:
Yep. So for those that are listening to the podcast, it’s just a postcard that says sales uprising, maximizing relationships, and driving results.
Katie Nelson:
Yep. Drive revenue.
Amy Vaughan:
Revenue. Sorry. It was cut off.
Katie Nelson:
This literally was a stat this was a literally static landing page with, like, my name and, like, call me and my phone number for three years in the Amazing. I didn’t know anything. I won’t attempt to learn. I’m not one of those entrepreneurs who’s like, oh, I need to go learn how to do a website. No. Because that makes me a website designer. And I know nothing about that, and it’s going to take me so long. Oh, absolutely. So expensive if I do it that way. Mhmm. But I figured I would have a friend help me get this up. Yeah. And it would just stay there, and I would go sell my fanny off until I could afford someone to fix that.
Amy Vaughan:
Yeah.
Katie Nelson:
Like, to do something about to start somewhere.
Amy Vaughan:
Yeah.
Katie Nelson:
And the beautiful part about that is that through those sales, I understood my client better. So for everybody on here who is in marketing and branding, what my sales function brought me was understanding my niche better. Mhmm. Being able to talk in a way that they could hear me. Right? Versus spending all of this upfront cash on what I thought would be the thing to find out it’s not the thing and then feel like I have to redo it six months later, another six months later, and then another year later.
Amy Vaughan:
Mhmm.
Katie Nelson:
So sales first.
Amy Vaughan:
Sales first. First. Yeah. MVP it. Right? That makes so much sense. And so I was the second half of the question, and and you kinda got into a little bit, but I don’t know if you wanna add more color to it. But how, how has your experience shaped this perspective for you?
Katie Nelson:
I don’t know any other way. Yeah. Right? Like, I’m not the marketing person.
Amy Vaughan:
Right.
Katie Nelson:
As a thirty year boots on the ground salesperson Mhmm. I found marketing annoying. Mhmm. Because marketing is the prettiest of the things. Yeah. Like, marketing is lipstick. Mhmm. Yeah.
Katie Nelson:
It’s not grimy gritty, like, to throw it back to my parents. You know, they were in fencing and machinery. So Uh-huh. It’s not the dirt under your nails. It’s not the fast orange that you’re, like, using to scrub your and that’s what the sales function is Mhmm. Outside of delivery. Right? So on the front end of a business. And so I always was like, why are you asking me about why are you asking me about this? Go create whatever one slick you need to.
Katie Nelson:
Please note I have never used a one pager to sell anything ever. Mhmm. Right? So for me, it was all like acting. Yeah. Like, if I have pieces of paper that have my name and my company and my capability statement on it, that just makes me look bigger than I am, which maybe some people are gonna buy me for that. Mhmm. But if I took a straw poll Yeah. Of my clients over thirty years, I think maybe 2% of them would say, yeah, Katie.
Katie Nelson:
I purchased from you because you guys were the biggest name in the biz or you were big enough or you had the right marketing
Amy Vaughan:
Mhmm.
Katie Nelson:
Anything.
Amy Vaughan:
Yeah. No. It makes a lot of sense too when you think about it. You know, I just wrote down as you were speaking there. Branding and marketing sell, but they aren’t sales. They aren’t guaranteed sales, and it is a pretty thing. It is the shiny object that we all love and appreciate and want to spend time on. But you’re right.
Amy Vaughan:
At the end of the day, it is the relationship. It’s the sales that have to actually make, which is what makes the money move. So then as you kind of grow and build, then, yeah, then marketing and branding can kind of come into play. But it is a bit of a mind warp.
Katie Nelson:
I was gonna say so you know that I’m sorry for jumping in. But here’s the thing. You know, for all of you out there who have ever heard, I’d really like to know what ROI I’m gonna get out of my branding or marketing. Sorry for the noise. But really, like, what a horrible question.
Amy Vaughan:
Nobody loves that.
Katie Nelson:
And there’s actually an answer to that if the buyer Mhmm. Has done their due diligence. You will get more ROI if you can tell me cleanly and clearly who your target market is. Yeah. Right? So fantastic. I love that you’re asking this question. What kind of ROI are you currently getting? What, you know, what does your current sales funnel look like? Why do you think that your current marketing is failing you? And all of them could say it’s because of whoever I’m using, and you and I both know that is never true. It’s really not.
Katie Nelson:
It has to do with the business owner not being able to clearly articulate who they serve. Yeah. The benefits of why someone would work with them or even their packages.
Amy Vaughan:
Yeah. No. Yes. Exactly. Ugh. I feel that. I feel that. Alright.
Amy Vaughan:
Live listening audience. I know Danelle already jumped in to say, hey. Your energy is amazing. She builds websites, by the way.
Katie Nelson:
Yeah. That’s why you
Amy Vaughan:
I need a website, Katie.
Katie Nelson:
Well, Janelle, go look. You can tell me. I’m sure the answer is yes. It will always be yes.
Amy Vaughan:
Janelle, amazing too. She’s a member out in Denver. But, yes, live listening audience, please feel free to jump in and ask questions if you have them. We’d love to hear from you all. We were so glad that you’re here listening to us live today. Alright. So you’ve sold over a hundred and $150,000,000 in products and services. So, yeah, you clearly know what you’re doing and what you’re talking about.
Amy Vaughan:
We’re not gonna doubt that. What is the biggest misconception you see among businesses about the relationship between marketing and sales? I think we’ve kind of tiptoed into this a little bit, but let’s kinda keep going on that some more.
Katie Nelson:
It’s your fault. No. It’s your fault. No. It’s your fault. No. It’s your fault. No.
Amy Vaughan:
It’s my you know, there’s right.
