Episode #116: The Power of Soulful & Sensitive Selling

Soulful selling – what it really looks like for sensitive business owners, what is it NOT, and why it’s the ONLY way business gets to be sustainable.

Listen to the Episode:

soulful selling, what does it really look like for sensitive business owners? What is it not and why is soulful selling the only way that business gets to be sustainable? You’re listening to quietly ambitious with conversations about how it really feels to build a business that honours your whole self unapologetically. And that includes who you are, how you feel, what you really desire, the impact that you want to create, and importantly, the money you want to make. I’m your host, Ruth Poundwhite. And my superpower is supporting sensitive and ambitious humans to make more money by fully expressing and owning all of who they are. Let’s dive in. Hi, and welcome to a solo episode, the first proper solo episode of season seven of the quietly ambitious podcast. I am so happy to be back for another full season, and you are gonna get some juicy interviews coming soon. But today, I wanted to talk about soulful selling, what that actually looks like as a sensitive business owner, what it entails, what it means, and why it’s so important for it all to be sustainable. So I’m going to start by sharing what soulful selling means to me. And if you’re following me at all, or if you listen to the last podcast episode, you’ll know that I am about to, depending on when you’re listening to this, I run a summit called the soulful sales summit for sensitive business owners that is free by the way, and I highly recommend you go and grab a free ticket at soulful sales summit.com. Ideally, before we start on the 11th of October, otherwise, you’re going to miss some of it. But I want me to explain what sample sales even means because these kind of terms get thrown around quite a lot in the online business world. And I think it’s important to actually unpick them a bit. So for me, soulful selling, and especially for sensitive business owners, but actually I think this applies to all humans, who all have different energy levels and unique needs and personalities. soulful sales, to me means selling in integrity with yourself. And clearly because we’re all different, because we’re all unique individuals. What is in integrity with yourself is going to look different to what soulful selling is for someone else, right. And it’s also really important to say that being an integrity with ourselves is not something that is necessarily easy to practice 100% of the time, there’s a lot of inner work and uncovering unlearning, that goes into actually figuring out what being in integrity with ourselves even looks like in the first place, right? So simple sounding familiar, it’s really all about feeling empowered to use sales tactics. I say that in inverted commas, two sales methods, to show up five business in a way that supports my personality and energy levels. And also, in a way, in an empowered way, that means I am fully behind the value of what it is that I sell. I just want to say here that ethical selling can come into it. But soulful selling for me isn’t about what’s right and what’s wrong. And actually I don’t, I don’t believe it’s as black and white as, as some people make out. The definition of what’s ethical in terms of selling will, again, vary from person to person, but the best job we could can do is do it in integrity with ourselves and also be willing to, when we figure out we haven’t done it, right to change it and to admit it. So that is what soulful selling means to me. And to be honest, I see this so much it definitely in myself in the past and with a lot of my clients is that we don’t feel fully grounded, we can’t believe the value of what what it is that we do that it feels very uncomfortable, to take up space, and to put something out there and claim that it will have such a transformational benefit on people’s lives.

And soulful selling really as part of that as well. So it’s not about just like, you know, doing it in a way that you feel is nice for other people. It’s about doing it in a way that is good for you. And part of that is really owning the value of what you do. And I’ll talk about that later on in this episode. Actually, I am going to have a full presentation in the soulful sales Summit, where I will go into rewriting the rules about what it means to sell as a sensitive business owner, and some really concrete exercise for how to get behind the transformation of what it is that you offer. So go to soulful sales summit.com to sign up for that. And let me just say before we dive into the rest of the episode, it is free, but there is a paid upgrade. So for the free access, you’re gonna get daily access to all of the presentations on that day. They’re all going to be available for 24 hours from whatever day it is. There’s four days and there’s a Schedule page and everything so you can figure out which ones you want to go to. But there are going to be a available for 24 hours each. If you buy the upgraded pass, you get ongoing access. So if you’re late and you’ve missed some of them already, then the the upgraded pass will be the only way to get it. But in addition to that, we also have a bundle. So lots of the speakers have contributed their courses, workshops, template libraries, things that they normally sell separately, they’ve contributed to this bundle, the bundle is an absolute bargain. And it’s all designed to support you as a sensitive business owner. We’ve got stuff about how to do client calls and get clients without feeling icky. We’ve got templates for putting yourself out there we have got really simple techniques for finding new clients in the first place. We’ve got a pricing masterclass, we have got, what else have we got my mind’s going blank. But there’s so much more than what I’ve said, journaling prompts to do with really connecting with yourself. We’ve got it all we’ve got categories, the three categories of offers, we got our money, clients, money and clients and sales. We’ve got connecting with yourself believing in yourself and we’ve got soulful marketing. So we’ve got 27, I believe, probably more once it actually goes live, because I think I’m going to add some nice bonuses 27 courses programmes in the VIP bundle, plus, you’re going to get to come to transformational experiential session where we’re going to like clear some of the way energetically for you to show up and sell. We’ve also got a breathwork session.

