Sales Mastery: Secrets to Closing Deals

Speaker 1: could hear the clock ticking away the seconds of my life and by now I'm a mom and I'm providing for my family but I'm miserable and as I was hearing the clock tick one day I suddenly remembered that moment in the grocery store and I was like oh my God I set it up then I decided I could never take care of myself and my family and that was the day that I quit and started my company I'm Melanie bar welcome back to the Sheil it podcast your go-to place to empower you to live the life and business that you crave I'm here to talk about everything from Having the courage to make life and career leaps to the details of how to lead effectively create successful teams Implement strategies for growth and Infuse Tech Innovation I'm here to celebrate your wins and navigate through your challenges I live in the city now but I grew up in a town of a thousand people I've navigated major life leaps a senior level corporate career worked in professional sports and now as a successful entrepreneur who loves business technology family and making meaningful connections with you and the Sheil it Community I also love a good workout and dose of self-care magic happens when we focus on the part of ourselves and our business that brings us joy so turn up the audio open your favorite Notes app grab your favorite drink and here we go welcome back to the Sheila podcast thank you for joining us Sarah share with us your your journey to becoming a business mentor and what inspired you to focus on helping women start and grow businesses it started when I was really young and I wanted to dance it was something I always wanted to do and I was raised in a little tiny town outside of Salt Lake City Utah so lucky me there wasn't much else to do but dance or get in trouble so I danced and when I finally made the High School dance team which was my lifelong goal at the time I got the letter that talks about how much the dance costumes were going to cost as shoes and the jacket and all the stuff and I was so hard broken because we were so poor when I say we were so poor I was raised by a single mom with my younger half brother and there were times we would have half a loaf of bread and a jar of honey in the fridge at the end not ketchup not that was it and that would happen often and so I knew we couldn't afford these costumes so I went and got a job at the mall worked at a little cart and I got my little paycheck and I was so excited because it was enough for the deposit and so my mom took me to the grocery store where they had like a service desk kiosk where I could cash the check back then when people actually served people it was so nice so I go and I get my check cashed and as I'm doing that my mom says hey Sarah the strawberries are on sale can we get some and I'm like yes I'm thinking of the strawberries I'm thinking of my costume we can do both so I'm getting the check cash she goes to get the strawberries and then I go to the Express checkout lane to find her and she's not there and I'm looking up and down all the different is and finally I see her in line with a cart full of groceries and it's filled with my brother's favorite lunch meats and some bread for his lunches his favorite breakfast cereal some milk and the strawberries and I know she can't pay for these groceries so I'm standing there thinking I can pay for something I wanted since I was little which is being on this dance team or I can buy food for my family but I can't do both and in that moment I decided I'd never ever be able to take care of myself and my family I would always have to choose cut two after that day I am the only woman I have 65 cousins I'm the only woman who graduated from college in my family and I moved to New York City because you can make it there you can make it anywhere I have this huge corporate career thank you and I like have this awesome team in this Great Glass office and all this stuff and I hate my life I'm like so miserable there's a Sarah shaped hole in the wall where I ran away right like I hated it and it was a moment in my office where I could hear the clock ticking away the Seconds Of My Life and by now I'm a mom and I'm providing for my family but I'm miserable and as I was hearing the clock tick one day I suddenly remember that moment in the grocery store and I was like oh my God I set it up then I decided I could never take care of myself and my family and that was the day that I quit and started my company and I did that because one I never wanted anyone to feel the way my mother felt that day or the way I felt that day in the grocery store and as I continue to grow my career I was always the only woman in the room and I didn't understand why this is fourth grade math nothing here is that hard why am I the only woman in this room we're talking about work ethic work environment and the company culture and we're doing Financial projections why is no one else in here with me and so in that moment as the Clock Was ticking and I ran away I decided to help as many women as I could make as much money as possible because when women have money we do awesome things case in point that day everybody always says okay but what did you do did you buy the groceries or did you pay for your costume and I paid for the groceries this part makes me cry sometimes but then another woman in my neighborhood heard what had happened and she paid for my costumes and that's what women do with money and it was so cool in 2019 I went back to Salt Lake to host an event and people know this is my grocery store story and I got to bring her up on stage with me and say this is the woman who paid for my costumes or I probably wouldn't be here