Katie Nelson:
There’s those amazing memes or GIFs or GIFs or whatever they are online of, like, people pointing their finger at marketing and people pointing their finger back at sales. And I think for any of us who’ve ever worked in a corporate environment, you can fall down that rabbit hole so easily. Yeah. And it’s the saddest thing on Earth. It is. Because, like, who are you trying to fool? Keep the thing the thing. Yeah.
Katie Nelson:
If marketing can say, we have a thousand more followers than we did last month, marketing is doing its job. Right. If sales can say we hit the goal Mhmm. Or we’re over the goal, they’re doing their job. So instead of making it this arm wrestling match, the most beautiful thing is when we can come together and work together. Agreed. Marketing and sales are literally the same thing to some extent. Right? They’re just, like, think of a quarter.
Katie Nelson:
One’s heads and one’s tails. They focus in two different directions of the same thing.
Amy Vaughan:
Mhmm. Yeah. No. I absolutely agree. And I also feel like when you can kind of cease that in fighting and encourage collaboration between sales and marketing, then, yeah, guess what? It’s not just a win win for, like, you, your team. It’s a win for the whole company.
Katie Nelson:
Preach it, sister. Like, yes. All day every day. One of the things I’ve never been able to do or never had the opportunity to do when I ran a bigger team was be like, hey, marketing. Come hang out with me for a day. Yeah. Like, in just a true sales role, not as the vice president or anything like that. Just me as a business development executive or salesperson or account executive or client delivery executive.
Katie Nelson:
Lots of words for sales chick.
Amy Vaughan:
Yeah.
Katie Nelson:
But just come and hang out with me for a day so that you can see what it looks like Mhmm. To actually dive into. You’re asking me questions that I may not be able to answer, but if you could hear the conversation, you would know your answers. You’d be able to fill out the Mad Lib. And what I mean by that is I could have 10 juicy, sexy, revenue generating conversations in a day. Mhmm. But if a marketing person ever said, what’s the one reason why people buy from you? I would never be able to answer that question.
Amy Vaughan:
Interesting.
Katie Nelson:
Other than that, we’re awesome at what we do, and I communicated that to them. And so they said yes. Like but they a marketing person can’t put that into language that is gonna give you more market share.
Amy Vaughan:
Right.
Katie Nelson:
Right. Having your marketing people go out with your salespeople, having your salespeople go out and hang out with your marketing people and see the work that they have to put in to create sexy, juicy content that is Yes. Clickbaitable in today’s world. Right? It’s a yeah. I think it would go a long way towards everybody coming together and being like, oh my gosh. I love you. I could never do that. I have no idea.
Amy Vaughan:
Yeah. No. Exactly. I think it is. It’s like a kinda match made in heaven when you can find a makeable way to work. And I do think that oftentimes it’s, you know, I guess I went like, the marketing, like you said, is that kind of exterior wrapper. It’s the thing that might draw somebody in, but then the sales is what needs to, like, close the deal, close the lead, and the relationship needs to be there. And it’s like if one is not communicating with the other, it’s that’s where the letdowns can happen.
Amy Vaughan:
And so not only that, but, like, you are losing potential revenue by not having these two groups and departments working together, conversing, collaborating closely. Right? Because then all of a sudden, you overpromised and underdelivered. You know? And that can go the other way around too because, like, I’ve worked at places and agencies where it’s like we had a sales team, and they were going out to close deals and projects. And they would lean really hard in with some clients and get a little creative on stuff, and then they would come to us and be like, now we have to deliver on all this. And so then I just started saying, okay. Listen. We’re gonna, like, do, like, a weekly meeting together. I would love to be on your, like, maybe second call with a potential lead or client if you’re comfortable with it.
Amy Vaughan:
And they were more than happy because they’re like, bring it. Like, if I can bring somebody that’s in the business doing the work to this potential client, they’re gonna be like, oh my god. You’re already making me a priority. So it’s really just a win win.
Katie Nelson:
Absolutely. And what it does is also informs how you put together it gives the entirety of the company, Yeah. The opportunity to hear what clients really want.
Amy Vaughan:
Yes.
Katie Nelson:
Right? Through the noise of I also wanna be special. So yeah. One of the things that I find specifically in the marketing space is that y’all have an entire, like, does everybody know, like, Brazilian steak houses and how they have salad bars that have 99 different things because you can have an all you can eat salad bar at the steak joint? So y’all’s offerings are kinda like that. Mhmm. I want and I can go up over and over and over again and get different combinations of things. One of the biggest challenges that I challenge everyone with is thinking about the most common denominators and making it as simple as possible for your salespeople to sell.
Amy Vaughan:
Yeah. Mhmm.
Katie Nelson:
Or for yourselves to sell. Right? Yeah. Because the more you can come to commonality, the more efficient your sales life cycle is. Right. Everything else outside of it can be an upsell or a continuation of the relationship. Mhmm.
Amy Vaughan:
That’s a great point.
Katie Nelson:
And when we’re looking at our clients, how many of us would say that our clients know what they need?
Amy Vaughan:
Yeah. Nobody’s raising their hand. I can’t see any of them, but I know they’re not raising their hands.
Katie Nelson:
But but but but, like, they’re all going, Katie, you know that’s not true. True. You know we have to educate them about the appropriate way to do everything. If I use me as an example Mhmm. I’ve now been to nine sales this year. And I still couldn’t tell you what I know from a marketing perspective. It was horrible.
Amy Vaughan:
It is. It’s hard. You don’t and then my favorite client was the one, and I let her go right after that. This was actually, like, not even straight. I was pretty much up straight out of college. I’ll know what I want when I see it.
Katie Nelson:
See?
Amy Vaughan:
Oh, God. I was like, no, ma’am. No, ma’am. I cannot afford to hear that.
Katie Nelson:
Right. Thank you very much for letting me know. You know what? I’ve got another call. Yeah.
Amy Vaughan:
Goodbye. Oh, I’m late
Katie Nelson:
for a meeting. Definitely reach back out to me.
