Selling With Heart with Simon Lovell

6 top tips for ‘Transformational Selling’ from my personal coach, Simon Lovell

10 min readJan 27, 2020

Selling is hard, especially for social entrepreneurs and changemakers who are wired to be generous, and yet, as Simon taught me in his ‘Sales Mastery’ coaching program, without sales, there is no transformation.

Here are Simon’s top tips and scripts for selling with more heart, something he coins as ‘Transformational Selling’. These tips are intended for coaches, consultants and founders who are selling in person. For online sales, many of these notes are still relevant and you can read more about marketing conversion in my ‘This is Marketing — Marketing For Change’ article here.

6 Top Tips for Transformational Selling

By following these 6 top tips you’re going to learn how to sell more, transform more lives and work with ideal clients. You’ll have more freedom, more cash flow, more committed clients, more confidence and less stress.

Why listen to Simon? He’s sold over $3million+ in personal coaching. He’s worked with the best coaches in the mindset & business space, spending time on Richard Branson’s Necker Island and working 1–1 with Tony Robbins in India, amongst so much more. He’s a published author and spoken on many stages. His old story goal was to earn a million, his goal now, is to give away a million.

To find out more about Simon Lovell please visit www.simonlovell.com and tell him Louise sent you.

Tip #1 — Your mindset is critical to sales

“How you manage yourself is how you manage your income” Simon Lovell

Sales mastery is about managing your emotions
Your goal is to get to a level of emotional mastery with sales
Your mindset creates your belief systems which create your identity which inform how you show up with clients
Your new mindset is what is going to get you to the next level
Most selling is non-verbal. Your energy matters
Challenges with confidence may cause you to lose your focus
Bring awareness to your emotional patterns pre-conversation, during and post to identify what your emotional patterns pre, during and post conversation need to be
At the same time, it’s important to bring awareness to your negative & positive associations with sales and beliefs around selling
Be aware of where you may be projecting your own beliefs on to a client (e.g. your financial beliefs)
Ask yourself, “Do you believe that what you’re selling is worth £X.” If the answer is no then you can ask, “What specifically needs to happen to believe that it is?”
Know that your confidence and certainty is what your client is buying. If you have a strong belief you can help your client they will believe it too

Exercise:

✍️ Write down your current beliefs around selling now in your business

✍️ Write down what your beliefs around selling need to be to get you to the next level

Tip #2 — To make sales you need to have conversations

Pre-conversation:

We forget that the work we do to get us into the right headspace & energy pre-conversation is just as important as the conversation itself
The more you prepare before the conversation the more clients you enrol
Pre-conversation strategies allow you to calm yourself and centre before the conversation takes place, to create more room for focus and presence with your client
Meditation slows you down to a more positive thought, helps with centring and to shift negative thoughts. This helps you connect with your heart and cleanse your energy for active listening
Bring awareness to what outcome would feel good for you — write down your target
Get into an emotional mastery mental state
Re-watch or re-read client testimonials to connect back to your ability/value to deliver change
Take time to think about what you’re grateful for in your business/life
Get into the feeling that you’ve already enrolled the client and they are already a client
Use the Tony Robbins tool of State Management to create your own Sales State Management

Example: Tony Robbins Sales State Mastery

Physiology (how you’re holding your body — spine position) + Language (what are you telling yourself)+ Focus = how you feel in sales

(See Tony Robbins, Discover your Peak State)

Building rapport:

Pre-frame the conversation to set out what the client can expect / how the conversation will go
Find common ground and connection — tell stories and be open about your experiences and journey. When you are open this gives your client permission to be just as open
Be genuine and take an interest — Spend time active listening and building rapport. Really listen to what your client wants and needs, not from the point of understanding what you can sell to them, but from a place of real care and support

Island of Sad & Island of Happy

It’s equally important to understand and ask what your client wants to move away from (Island of Sad) as well as what they want to move towards (Island of Happy)
Make a note of the Island of Sad and Island of Happy emotions for being better able to make a prescription/offer that fits the client’s needs
Ask quality questions that allow your client to speak openly and truthfully about where they are really
You must find out why the client has failed before — why they are where they are and what were their excuses

Question: “If we were sat here having this conversation X weeks from now and we were looking back over the X weeks - what needed to happen for you to be happy with the results?”