today God knows what would have happened and I got to thank her publicly and that was so meaningful because she passed away in 2020 and that just solidified for me how important it is that we as women want to thank each other lift each other up as much as we can but also make sure we're all making money and it's time for women to have the most powerful tool in our hands as well so that we can start to not only fix some of the problems but really create things that are powerful and beautiful for each other such a powerful story and much like your story I worked for for the Los Angeles Dodgers and I remember looking around in in a boardroom of 30 people there were probably two women actually at the table and then going through covid so many women had to take care of fames so I love how you supporting and teaching women how to do this because we can might be challenging at times and we're going to go through different seasons and some Seasons might be harder than others but there's no reason why we can't I actually think we're excellent at it like we are really good at it it's part of our ability to multitask so well and so naturally we're really good at it you speak at conferences worldwide what are some of the key messages that you aim to convey when you speak to larger audiences a there's two that I really love so one is I love I say this and everybody always goes that's me and I'm like I haven't defined it yet but that is I'd love to talk about high functioning codependence in women and what this is what we were just talking about if you were born into a female body we have more connective tissue between our right and left hemispheres in our brain if you're born into a male body there's less connective tissue and what this leads to is traditional men right their ability to just focus in on something I always joke with people I have lots of Brothers right so I know this well they're watching TV and you're like dude can you help me over there they're like but I'm watching TV right and can't do anything but that one thing and they're not trying to be obstinate their brains wired that way to stay focused on one thing and our extrac connective tissue allows us to do things like pick up the phone and be like yeah did you take the chicken out of the oven no I don't want to have that meeting then did you respond to those guys about that thing yeah no I'll be there at 6 and we can do this and it just falls out of us and so we can over function and we're very high functioning but what happens is we function for everyone else and this high functioning piece gets turned on its head a little bit and I think Glennon Doyle just spoke about this so beautifully in unamed that book is just awesome where where's little girls it's oh where's my smile don't cry where's my pretty girl those kinds of messages that we get what's under that is your emotions are bothering me can you please stop having them and so we pick that up real quick and we start to learn the more selfless meaning we have no self the more selfless we are the more we're rewarded oh my God she's so selfless she's killing it she's always got it all together even though she's falling apart on the inside and so that's where that codependence piece comes in as we start to get rewarded for the overfunctioning because we can it comes naturally at first and then we start to suffer but we're supposed to keep going because that's what gets rewarded and so working with each other as women to untangle that and start to look at no no I'm allowed to have my feelings thank you Taylor Swift I'm allowed to have my feelings I'm allowed to talk about this and no I won't be doing that just because I can and starting to let other people support in daily life so that's one of my favorite topics and then the other thing I love to talk talk about is the skill of influence and that I've really learned through my 15 years of running this business that influence is a skill we think it's a talent we think it's something people are just born with and they can just do and I'm not talking about the influence or industry I'm talking about the power of influence getting your children to pick their socks up off the floor having other people help inside the business when you stop and say guys we need to have a company check in everybody does and they listen to what you say that kind of day-to-day influence it's actually a skill and I love breaking down there seven individual pieces of influence and how you can develop each one on a daily basis to really become an amazing human which is at the Key of all influences that you're someone people can trust and believe and you're present with people and then how you can practice that on the daily to continue to influence more of your team to become even more influential themselves so it's this beautiful compounding interest that can happen that's so true and it's interesting cuz when my twins were born joke that I had pretty good multitasking skills in the beginning but they took them to an entirely new level and how I see that transpire into business every day because you're leading so many things at that point so true yeah it's so true yeah it is and you're so right about being able to multitask all those things but also bring it back to a business and a company culture to be able to bring people together and say what do we need to do to execute what do we need to do to move forward and it's interesting because I haven't really thought about influence in that way but it's so true and people get super excited when I'm like by the way you can learn this and hone this this is something you can practice you aren't just born with it I do think we get nervous oh that's that