Amy Vaughan:
Right? Yeah. Who? Number.
Katie Nelson:
Yeah. And, you know, even as a business owner, I feel bad when people are like, ” Katie, what do you do, even the most simple things?” Yeah. I don’t find myself online very much. So when people ask, like, what are some websites that you would love your website to be the vibe of? I’m like, you’re joking. Right? I don’t have any idea what that means. I don’t know why you don’t show me the three sexiest templates of a website, and I can tell you what the most value is. I mean, for me to have to go look at the entirety of the Internet to figure out what my vibe is in terms of website when I know nothing Yeah.
Katie Nelson:
It is a big ask.
Amy Vaughan:
Mhmm. And that’s why I think too this whole kind of mindset shift of sales before marketing is that then you can start to see, like, why are our customers coming? Why are they buying? And then that’s how you, in turn, just reverse engineer that, and that’s how you market it versus trying to overcomplicate it because it can be challenging. The stand is crazy. Expensive, but, like, yeah, it’s so funny. You and Danelle, if you guys haven’t connected already, you need to. She was like, when you said, how many of your clients know what they want? And like I said, nobody’s raising their hand. She’s like, oh my god. Zero.
Amy Vaughan:
And then in parentheses, sobs into her coffee.
Katie Nelson:
It’s okay, girl. I feel you. And I’ll be in Denver in November.
Amy Vaughan:
Hey. There we go.
Katie Nelson:
I love it.
Amy Vaughan:
I love it.
Katie Nelson:
So, honestly, right, it really is true. So how many of you see, there you go. I love it when marketing is like, yeah, Katie. So it’s month to month. Mhmm. Like, people can come on board. Now I know of no one in marketing who’s like, yep. You see ROI in the first thirty days.
Katie Nelson:
Yeah. Because marketing’s function, the function of marketing doesn’t even work that way. The function of sales doesn’t work that way depending on the price of your offering and the heft of the service that you offer. Right. Right? If you’re selling an online course, Pishtosh. Right? Like, great. Yeah. For an online course at x amount of dollars, you just need to make sure that you’re the loudest person on the mountain and getting the most looks and whatever the case is.
Katie Nelson:
That’s not the heart of any of our business. And to create that one course that speaks to those people takes time. Yeah. If you don’t really know what your people need Mhmm. Why are we putting our
Amy Vaughan:
Shooting the dark. Course on.
Katie Nelson:
Right. Like Yeah. You just shoot the dark. We would call it throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks. Right?
Amy Vaughan:
Absolutely. Which is time consuming and expensive.
Katie Nelson:
I’m sorry. Can you say that louder, please?
Amy Vaughan:
Time consuming and expensive.
Katie Nelson:
Right? So, my company is based on basically squeezing all the juice out of every penny you have to invest in your business. And when you’re brand new, you’ve already spent money to get your business license, maybe get a domain name, print business cards, or even get a digital card kind of app. Yeah. You know, like, these things. And so I need you to make a deal as fast as possible because it isn’t until that sale happens that the wheels really start to click in, like watch gears.
Amy Vaughan:
Yeah.
Katie Nelson:
Right? So they go together with things versus crafting Yeah. Entire marketing plans out of thin air or just because you think so.
Amy Vaughan:
Yeah. Yeah. No. Exactly. This is so great. Oh my goodness. Alright. You have to say that cash flow is the oxygen of your business.
Amy Vaughan:
Could you expand a little on that metaphor and share some examples of how prioritizing sales can transform a client’s business.
Katie Nelson:
Absolutely. I did a YouTube series. You know, we all did weird things during the pandemic. Right? So I went into a studio a couple of times and put together these tidbits, and this series was called Feed the Fire. And fire in our business is cash flow, and oxygen is what feeds fire. And Mhmm. Cash flow is what keeps our business alive. So this is the theory.
Katie Nelson:
You know, this is the side that’s where all of that came from. So if you can, if everybody can, like, close their eyes and think about their companies as a plane, like their businesses as a plane, like their biggest visions for what they want through their own entrepreneurial capability, it ends up becoming a pretty big plane, like an Airbus three twenty or something like that. And what planes need in an effort to take off is the runway. And the bigger the plane, the bigger the runway. Cash in your business elongates your runway. Anything you do that either ex is an expense, which let’s be clear, marketing is an expense. Nothing wrong with it. But every expense hacks at your runway in terms of both cash and time and, like, bandwidth.
Katie Nelson:
Right? It doesn’t matter if you’re the CEO of a 5,000 person company or if you are you as a CEO getting her done. Yep. That’s just the universal truth. Yeah. So cash is what we need more cash is queen. It needs to be the focus because the majority of small business owners don’t start , they’re bootstrapped, girl. Let’s be honest. Who knows bootstrapped? Woo woo.
Katie Nelson:
Love me some boots, especially if they have straps. So Great. You know, I’ve been a business owner three times.
Amy Vaughan:
Mhmm.
Katie Nelson:
There was only one of those times when I really thought about what that would mean. Yeah. It took me being a business owner two times over to really understand what that would mean. Yeah. To me, quote, unquote, back office. And by that, I mean my house Mhmm. In terms of, like, what does it look like when you don’t get a regular check to pay rent or mortgage or your bills or whatever. Mhmm. You never really know.
Amy Vaughan:
Yeah.
Katie Nelson:
And we have a tendency when we’re new in business where every dollar we spend goes back into the business. And we tell ourselves really fascinating and false paradigms, like you have to spend money to make money. And it’s compounding. Right. So everything about all of that points to we need to make more money faster instead of taking our time to get it right. How many businesses do you know that literally never went anywhere because they took too long trying to figure it out? And what that really means, like, behind closed doors, is that they waited until they were too broke and too burnt out to ever even try and really sell.
Amy Vaughan:
Yes. Mhmm.
Katie Nelson:
It’s heartbreaking.