Yeah, it’s going to be good plus all the replays at the summit stuff. So it’s gonna be good. So go to soulful, sell summit.com To get your free ticket. And they’ll be an option to upgrade if you want to, or you can just do it totally free. And like I said, I’m going to have a whole talk about rewriting the rules about selling and really getting behind the transformation. I’m going to do like a proper exercise for that. But I will talk about it in this episode as well. So a question that I really want to ask you is what do you think selling means? And I know that this might sound like a really basic question or a dictionary definition. But the truth is that we all have really tangled up meaning about what selling is or should look like based on what we have experienced in the past. So for some of us, it might be that sales is icky sales is pushy, sales is trying to rip people off sales is trying to make out that something’s better than it actually is. Or putting too high of a price on it could also be that sales means being confident sales means being really good at what you do. And actually knowing that and you don’t feel like that. And this is where we can get stuck, especially sensitive business owners thinking either sales isn’t a good thing. And it’s not a nice thing to do to people or, and or I’m not the kind of person who would be good at selling. So the first thing that I think is really important when it comes to soulful sale at soulful sales. And again, I’m going to talk about this in more detail in the summit presentation is that we are we have the power to change the rules, we have the power to change the rules. And I’ve talked about this so much in terms of being a business owner, what kind of people have what kind of businesses like I used to think I wasn’t the kind of person who had a podcast, we get to redefine what it looks like to be someone who speaks. You don’t have to be a confident extrovert to be scared introvert like me, not that I’m scared all the time. Now that I was at the beginning doing a podcast, you get to be a sensitive seller, and you have to sell as a business owner, right? There’s no getting around it you have to sell. But you get to do it your way. So soulful selling really is about not not knowing that there’s a perfect set of rules out there there isn’t, I’m not going to give you a set of rules for how to sell. What I want to do is invite you to figure out what those rules are for yourself. And the other thing that I really want to say about selling especially for sensitive people is that there are reasons why selling can feel hard. So I know a lot of you listening will resonate with the idea that you can be feeling really confident about something you could spend a lot of time putting an offer to get the behind the scenes, you can be feeling good about what you’re doing. And then as soon as you put it out there, as soon as you make it public. All these doubts come flooding to you. Am I good enough at what I do? Are people going to judge me? Is what I’m doing just a load of rubbish. Am I kidding myself? Is anything in the work? Or potentially even do I have to do all the things to make it happen? Do I have to push harder, it’s exhausting. It’s not sustainable. Unfortunately, this is a really normal experience for us. But I also want us to remember that we have the power to learn from any challenging experiences we’ve had around selling in the past and also to change and improve the way that it is that we actually show up and sell. There are very good reasons, by the way, why selling feels hard when we put ourselves out there. Firstly, it’s really normal to worry that you’re going to be annoying people because you as the person who’s selling something are the only one who’s actually seeing absolutely everything you’re writing and saying about it. So like when I’m selling something I know how many emails I’m saying I know how many times I’ve repeated this sentence about my offer. I know how many times I’ve repeated the offer that is available. I see all the social media posts I do about it. So it’s kind of normal for me to think am I banging on? Am I being too much? I being boring? Are people gonna pay any attention to this? The truth is that no one pays as much attention to what you’re doing as you do me, we don’t see all the posts that everyone else does about selling stuff. And pretty much when you’re launching, you can feel like you’re banging on about something again and again and again and again. And there’s always one person at the end of it, who’s like, Oh, my goodness, I didn’t know you were selling something I didn’t know that was available, how do I get it. So that’s just a good reminder. But there is a good, you know, an inbuilt protection mechanism at play here as well. So putting your work out there means that there is a risk involved, you know, doing anything in life that matters to you comes with some sort of risk. If you don’t do it, then you can’t fail. Basically, if you do put your thing out there, it means that maybe you won’t succeed, like you’ll be seen to fail in public, as in you’ll be seen it you haven’t sold enough spaces, or maybe some people criticise it, maybe some people will judge it, maybe some people will flat out reject it. There’s also a risk of you know, what if I try this and it doesn’t work, is anything going to work for me? On the flip side? There’s also the risk of what if I try this and it does work? Like what’s that going to change in my life? What does then that make me what the risks then are going to be potentially coming to me after I’m successful and well visible, right? It is risky. The thing that I want to say is that we’ve got the whole internet at our fingertips as online business owners, it is a fact of our business and our life, that what we’re selling is not going to be for everyone, the chances are that no one’s going to notice that much, no one’s going to be that offended by it. And people just won’t say anything that people who it’s not for. I mean, there is a very real risk that someone might though, however unlikely it may be, there is the chance that someone actually might take issue with it and say something to you about it, that’s not going to feel nice if it happens.

