Whether you’re selling your personal one-on-one services, marketing an event, or launching an only group program - you need confidence. This week on the Making it Real podcast, I spoke with Paloma Lev - a crazy brilliant Sales Confidence Strategist who's known for helping Coaches, Consultants, Experts & Influencers sell with “badass confidence”. With 9+ years of mentoring clients in the arts of persuasion & confident communication, she uses her signature system The Conviction Method to help her clients close deals between $3-38K. She wants to help YOU close your BIGGEST high ticket client yet, transforming you from Terrified of Sales to Sales Call Genius. So, what’s the first step? Paloma explains that it’s about finding your TRUE confidence - not just the flashy kind. The confidence & sales strategies she shares in our short but sweet discussion are sure to be of use for you - especially if you’re interested in lofty revenues for your business.  

The Smarter Approach To Pricing

What’s your process and strategy for coming up with prices for your hourly rate, your coaching programs, or any of your other expert offerings? Paloma advises; “People are often pricing based on, am I worth it? Do I deserve it? These are the wrong questions to be asking yourself. These are two separate questions. They actually are not necessarily dependent on one another”

Instead, refocus on the positive - i.e. why you’re doing what you’re doing, and why you chose this path in the first place (helping people feel better through nutrition, for instance).

“One question you need to ask yourself is, what am I really good at helping people with? What is one concrete problem that I can specialize in helping people with?” This means not being all things to all people, and instead knowing your lane (AKA your niche). Also, trust that a specialist always gets paid more than a generalist, so it’s fine to hone in on only the specific areas where you can offer the utmost value.

Are You Suffering From The Conviction Gap?

Paloma realized pretty early on a pattern with the folks she was working with and coaching: “The most intelligent experts are the worst at selling themselves. We, the most intelligent experts, have the most anxiety. Why did you get really good at what you do? Because you have a lot of anxiety. Why did you get really good at what you do? Because you're a hard worker and you're hard on yourself.”

While being hard on yourself may be awesome for your growth - it's also painful because, well, you’re punishing yourself! “And so I would say price really high and live up to those prices as opposed to saying, what am I worth? And then pulling a number out of your blank.”

In other words, price high and reverse engineer instead. An example would be, let’s say you want to put out a gut-healing online group program - do you want to charge $5K for it, or do you want to charge $10K for it? Well, think: What do you have to offer? What emotional experientials do I have to give? What emotions, feelings and desires can I activate in my client so that it's worth $5 to $10K?

Now I know what you’re thinking: “Oh, but I’m a newbie! Let me just pick $300.” NO!

Stop ‘At Leasting” Yourself

This is something Paloma refers to when her clients price low and then make excuses as to why that makes the most sense. “That's looking at the floor and saying, at least I'm not on the floor. Look at the ceiling and say, what do I have to do to be up there?”

For many of you, you are your own boss. Entrepreneurship is like a self serve of the best buffet of your life. Go ahead and fill up on the best, Paloma jokes - don’t starve yourself or only look for the scraps! “You pay yourself, your client doesn't pay you. You choose what you're paid.”

The Best Approach To “Competitor Analysis”

Paloma explains that one of the worst mistakes people make is looking side to side, instead, she says: “Be like a horse.”

“There’s only one person that needs to say yes to you. That's you. You say yes to yourself. After that, everybody says yes to you.” In other words, rather than trying to figure out how to convince other people you’re worth it, focus first on believing it for yourself - that’s the vital first step.

What about following along with what other folks in your industry are charging? Paloma suggests to be cautious around this: “Feel free to be inspired by other rock stars in your industry. No worries, but here's the thing. If you're looking left and right, you're trying to be the Walmart of your industry. You're trying to be like, Oh, well, so-and-so sells it for seven bucks, so I'm going to sell it for six bucks. That's a horrible strategy.”

“At the end of the day, do you know why people are looking left and right? It’s because they can't see themselves. If you can see yourself, it does not matter what other people are doing.”

De-Commodify Yourself

Never forget that you have a crazy, interesting, different story - every single person does. Whether it’s your origin story, your personality, your proprietary method or system - there are several different ways that you can de-commodify yourself. “You working on your own conviction is where you start, and it will take you anywhere you need to go.”

After that, Paloma shares 3 important steps in order to release any “baggage thoughts” that may be preventing you from raising your prices - and doing it with confidence!

1) Do a Beliefs Audit

“You need to be able to literally write out what I call ‘thought mosquitoes’. What are the things, what are the thoughts, that are biting your brain and making you feel like crap?” Think about it literally: What are the 10 things that you believe that are painful, that are uncomfortable, & that are holding you back?”

Once you figure these things out, the next part is about getting really comfortable with knowing those, and giving love to them. There's a reason that you have that pain, and if you don't accept, acknowledge and give love to why you have that pain, you won’t be able to level-up and sell yourself with confidence. See those beliefs, and practice saying: “I'm proud of you for that, and that's okay.” Then you ask yourself, Paloma advises, if you are open and willing to let go of all of that.

Following this practice, you must realize that you cannot get rid of a habit unless you replace it with something else. Hence, you need a new belief. “I sometimes call those USB beliefs. Think about it like this, if we could put a USB in your brain and import 10 new beliefs. What would you want to believe?” All you need to do from there is find little (or big) things in your everyday life that confirm those new beliefs. It’s easier than you might think as long as you’re looking out for them consciously.  

2) Shame Map

What are the things that you're afraid they're going to find out? “Whatever the heck you're worried about them finding out, write it all out. You need to make peace with that because that's where self sabotage comes in.”

It’s important to note that this isn’t a practice of pushing your insecurities away. Paloma clarifies that there is an active process that we can do to consciously give love to, and actually see the benefits of those insecurities.

3) Find Your Fear Fantasies

“If you increase your prices, what are you afraid they're going to say?” For a lot of practitioners or entrepreneurs of any kind, there is hesitation around what other folks in their industry will think. Is it “cheeky” to raise my prices above others? Paloma suggests addressing these thoughts head on so that you can ultimately get over it. How? Try engaging in a “DNP”: Daily Negotiation Practice. This means asking for something - every single day. Whether it’s “salad dressing on the side”, or calling up your phone provider and asking for a discount - they can be small or big asks - JUST ASK! Paloma adds a little bit of gamification to her daily negotiation practice like so: If you do not ask, you get zero points. If you ask and get a yes, that’s one point. If you ask and get a no, that’s two points. That’s right, you get more points for a no. “A two point no. Why? Because you have the ‘kahunas’ to ask for something big.”

At the end of the day, finding your core confidence in selling your high-ticket services & offerings, is all about showing up for yourself - over and over again. “And you do that by building the muscle everyday by showing up every single day.”

“NDP was the perfect daily practice for me to practice so that now when I say it's $10K to work with me, no skin off my back, I know I'm a million percent worth it. You'd be so freaking lucky.”

What’s been your experience with pricing yourself and selling your high-value services? Let us know and share with your fellow entrepreneurial health practitioners (urned sales gurus!) in our Facebook group here.

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