Amy Vaughan:
Yeah. Yeah. No. I can imagine. Yeah. It does seem really common, and it’s one of those things. It’s a piece of advice I got early on when I came into entrepreneurship, and that was, like, all of your the majority of your activities and time should be revenue generating act activities.
Katie Nelson:
Boom.
Amy Vaughan:
It is the thing that, like, it’s just I don’t know why. Usually, it’s because we are good at the other things that we might do and bring to the table. And when you’re an entrepreneur, you’re like, I’m my own boss. I’m gonna do what I want. Alright?
Katie Nelson:
You know? And and there’s always that, like, oh, Katie, I’m so excited I got to fire my first client. Like, this is, like, this bar of, like, now I know I’m really in business because I got to not work with someone who I just to save everyone’s money. Who I worked with.
Amy Vaughan:
Yes. Right?
Katie Nelson:
It’s a revenue generating activity. So I guess this is the other thing. So context. You and I talked about how there’s the context of a thing. Mhmm. There is a marketing pipeline, and there is a sales pipeline. So for anybody on the who’s listening to the podcast that’s like, yeah, Katie. So I don’t understand where these two rivers meet.
Katie Nelson:
Like, how does this look? Yeah. What does this look like? If you picture a traditional funnel and all of the activities that marketing does, that funnel sits directly on top of a sales funnel. Where they meet is at prospects. Mhmm. Right? And so there is this handoff. There has to be this handshake. And it really is best when reverse engineered. So if you start all the way at the bottom of a sales funnel with the little dollar that dripped out Mhmm.
Katie Nelson:
Right, which is a client, and then you deliver to that client, and then you reverse engineer what did it look like when I presented what it looked like when I asked them for their business? And you go up a level and say, what did it look like when I presented them with my options?
Amy Vaughan:
Yeah.
Katie Nelson:
What did it look like when I qualified them even further? Mhmm. Where did I get them as potential? Mhmm. And then all of the steps of a marketing funnel upwards. Mhmm. That is how we can if we focus on the dollar first, that’s how we create businesses that are cash flow heavy as long as that’s the focus. Right. Because that dollar informs every other piece.
Amy Vaughan:
Mhmm. Yeah. That’s how you follow the money, folks. I mean, I’m sitting here doodling. I’m, like, drawing your little funnels. I’m like, I’m so excited. You and I are gonna sit down, and we’re just gonna play around with more of this stuff. But, yeah, I think it is.
Amy Vaughan:
It’s such a different mindset and way to think about things because we just get all of the stuff pounded into our head over and over and over again. And like I said, most of our listeners are on the side of marketing. And so what are some other ways that they could better align their strategies to sales objectives? I mean, that example you just gave was great, but do you have any other thoughts?
Katie Nelson:
Well, one, I’m gonna challenge all of you to, like, a like, a thirty day money focus.
Amy Vaughan:
Mhmm.
Katie Nelson:
I like that. It’s not really what I can tell you. Mhmm. Because each one of you or you, you come with your own special sauce. I haven’t met all of you yet. Give it a minute. I will. But, you know
Amy Vaughan:
We’ll solve that.
Katie Nelson:
The truth of the matter is if you did nothing else, if you promised yourself like, you all know how to schedule your push out for posting and content. Ladies, gentlemen, you know that you have all the content you need for, like, the next five years. So quit saying you need to up your content game. What a bunch of hooey. So if you could set your marketing and forget it for thirty days, if you could say, Katie, right now, I promise I will close my eyes to my business’ marketing Mhmm. And I will only focus on generating cash for the next thirty days. I guarantee you you will be closer to your goals, your revenue goals, your business dreams than you are right now or will ever be if you don’t do that. Yeah. As a matter of fact, oh, look, Amy.
Katie Nelson:
I’m gonna give you homework. After thirty days so on April 7 Uh-huh. Right, thirty days from now, whenever you’re listening to this, I want you to get in touch with Amy, and I want you to know her
Amy Vaughan:
Hold me accountable.
Katie Nelson:
Put it on the right. If you’re in the community, put it in the Slack channel. How much money have you made?
Amy Vaughan:
I love it. Yeah.
Katie Nelson:
Let’s do it. Why wouldn’t we?
Amy Vaughan:
Like Because it then it begins to, like, beg that question of, like, really analyzing for your business what are your most revenue generating activities. Right? And you have to maybe do a little bit of thinking and digging, again, based on your product, based on your service, whatever that might be. Because sometimes I don’t think a lot of folks even know what that is. And, again, as a business owner, we are sort of preconditioned or just have preferences on the types of activities that we prefer because it’s comfortable. Right? But it might not be the thing that’s generating the money that we need to keep the money, the mission, whatever it may be going. And so trying to figure that out, I think sometimes for folks it is scary. When you say pause your marketing, I’m like, oh god. Like, things happen in my body just there. And I don’t mean pause your marketing, really. You guys are for thirty days.
Katie Nelson:
Yeah. Well yeah. Just go set like, set it and forget it. Yeah. You all are the brilliant minds behind marketing. You know how to do that, what it’s gonna look like. I would put forward that you probably have your plan for at least for three months. Yeah.
Katie Nelson:
Right? So why is it something that we pay so much attention to that takes up so much of our very, very expensive time? To play around with? Like, trust yourself and your own expertise and go focus on a different hat in your business. Go be the CEO and the number one salesperson and see what that act is where that can take you.
Amy Vaughan:
Yeah.
Katie Nelson:
Yeah. It can’t hurt. Yeah. I mean, I promise it can.
Amy Vaughan:
Right. Yeah. Thirty days. I love it. Alright. Well, I’ll have to check back in. Jeez. Homework for my own podcast.