So the discomfort you’re feeling when you’re putting yourself out there, when you’re selling your stuff is a protection mechanism to try and stop you doing it to keep you in your comfort zone to keep you safe to avoid all of those things from ever happening, right. But let’s not focus on who it’s not for. Let’s shift the focus away from who it’s not for, to who it is for because like I said, we have the whole internet at our fingertips. There’s so many people out there, it makes sense that it’s not going to be for 99% of them. Let’s shift the focus to who our offers are for who I call your right people and remind yourself you are the right person for your right people. When we shift away from who it’s not quite a shift towards who it is for, firstly, it makes that risk way more worth it. It also shows us not just what we’ve got to lose, but also what we’ve got to gain. We put something out there like oh my goodness, I could actually reach these people, maybe I will do a good job. Maybe it will go right? What if I do say a lot? What if I make a lot of money, so many amazing things. It also gets us to imagine the impact that we get to create with our office. So if I focus on my right people, if I focus on the people who are out there who need what it is that I’m doing, and you know what, obviously I’m in the business of like coaching transformation stuff, it’s not just about people in that business, this applies to you. If you sell monks for a living as well, there is always a benefit, there is always a transformation, as hard as it can be to see it sometimes, especially for something we’ve created ourselves, there is always a benefit for your right people in buying your thing. If we can shift it to that, then the question starts to be what can I do in service of this transformation? What can I do in service of these right people who need what it is that I have to sell. It takes the focus away from us as humans and whether we’re getting it right or wrong. And by the way, there is no right and wrong. It’s not a formula that we’re following. It takes it away from us what people think of us and it moves it towards, okay, I’ve got something here that can do something good for people, how do I get that out there in front of those people, really, really helpful shift. And especially when it comes to those risks about what people will think of you and especially if you’re someone who in the past has been judged, and has felt been made to feel like you’ve taken up too much space, you know, it’s very real. I don’t want to discount the fact that those risks are there. But it gives you a little bit more confidence to start to stretch that comfort zone. And it does get easier each time you do it and each time you show up in service of the transformation that you have to offer. Now how to actually believe and the transformation you have to offer is another layer to all of this. So you might be hearing me and going Yes, I get it. You know what, like if I had something that would really benefit people I I can see how I can focus on the impact I get to create and I can see how that would feel me. But what if I’m really wavering on the benefit that I can create? What if I don’t feel good enough? What if that imposter syndrome is kicking in which by the way, is far more likely to kick in when you are stretching your comfort zone? Really frustrating? Like? How do I believe in that transformation? And this is where you got to do the work. And I actually think that doing the work upfront, if you can, before you launch, like getting super clear on your offers, why am I creating this in the first place? What is it about my experience or my expertise that has led me to create this offer? What is it about the way I do it that is different.