oh that's so easy for melie she just gets on the camera and talks it's so easy for her that's oh but it's so much deeper than that and it's a skill you learn and it's something that you get better at over time 100% in your experience what are some of the most common challenges women face when starting their own businesses and how do you help them overcome these obstacles this one comes down to self trust there's no other answer I don't think and it stems from that high functioning codependence piece this idea that we are really trained and I'm not saying there's a big bad training people but through our culture through ideas through conversations through examples what we see it becomes very clear that what we need is not as important as what other people need and once a woman becomes a mother once any human becomes a mother that just is on steroids but just thinking it just becomes very obvious at that moment not that you always have to carry that with you but especially when they're little but then it doesn't stop when it is intended to where we go back to the tribal setting of all of us contributing to each other and supporting each other especially inside the house and so healing all of this self- betrayal that's happened over to yeah I'll take the 15th meeting today even though I'm about to drop dead and I think I have Co like all those different extremes that we do and we so have to love each other up and give so much compassion and support to each other to be like no you don't want to walk down the street let's go girl I got you let's go this way and trusting each other when that happens and also being there for each other go no I heard you I heard you say you don't want to do that let's not do it and really being there because we don't hear that from other people we hear thanks good oh you're you're such a champ you're such a team player oh God you're so selfless oh you're so amazing as a to she said no and like I said there's a huge swath there and so it sounds extreme but I want to highlight the extremes because I think that's how far it can go because of how other people have treated us not our fault in any way shape or form but we need to be there to support each other so when I had sit down with someone and they're like my business isn't working what's not happening I'm like what do you want to be doing and sure enough what will fall out of her mouth immediately is this beautiful project she had her like this passion signature offer she wants to be known for yeah my team didn't think it work or I don't know my husband didn't like it or whatever all those different things and it's like that I so get that and it's so great you have a board of advisers and what do you want it can take us a really long time that's what I mean by healing that because it's been taken from us from such a young age and it's oh my gosh how can we just love each other up to heal that so that we can go oh no this is what I want to do I totally heard you you don't think it's going to work I want to find out and you don't have to be a jerk about it you never have to be obstinate or combative but always knowing that if it came from us it is so worthwhile to pursue because no one else will do it the way you do it and so healing that self trust the second we do that I watch people's Revenue shoot up I watch the team grow I watch the social media explode whatever it is they actually wanted to have happen starts happening because they start being true to themselves and it is so much deeper than love yourself it's so much deeper than that it's every single time you shoved that quiet voice to the side in any of those the thousands of different situations I just covered anytime we do that it's like another Nick of oh you don't trust yourself oh yeah I'm not trustworthy yeah no I don't know what I'm doing so we really want to work on healing that it's so true and trusting your instincts and going with your gut is such a muscle and the first time you do it you think oo okay that felt good and that worked so I think I'll do it again but you got to try keep trying you you got to take that leap in the beginning and trust your instinct the first time in order to build on that 100% you're known for your weekly coffee with Coach streaming video conversations can you tell us more about these sessions and what kind of impact have they had on your community oh my gosh this was like the craziest thing I don't know melie did you ever have those ideas in business and you're like who said that am I crazy like you had have that moment of really I sent out an email that the title was can I crash your station and what I said was I'm going to go live I'm going to set you up for Success every single day and I start started them to be 15 minutes of a reminder of my morning process which is just a series of questions who needs me at my best today how do you reach out to the people who need you the most how can you be of the highest level of service are there any messes you need to clean up those sorts of things that I just wanted to support people and doing on a daily so it didn't turn into one long Saturday you like what every day is a Saturday every day those TI talks were entertaining though but yes so all of that stuff that's how it started and I went live every every single day it started at 15 minutes by the time we hit the end of March it was an hour long cuz people were asking me live coaching questions and I had this really strong inclination again listening to self Trust of no keep doing this and I was like I'm giving away an hour of coaching every day just keep going I was like okay and different people started to show up and one day I accidentally was streaming to