Amy Vaughan:
Well, that’s a first, but I’ll take it. I’ll take it. I love it. Like, a good challenge. It’s all good. We need that. That’s why we need each other in communication or conversations like this in community. Because, otherwise, I think, especially as an entrepreneur, it is really easy to kinda get stuck in a bit of a rut in routine because you’re like, this is what this is, this is working well enough.
Amy Vaughan:
But is it enough? You know? Is it enough?
Katie Nelson:
The answer is probably, but we’ll never feel like it. Yeah. And, you know, the craziest thing about entrepreneurship, the thing nobody ever told me
Amy Vaughan:
Mhmm.
Katie Nelson:
And again, I owned two businesses. Of course, I had cofounders or co owners. Sure. But it’s a lonely joint. Yeah. Mhmm. You know, we spend a lot of time in our on our own hamster wheel
Amy Vaughan:
Mhmm.
Katie Nelson:
Trying to answer questions that maybe nobody ever asked.
Amy Vaughan:
Mhmm. Yeah. Yeah.
Katie Nelson:
And we don’t even really think like, why is this the question? Why did I think this was the thing? Yeah. And then we get stuck down that rabbit hole. I mean, there are so many scary, scary rabbit holes Mhmm. And it’s such a big long field with so many hidden booby traps
Amy Vaughan:
Yeah.
Katie Nelson:
That we can, you know, not look up for two weeks to see what’s going on. Maybe we got stuck in delivery. Right? So the thing we really love, the reason why we do this Mhmm. You know, we just paid attention to our clients for two weeks. Mhmm. And then we look up and we’re like, uh-oh. This well is dry.
Amy Vaughan:
Yeah. No. Exactly.
Katie Nelson:
What am I doing? Right.
Amy Vaughan:
No. I definitely know a lot of our listeners probably feel that as well. I was kind of curious too if there was ever an instance in kind of building and scaling through businesses, if there was ever really a mar a marketing initiative that hindered sales. And if so, what did you learn from it?
Katie Nelson:
Oh, marketing. So a marketing effort that hindered sales, I’d have to go back and look to see if ultimately the marketing has paid off. But for me, what that looks like is getting too lost in the marketing
Amy Vaughan:
Yep.
Katie Nelson:
To have a sales effort. Yep. That’s really what it always comes to. I literally have to outsource all of that. Yeah. Otherwise, I will be the proverbial person staring online to see if I got likes and clicks and scrolling and seeing if people subscribed or unsubscribed. I mean, it gets to which, let’s be clear, none of that is the point. What I care about is, hey. Is my calendar filled with juicy sales calls? Right.
Katie Nelson:
But when you are so close as an entrepreneur, so close to marketing, you know, you’re very much like Sally Field. You just want everybody to like you. Right. So I have absolutely gotten caught up in that and, like, from some bad trip or dream Yeah. Like, woken up going, wait. I what? Mhmm. I don’t know that I care about any of that. I only care about the people who heard it and Yeah.
Katie Nelson:
Get it and want it. Mhmm. Not all the other people. Mhmm. So for me, it’s very easy to lose the threat of the purpose of marketing. Yeah. Because it’s huge. You know, marketing is a huge umbrella.
Katie Nelson:
Sales is sales. Sales is like the simplest of things. I hate to tell you this, you guys, but the reason why you wanna care about sales is because it’s so much simpler than marketing. Marketing is this, like, umbrella that has all of these spokes, and they’re each their own thing. Right? So PR, branding, digital, and then even digital has its own little baby spokes that would just look for a funny looking umbrella. But, you know, in person marketing Mhmm. It’s wide. It’s huge.
Katie Nelson:
It’s varying. It’s massive.
Amy Vaughan:
Yeah.
Katie Nelson:
And so it’s easy for me and probably every single one of your clients to, like, get stuck in that and forget the revenue generation portion of pulling someone from the top of your marketing funnel all the way through to the dollar.
Amy Vaughan:
Right. Right. Right. Yeah. I totally get it. And it’s kind of hard to sometimes always put thoughts and words too because it’s like you keep seeing it time and time again, but it’s out there and it’s happening. And I feel like we’ve actually touched on it in the podcast a couple times before where it’s like, we become so in love with the idea of what we’re selling versus the actual sale. Right? And then we kind of get into our own little way of trying to think of what it was.
Amy Vaughan:
Gosh. I literally was having a call this morning with Bridget. Bridget, what did I say? She’s probably not listening right now. I think she had a client call, but we were talking about, oh, so my husband works for an AI company, and they were trying to create AI agents where you could actually not just talk to and create people, but you could actually talk to a product. And he was like, can you ever think he’s an academic and programmer, so he’s like you know, he’s listened and learned a lot by being around me for twenty plus years about marketing. But he asked me he dared to ask me, would a person ever wanna talk to a product? And I said, that sounds like a marketer’s wet dream. I was just like, oh my gosh.
Katie Nelson:
I feel like you when you talk about marketers’ heads exploding, they’re like, you’re gonna they’re gonna get blown up with, hey, Amy. Does he wanna do any, like, beta? Like, I’m happy to talk to him.
Amy Vaughan:
Yes. They do. But it’s like that’s the thing, though. It’s like, you know what? Unless you are truly solving a problem for a customer, say I need to put together a piece of furniture. Yeah. If you wanna have a bot or an agent that will talk me verbally through so I don’t have to keep reading the directions or instructions or something like that, then, yeah, but make it useful. But I would like to talk about just a bottle of ketchup. Hells no.
Amy Vaughan:
Like, I have more things to do with my life right now. I’m just worrying. Do I need ketchup? Because I’m pretty sure we’re getting low, so maybe I need to order some. Like, that’s the reality. So I think
Katie Nelson:
Here’s me. I’m like, do you need ketchup? What would it look like if you had no ketchup in your life? You know? Like, I don’t know. Like, question it all. Question it all. Ketchup is sugary. You know? Get to grow your own tomatoes. Squish them. I don’t know.