And honestly, one of the most helpful things that I think you can do is literally make a list of all the ways in which your offer can change the world, start with how it can have an impact on the people who directly buy it, then how it can have an impact on the people who come into contact with those people, and how it can have an impact on the world. So using my journaling course, as an example. And I’m just saying this off the top of my head, the impact it can have on people directly is to give them more headspace, like mindful moment in their day. The impact that can have on the people around them is that you know, they are more present like with their families, with their kids with their businesses, they’re just more happy and nice to be around. The impact that can have on the world is like massive right? world would be a better place if people were happier and more mindful. And I know it might sound like a stretch, and it might sound pretty audacious and maybe a bit like deluded to say my journaling course is gonna change the world and make the whole world a better place because people have more headspace. But it firstly, it’s not deluded, it is true. I’m not saying that alone is going to be the only factor in changing the world. But you’ve got to go to the up absolute limits in order to see the truth that is right in front of you, because we are our own harshest critics, especially when we’re selling something and putting what feels like something very vulnerable on the line when we’re showing up to sell. So yeah, shifting it towards the transformation, doing the work to actually show yourself what the transformation is because it can be very hidden. Sometimes it takes talking to someone else to like really bring it out, and they need to reflect it back to you as well. And I did say like taking the shift away from us, and putting it onto the transformation. But there is an argument for actually actually making it about ourselves in some way as well. So soulful selling for me, is also about trusting that I am the only one who can do the thing I do in the way I do it. Because when you come from a place of competition and comparing to everyone else you don’t because Because none of what we do is completely unique. There are so many people doing what I do, there are so many business coaches for sensitive humans, it could be very easy to get into the mindset of I have to do everything right, and I have to be the best. And I have to do all the things to make sure everyone sees it. I don’t see it like that, like I am the right person for my right people means that I am also the only one who can do it, the way I do it, some people will see a journaling course from someone else and think that is the absolute right course for them. And they will buy that and they won’t buy mine. On the flip side, someone will see my journaling course they’ll see the language I use there see that? Oh, she was this introvert who was really afraid. And she’d learned to like change the way she talks to herself. And they’ll think, wow, I wanted to get her journaling course, like I feel like I’ve heard about journaling before, but it’s never landed until she said it. So this is where making it about you is is the helpful way to make it about you remembering that you are a unique human, no one has the combination of experiences of knowledge of you know, life events and this unique concoction that’s gone all into your offer, to make it what it is. That’s not going to resonate with everyone. But for the ones that does resonate with it takes so much of the stress the competition, that trying to prove yourself out of it like you as you are, are the right person for your right people and soulful selling is about remembering that there’s so much to go around. There’s so many people out there, especially on the internet, the right people are here for your offer. And I’m not saying just put it out there. And you know, they’ll magically come I’m, you know, do the work to get it out there. But this is part of the self belief that goes on underneath the surface, you know, that enables you actually to show up and do the work to sell it with less resistance with less, you know, pushing to do things that you don’t actually, that don’t actually feel aligned to you. And that brings me to another point about soulful selling, which is this piece of alignment. Like you don’t have to do all the marketing. I think I already said this earlier on but I’m going to expand on it. Now you don’t have to do all the marketing tactics that someone else does just because they might be successful. It is really helpful to consider what is aligned to you when it comes to the way that you want to show up and sell. The massive caveat that I always add to this is sometimes your fear can tell you something is unaligned until you actually try it and realise you’re so much more capable than you thought or you stretch your comfort zone. So for example Pull suddenly, like running a free challenge could have been like this for me like in the past, I would think I would never run a free challenge that’s not aligned to me. I’m not the kind of person who does a free challenge. Actually, nowadays, I quite like doing a free challenge, I get to do it in my way, as a sensitive business owner, actually, it’s something I talked about in my grow with challenges course. And it is aligned to me, there are some elements of a challenge that wouldn’t be aligned to me the way someone else does them. But I have stretched my comfort zone, I’ve tried anything, and I found a way to do it that’s aligned to me. So yeah, this is a really like, whirlwind tour of what soulful selling means. To me soulful selling means changing the rules, remembering that we get to write the rules ourselves, to define what selling even means to acknowledge what we think it means and to realise where maybe we were wrong. Selling means supporting, you know what, actually, this is something I haven’t covered, but it also means supporting ourselves. So doing other things outside of our business, somatic practices that help us feel safe when we’re selling, being supported by other people, whatever support looks like for you, is included in social selling as well. Social Selling means being empowered to look at the transformation that you offer, and ask yourself what you can do in service of that transformation. social selling is about knowing that your right people are out there, that there’s enough people for everyone, and that it’s not about competition. And so for selling is about exploring the different methods of selling to find the ones that are aligned to you. And knowing that you can totally leave behind the ones that aren’t aligned. With the caveat of being willing to stretch your comfort zone. This is what soulful selling means to me and you get to choose what is in integrity for you. There are ways that I would show up and sell that you wouldn’t choose. And that is okay. There are ways that other people show up and sell that I wouldn’t choose that is also okay. Another really helpful way to look at this is like the golden rule do as you’ll be done by if you experience a sales tactic on the receiving end, and you don’t like how it makes you feel. You don’t have to do that as a seller either. So yeah, that is a whirlwind tour of what we mean by social selling, we are going to cover so many of these topics in the soulful sales Summit. I just can’t wait. If you’re listening to this episode, when it first comes out, go and grab your free ticket to the self sales summit now, before it starts, otherwise, you’re gonna miss it. So yeah, you can get your free ticket at soulful sales. summit.com just getting up the registration page. So I can tell you a few of the highlights. We have got talks about knowing yourself to figure out how you sell best the power of nervous system regulation, when you’re launching and selling we’ve got to talk about disobedient launching throwing out the rulebook, bite sized business tasks that make selling easier for neurodivergent. Humans how to be visible in a way that really supports you when you’re selling, we’ve got to talk about replacing a sales funnel with a sales path.