the wrong Facebook page so it went to my personal Facebook page and all of my high school friends all the guys I dated before like all these people I'm like how are they on here I was like what's going on but that specific day was so helpful for everyone that showed up and that was probably in May but for four months I went live every single day every weekday I pulled it back and I was like I think we need to put this on YouTube and so we changed it I stopped doing it every day and just started putting it up and let anybody come with anything they need it's morphed since then to I'm really teaching I'll teach a concept I'll teach something and then I'll coach people live as they need what advice would you give to women who are just starting out in their entrepreneurial Journey especially those who may feel overwhelmed and uncertain about the path ahead I will say data she just did this with the coaching client today she's not thanks working I'm like wow that's wow can we break that down for a hot second what do you mean everybody's cancelling and I'm like who's everybody and it turned out to be one person right but it feels that way when you're in it and I think one of the most important things we can do and this is another thing women are so naturally good at is just sitting down and saying okay let's actually look at what happened and I love doing this in the digital space right now launches are just getting hammered the 2021 2022 let me launch a course thing is so dead compared the way it was we'll reinvent it we'll all come back that's fine but people are working twice as hard now to produce half the amount of the result that can be really discouraging right especially if you're just starting out you're like what I thought I was going to make a million dollars from a ball of twine in the beach every two that's what Instagram says there is a real need for courses still absolutely but then some I made 5 in one week you're like did you really did you though yeah and the other thing too for someone just starting out I really want to warn you that's probably true that they made that much but they might have spent six in order to make the five and so you've got to understand that like you really want to get down to data and that's why I'm saying it's your best friend so in those moments when you feel overwhelmed or you're like oh my gosh what happened is that there's so many just easy steps to look at how were the open rates how were the click-through rates how did the sales page do what were those conversion rates you can find where broke down and then you go great now I know where to work next time and then you try it again in this insta society that we live in I I don't just mean Instagram it's can be really challenging to find that grit and to find again the self trust and the patience to actually build things the way they were meant to be built which is you have to start right I was just working with another client who's launching a jewelry company she's oh my gosh there's so much I don't know how do I I go every person that you love started at this point nobody didn't go through this even if they inherited the business they had to learn what you're learning right now there's no shortcut to that so true you have to be in it you have to be in it and learn it and then you can pass it out it's exactly right pass it on to the team yeah that's exactly right and just to not be afraid to start who do you think's going to do a better job someone who researches a camera for n months or someone who flips on their phone and starts talking you got to get in it to learn so just don't be afraid to be seen starting small don't be afraid to make mistakes and trust yourself as you continue on that Journey that is your biggest asset is your own instincts and healing that is fast as you can so you know you can trust yourself magic happens when we focus on the part of our business and oursel that brings us joy we've talked a lot about business today but what is one thing that you make sure to do to find and live your joy outside outside outside it's hard I live in a climate where there's snow half the year but to get outside the other thing I love my father was a lawyer for the screenwriter guil for a really long time and my stepmother was a screenwriter so I have fallen in love with dialogue since since I was very little so I either get outside or I watch something very witty where I know a human being actually wrote that dialogue I get so stinking excited it just makes me so happy yeah we have to have humor in our life I'll go through the times on Netflix where I watch something really heavy and then you're like okay time for something light and funny video H hry so true thank you so much for sharing all of your knowledge with us today so you've left us with so much to think about to help us grow in our lives and in our business can you please tell us how and where we can find you yeah thank you for asking by the way so you can come on over to Sarah walton.com that's like Walton like the family on TV or the Walmart family depending on how old you are and Sarah with an H so you can come on over and say hi I'm also on YouTube where you can find coffee with coach and you can also find the game on girlfriend podcast video version there and then come hang out with me on inag it's the Sarah Walton not because I'm the Sarah Walton but because my name was taken thank you for joining us today I'd love to hear from you reach out to me at hello Sheil it.com on our shetit website or at Sheed on social thank you to my editor Rich draino who always makes us sound good until next time let nothing stop you from experiencing the life and business that you crave