Katie Nelson:
You know, I don’t know.
Amy Vaughan:
I have to make a lot more sales before I have that kind of before I can buy that kind of time, Katie. But if that’s what I mean, though, I think sometimes by marketing, it’s like, you know, we get so excited. And, again, I am a former creative director and will always be a creative director deep down in my core. And so, yes, I love brilliant, big conceptual ideas. But at the end of the day, like, again, at the end of the day, are they creating the sales? Are you solving the problems that are truly out there in the world that are happening for people? And if you aren’t focusing, like you’re saying, on that sales and putting that first and then reverse engineering, then you’re kinda just making a bunch of stuff that really ain’t opening again. You’re just kind of adding to the proverbial garbage of the advertising universe. You know? Which honestly, at the end of the day too, let’s me mean, I don’t mean to go, like, totally down rabbit hole here again on my soapbox too much. Going into two directions at once.
Amy Vaughan:
Sorry for all my ADD friends that are riding along this train with me, but you really are. Like, you are adding to their carbon footprint to the stuff that we put out there, right, as advertisers. So it’s like, if I can even if you can’t take anything else from this too, like, maybe just think about it from that perspective. Right? Like, you’re not just doing a good thing for your potential customers and clients in business by focusing on sales first and then reverse engineering your marketing. You’re also saving money, time, and the planet. I mean, come on. It’s a win win win.
Katie Nelson:
I completely agree with you, Britney. I had a friend who was in marketing who she was the first person who said to me, content is spam. Yeah. And, I mean, we would arm wrestle about that concept. Mhmm. And to some extent, it can be true. Marketers, my favorite thing about them is that their brain is constantly working towards solving the riddle of how can you say this differently for this target market so that they can hear this message, which I love, about marketers. I would also put forward that somehow, and this is a mistake that I made, and I have to be very intentional in thinking about it. Sales is a very creative function for your business. Mhmm. If you close your eyes and you think about your top 10 clients, I would bet that they weren’t all sold in the same way Mhmm. Because humans are different. For sure. So don’t forget that your creativity can be utilized in your sales function as well.
Katie Nelson:
For the longest time, I just thought, you know what? Sales is, like, the most mathematical of the things you get. Because you hear it all the time. Like, for even if you’re bad at sales, you’ll close 10% of the deals. Now that’s absolutely true if you’re a huge corporation, you’re on a regular cold calling track, all of these things. If you’re a business owner who only wants to talk to qualified people who are potentially interested in your services, it’s gonna look vastly different. Mhmm. And so just don’t forget that you don’t have to take the creativity out of who you are
Amy Vaughan:
Mhmm. Yeah.
Katie Nelson:
In an effort to spell.
Amy Vaughan:
Absolutely.
Katie Nelson:
I when I told my people on a stage once that, like, I always thought I was the least creative person ever. I wasn’t the person in my house who, like, embroidered stuff or, stamped cards or was art quote, unquote artistic at all. Mhmm. I got so much pushback from what my people said, Katie, you like, the words that you use just to make things available to people and the different types of perspectives that you put forward are vastly creative. Mhmm. And I really had to think about it all differently. So I would challenge everybody who thinks that sales is, like, such a dry thing. Mhmm.
Katie Nelson:
You have the capability to be as creative as you want in your sale.
Amy Vaughan:
And I was gonna say, I often think that it’s funny. I think after a while too, once you know your product or your service inside and out and you truly do believe in it, like, you are selling and you don’t even realize that you’re selling, and that’s to be, like, the best kind of selling. Right? So I’m kind of wondering about that. And the homework that I have, you say every business action is a sales con conversation. So with this kind of perspective shift, like, how can businesses business owners like myself implement this mindset in their day to day operations?
Katie Nelson:
For I’ll give it to you guys easily because it can start from a marketing place. So every conversation you have, whether it’s online, in person, heaven forbid it be on the phone.
Amy Vaughan:
Wait. What? Those things that you can talk through?
Katie Nelson:
Yes. I love it just to hear someone’s voice. Imagine not being for those of us that may have, you know, more neurodivergence than others. If we could just listen to a voice, how could that help us? So all of that, how you present yourself is your marketing, is your in person marketing. And so even without, quote, unquote, being pushy, you guys have no idea how hard that is for me to say. But I know that some of you all feel that way. We’re being salesy. Not a real word. Try to look it up.
Katie Nelson:
You if you are just being you, this is what I mean by every conversation is a business transaction. Just by you and I having this conversation and educating people or literally just enjoying each other’s company and having a great conversation about things that you and I love Mhmm. It has the ability to turn into business.
Amy Vaughan:
Yep.
Katie Nelson:
Right? And you never know where that’s gonna be. Mhmm. So, you know, the best so be that all the time. You love your stuff. You’re the expert at this thing. You know you help people. Yep. So just embody that everywhere you go.
Katie Nelson:
Yeah. Yeah.
Amy Vaughan:
I love it. I agree. I agree. I think that’s where it’s gotten easier for me over the years. It’s like I just kinda get into my zone, and then I’m like, oh, didn’t realize I was selling it. Didn’t realize I was like, I’m just gushing because I like what I do, and I believe in our mission and our members and our community because I’ve seen directly having gone from member to business owner of the organization that I was a very member of that, like, this can be a life changing experience and opportunity, and it doesn’t feel like a sale at all. It’s just the damn truth, people.
Katie Nelson:
At the end of the day, as long as I think, you know, oh, the truth. We don’t have a whole lot of time, and we’re not interested in getting into, like, the world at large. Right. But
Amy Vaughan:
We need ten more hours. Right.
Katie Nelson:
I’ll make a cocktail.
Amy Vaughan:
Cocktail. Girl, let’s do it.