Got pricing, figuring out price that makes it actually easier for you to show up and talk about and sell what you do. Talk about boundaries, soulful sales, copy sensitive ways to ask for the sale. Oh my goodness, there’s so many things five minute journaling practice that will support you when you’re selling to calm your nervous system, embracing the Woo and how that helps you detach when you’re selling. I’ve said loads, I feel bad for the ones I’ve missed out because all of the speakers are incredible. It’s going to be an amazing four days starting on the 11th of October, that’s soulful sales summit.com To get your free ticket. Like I said, after you’ve got the free ticket, there will be an upgrade the upgrade, you can either just get lifetime access to the presentations because like I said, the presentations will expire after 24 hours if you’re on the free version. Or you can buy the bundle version, which I really recommend because it is a bargain, you will get over 25 full courses, masterclasses templates and stuff that stuff that the sellers genuinely sell separately. So we total up the value of actual selling prices. And it came to $2,600 You’re gonna get it for like 5% of that. These are genuine sales prices, we didn’t pick the numbers out of thin air that wouldn’t be soulful selling for me. And you’re also gonna get access to two experiential sessions, one with me and one with a breathwork facilitator. And I’m about to add some bonuses now as well. So watch this space. But yeah, go and sign up for our soulful sales summit.com. And just remember, this is all about what feels in integrity for you. If anything of seven doesn’t work for you. You don’t have to do it. You know, this is all about empowering you to figure out your own unique strategy for you as a unique human being. So I think you’re gonna love it. I’ve put so much work into putting it out there and I can’t believe it’s about to start and I can’t wait to share it with you like so many amazing presentations, so much amazing stuff and just take take what works for you and leave the rest. Yeah, thank you for being here. I look forward to seeing you at the summit and I’ll catch you again soon for another podcast episode. Thank you so much for listening to another episode of quietly ambitious If you have a moment to rate and review know that it really does make a difference. And if you’d like to carry on the conversation, then you can connect with me on Instagram at Ruth Poundwhite Join me in the Facebook group or my personal favourite, sign up to my newsletter letters to quietly ambitious humans. Just go to Ruth poundwhite.com forward slash newsletter to subscribe and keep doing what you’re doing because your work really does matter.

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“What can I do in service of my right people who need what it is that I have to sell?”

Show Notes

In this episode I talk about the rules we have around selling & how we get to rewrite them, plus the power a small shift of focus has to change your experience of selling as a sensitive business owner.

Don’t forget to get your FREE ticket for the Soulful Sales Summit before we start on October 11th: https://soulfulsalessummit.com

Some of the things I talked about:

  • the rules we have around selling & how we have the power to rewrite them
  • why selling is sometimes hard for sensitive humans & how we can shift some of the weight of it
  • how to believe in the transformation we offer
  • what it means to soulfully & sensitively sell (& why it’s different for everybody)

Links from the episode:

Other episodes you might like:

“We have the power to change the rules of sales”

Quietly Ambitious

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Thanks so much for listening!

When you subscribe to updates you get access to 3 bonus episodes of the podcast – exclusively for email subscribers – that dive behind the scenes of my business (I talk about failures, money, community & more!)