Katie Nelson:
You know, we get to decide who we are. Like, there are words that we use to describe ourselves, and I would bet with 99.9% certainty that the majority of your membership and listeners to your podcast are integral people, meaning that they’re very, very honest people. Mhmm. So you don’t have to worry. Right. You don’t have to fret. You don’t have to put a whole lot of time and energy into being something you’re not. And if you can, if we’re talking about creating longer runways, how great is that? Yeah.
Katie Nelson:
Truth as an efficiency in business.
Amy Vaughan:
Imagine that.
Katie Nelson:
You know, it’s the best. The reason why it works for you to sell that way is because it is true. Therefore, it rings true. I’m sure there’s, like, and a neuropsychological reason why ring truth rings
Amy Vaughan:
Yeah.
Katie Nelson:
Is a saying. I’m sure we could look that up. Oh, now I really wanna look that up. See, it’s not just you. Squirrel. But it is also one of the things that your buyers want.
Amy Vaughan:
Mhmm.
Katie Nelson:
Yep. You know, whoever you are, whatever your target market is, your buyer wants to believe you. So if you’re just telling the truth, you never have to worry about it. It can be the easiest thing.
Amy Vaughan:
Yeah.
Katie Nelson:
Trust me. This is what it looks like. Yeah. And you don’t have to be concerned about it. You’ve done all of the amazing marketing work. Mhmm. You’ve got potential people who wanna pay you Mhmm. In your pipeline right now.
Katie Nelson:
Yeah. So just go be honest with them. Yeah. I took a look at your website. You’ve got x, y, and z going on, girl. It’s no bueno. Mhmm. You know?
Amy Vaughan:
Yeah. Yeah. Do do a favor. No. I love it. Alright. There’s a statistic that you cite that 90% of businesses don’t reach their sales goals. That’s pretty staggering.
Amy Vaughan:
What are some of the reasons why you feel like this is such a statistic?
Katie Nelson:
Yeah. I think the last time I looked it up, it was, like, ninety eight percent of solopreneurs don’t hit a hundred k.
Amy Vaughan:
Mhmm. Yeah. Sounds good.
Katie Nelson:
And the reason for that is everything that we’ve already mentioned. Their focus and intention is elsewhere. Yeah. Instead of choosing very purposefully to go figure out how much the people they think they help will pay them to do that very thing. Yeah. If you focus on anything else first, every time you do that, you’re putting a boulder in front of your success. And so when we do that too much, the mountain becomes too high to climb. We can’t overcome it.
Katie Nelson:
Yeah. Every single person who runs a business understands that in addition to choosing to be a business owner Mhmm. You have the ability to decide whether or not you wanna be a CEO, a founder, a president, like, just the title of what you are. And regardless of what you call it
Amy Vaughan:
Mhmm.
Katie Nelson:
It’s a whole thing. Mhmm. Just like the title of mom or partner or like, those are also whole things. Mhmm. When you’re an employee, versus a business owner, those two holes aren’t equal.
Amy Vaughan:
Yeah. No. That’s true. Yeah.
Katie Nelson:
Being an entrepreneur requires more of you than anything. You and I talked about this. Right? Mhmm. And I said, oh, it’s such a controversial statement. Parents don’t like it when I say this, but being an entrepreneur requires more of you than even being a parent. Mhmm. Like, in the confines of your own home, your kids don’t expect you to be perfect. Your clients kinda do.
Katie Nelson:
Right. So there is so much pressure on us to get it right, and I think the majority of us never make it because we don’t focus on the right thing.
Amy Vaughan:
Mhmm. Yeah.
Katie Nelson:
If we are looking for our businesses to be successful, meaning our business pays for itself Mhmm. And it pays us. Yeah. Right? And I mean it pays us a salary, and I mean it pays us a livable salary. Mhmm. And if we’re lucky because of what we’re looking to create, it won’t just give us a livable salary. It will also do things like pay for our insurance like businesses should or like the company we would wanna work for would. Right? It pays us for our paid vacation time.
Katie Nelson:
It pays into our retirement and our long term health insurance. It helps pay for kids’ college or whatever that is, you guys. Mhmm. But when we stop focusing on that, we get further and further away from it, and so many people crash and burn to, like, just burn out. Mhmm. Lack of funds. They can’t go any further.
Amy Vaughan:
Right. Right. Right. Or just building that mountain of debt, which is also another slippery slope for a lot of small businesses out there. Yeah. And, I mean, on that note with you know, as a small business or solopreneur with limited resources, you know, obviously, we’re saying I feel like the question answered we’ve answered it. I don’t know why, but this one’s so far down. Focusing on building a sales process first or our content marketing first.
Amy Vaughan:
So instead of asking that obvious question, I’m going to say, where do we start in evaluating and building our sales process as entrepreneurs or small business owners?
Katie Nelson:
Don’t worry about it being a process depending on how big a company you start right away. Like, if you’re a bootstrap scenario and it’s you, if you’re the solopreneur, don’t worry about the word process. Gosh. That sounds so complicated for what it is. Just go sell your thing. Go sell your thing. And if it doesn’t hit your market Uh-huh. Look at two things.
Katie Nelson:
Is it what I’m offering it, or is it the market? Yep. Yep. And then go from there. And then try to sell the thing again either in a different way Yep. Or to a different market and see what you get.
Amy Vaughan:
Yes. I really like that, and I think focusing on both the offer and market are really critical. So I actually wanna dig in a little bit deeper on that even though we’re getting so close to time. Where did the time go? But, like, the offer is so paramount and the market is also so paramount. And by market, again, we’re not talking marketing. We’re talking about who you are talking to. Maybe give us, like, two good pieces of advice on both making sure that we’re, you know, we’re doing the right kinds of offers and that we are looking at the right market.
Katie Nelson:
Okay. So it will start with your expertise. Right? So let’s start with your offer first because it’s the easiest to understand. You come with some sexy stuff. You come with some sexy stuff. So we’re gonna move forward in that vein. You already started a business because of that very thing. So start with that.
Katie Nelson:
Start with what you think is your sexiest, juiciest, like, everybody’s gonna wanna eat it up with a spoon. You think in your mind, it’s the easiest thing on earth to understand, so start with that as your offer. Now you’re gonna pick a market. You’re gonna pick a niche is what Amy’s talking about in a different way to say it since we’re marketing versus market. You will know if you have it right after ninety days. If you are highly focused on your niche for ninety days and you don’t get anything, it’s the wrong niche.
Amy Vaughan:
Yeah.
Katie Nelson:
And that’s okay. You will have so much data about why that’s the wrong niche. You’ll have language that will point you in the right direction. So it is okay if you are adding a niche or if you are subtracting a niche and going in a different direction. Do it sooner rather than later.
Amy Vaughan:
Yeah.
Katie Nelson:
I think it would be an effort to stay on time. That’s what I would give people.
Amy Vaughan:
Yeah, I think that’s great advice. Yeah. And definitely looking at your market. Can they afford what you’re selling? Are they truly your market or not? I think that’s sometimes hard to acknowledge and realize.
Katie Nelson:
Or you may just not know.
Amy Vaughan:
Yeah.
Katie Nelson:
So ask. Mhmm. Don’t forget when you’re talking to your people, like, ask for a budget. I know you guys. I know. I just heard every single one of you cringe. Knock it off. Do you let me put it to you in a different way?
Katie Nelson:
Do you like getting super excited about something and then hearing the price and having your heart fall Mhmm. And be like, oh, I love you, but that’s just not me right now.
Amy Vaughan:
Mhmm.
Katie Nelson:
Why would you wanna do that to your people?
Amy Vaughan:
Yeah.
Katie Nelson:
So just ask them. So you’re looking to have a website built. Can I ask what you think you were looking to pay for that? Mhmm. Do you know what your budget should be? It’s a great opportunity to educate them on what that should look like based on what their goals are. Mhmm. Right? And it gives you an idea of, like, oh, wow. People really don’t know. Right.
Katie Nelson:
Or this market isn’t the right niche for me.
Amy Vaughan:
Exactly. Yeah. A hundred percent. Alright. Live listeners, you’ve got the chance here to ask a question if you’ve got one of Katie, but we appreciate all your engagement and comments in the chat while we’ve been chatting here ourselves. Katie, we’ve got, like, a minute left. So I’m just gonna ask you my favorite question that we had for you in the power round question today, and that was, what is your go to respond when a prospect says, I need to think about it?
Katie Nelson:
Great. What do you need to think about?
Amy Vaughan:
I love that. I love it.
Katie Nelson:
You know, you guys, at the end of the day, sales is a conversation. I know people will say sales is education, sales is a solution, sales is all these things. But, really, you’re talking to somebody. So if somebody said I need to think about that, my question one, they should never ask that because at the end of your presentation, you will say, is there any other question that you have
Amy Vaughan:
Mhmm.
Katie Nelson:
Right, for me that I can answer that will let you know I’m the right company for you? So, ultimately, they should never ask that. You get ahead of that question. But if you have forgotten to ask that question and they say, I just need to think about it, I love that for you. What exactly do you need to think about? Mhmm. What questions do you have that I can answer? What’s your timeline on that? How long are you willing to have this be a problem or a challenge for you before you’re ready to take care of it?
Amy Vaughan:
I love that one. That’s a good one right there. That’s money. Because, yeah, they’re just sitting there. Again, you’ve if you have the right audience, right, the right market, and you have the right offer that it feels, like, stupid to refuse. Right? And then they still have this. Oh, that last question. That’s perfect.
Amy Vaughan:
I love it. I don’t have to play that one back a couple times.
Katie Nelson:
Well, good. And ladies and gents, add it earlier. When you’re qualifying your people, before you ever present the amazingness of you. Mhmm. Ask them all these things up front.
Amy Vaughan:
How long? Yeah. How long are you willing to let this continue to be an issue? How much longer do you want this to keep you up at night? Because I can just solve it for you right now.
Katie Nelson:
The sale doesn’t happen when you ask them the question about whether or not they wanna do business. It happens way before that.
Amy Vaughan:
Yeah.
Katie Nelson:
So we should never leave any opportunity for a question like that to be at the end.
Amy Vaughan:
Yeah. That’s fantastic. Well, on that, phenomenal advice. We’ll go ahead and wrap it. Don’t worry, my friends, the numbers. Katie is in our Slack. So if you all wanna ask her more questions, you can feel free to jump into Slack, maybe get some time with her. I also dropped the links to her website and YouTube channel into the chat, so make sure you grab those before we hop off.
Amy Vaughan:
Katie, thank you so much for sharing all of your expertise and insights, with our community and energy. You just love it. Your perspective on purchasing sales and the importance of cash flow as business oxygen is, I hope, going to help save and keep a lot of good businesses going because we got a lot of awesome business owners here within our group. So base makes basically, make sure that you all connect with Katie on LinkedIn or on our Slack and to our Power Lounge community. Thank you so much for joining us today. If you enjoyed this conversation, please share it with a colleague or someone who else might benefit from the insights. Remember that Together Digital, we believe in sharing our knowledge, power, and connections. And to learn more about the community, upcoming events, again, check out our website, TogetherinDigital.com.
Amy Vaughan:
Until next week, everyone keeps asking. Oh, no. Wait. Keep giving and keep growing. Not next week. We are taking a two week break, y’all. It’s spring break. I’m going to be in Austin for South by next week and then in the mountains with my kiddos the week after.
Amy Vaughan:
So please go back and check out some of our past episodes. We have got three amazing seasons of wonderful, amazing, powerful women such as Katie for you to listen and learn and grow from. So, yeah, we’ll see you all in March. Everyone, take care till then. Bye.