Making an offer:

“Your client is craving for you to take control of their change and to care enough to get them there — allowing excuses & letting them off the hook doesn’t show you care enough. Your clients need certainty from you” Simon Lovell

Only offer further support if you feel confident you can help the client and there’s an alignment
Don’t predict in your mind that your clients don’t want to work with you because they’ve not approached you. Consider they may be thinking you don’t want to work with them because you haven’t made the offer
Feel confident with what you’re selling/prescribing. You have to feel confident in making the offer and that it’s valuable to the client. We sabotage sales when we don’t feel it’s worth it
Do not present an offer or talk about a price unless there’s good energy there. Use the ‘Boiling Kettle’ analogy — “If it’s not boiling, don’t present it”
Always ask permission from the client before an offer is made. “Are you happy for me to share with you how I can support you to work with you on X?”
When offering further support, talk about the value of the support and focus primarily on the outcome you can deliver (getting the client from A to B — Island of Sad to the Island of Happy)
For your client’s benefit (transformation) it’s important to offer this support when the client is in a peak state, the point where there are fewer limitations, fears and caution, where change is ready to occur
Offer a prescription/course/package that offers a solution and outline the commitment required. Offer what the client needs not what they think they need
Consider offering a “Fast-Action” discount

“An investment needs to be uncomfortable but not dangerous for real client transformation” Simon Lovell

After you’ve shared the investment price don’t say anything more. Give your client time to think & process to respond
Take payment immediately there and then or offer a non-refundable deposit option (helping your client to commit to their change)
A challenge with money only comes up when clients don’t see the value in what you’re offering
For the benefit of the client's transformation and the sale, it’s important to ask, “Do you want to go ahead?” and give the client an opportunity to give their empowered yes or no
If the client asks for more time to decide then ask for a timeframe and then ask, “Why not earlier?” This is all training for helping the client step into their change and commitment to their change. It builds trust that you can be that person to keep the accountability
When the client signs up, make it a habit to ask them 3 reasons why they invested and keep a record of this to help you find commonalities and to do more of what works

Post conversation — It’s a no

Sales slumps (when there’s a no) are very real. Remember when you lose your confidence, you lose your certainty
Love objections, because these help you create even deeper intimacy and connection with your client. Ask questions to keep the conversation going
Make a record of the objections your client made so that you can review and refine
If this was an opportunity where you felt like you could really help and you wanted to help, you can ask, “What could I have done better?”
Revisit how you were feeling pre-conversation as a self-check-in — the key to sales mastery is to become more aware of your patterns and triggers
Use the LAER model — Listen, acknowledge, explore & respond
The biggest reason objections come up is because the client isn’t as connected with you — you’ve not made the client feel confident enough that they won’t fail
Do not blame the client for a no because that does not allow you to look at yourself and building your sales confidence
The more you work on client objections and closing, the more confident you’ll become and the more lives you’ll change

Top 3 common objection scripts and follow-up questions:

“I can’t afford it”

You: “What do you mean by that?” / “Would you like me to explore ways that we can make this possible for you?”/ “What is the number you would like to invest to make X happen?”

“I need to think about it”

You: “What do you need to think about specifically?” / “I understand that making a decision is sometimes hard, can I ask is there something you’re not clear about or you’re fearful of?” / “If you knew 100% that you would reach your goal would you just think about it or would you just do it?” / “On a scale of 1–10 with 10 being ready and 1 being a no, where do you sit on this right now? What would take you to a higher number?”

“I need to talk to my X”

You: “What do you think the conversation will be about? The price or the program?” / “What do you think the conversation will go like?” / “What if they say no?” / Ascertain, are they speaking to X for permission or to ask for support.

*Empower someone to make the decision for themselves

I will not quit on you close — conviction & confidence

You: “I need to apologise to you for not being able to get you to a solution today, can I ask you whether it was something I did or something I failed to do?”

Them: “No, no, nothing at all, you were great

You: “In that case, is there something I could do to make this work for you, instead of you taking more time having to go through this process with someone that isn’t as passionate about having you reach your goals, and know what they are doing?

Tip #3 — Understand your true value

It’s important for you to understand what you’re great at, the true impact of what you do and to connect to it
Your impact is not your time, it’s the transformational outcome you’re offering
Make a list of what you enjoy most about working with the clients you love as an ideal client check-list
Only work with clients you love — even if you are short on leads DO NOT take on clients that are not a fit for you — every second spent working with clients that cause stress takes you away from working with clients you love
Be an example, teach what you’ve done

✍️ Exercise: Write down at least 10 outcomes that your clients get after working with you

Tip #4 — Your client wants to invest in an outcome

Understanding your true value will allow you to offer “outcomes” with confidence to your clients. Very important, as your client is investing in their commitment to the outcome
Your clients are paying you to uphold them to the new standard they want for themselves

Tip #5 — Not challenging your client keeps them exactly where they are

You’re not caring for your client if you’re not challenging them to step out of their old story and into their new story or creating opportunities for them to commit to their new story — you’re enabling them to stay where they are. If you don’t do this then your client is not going to respect & trust you’re the right person to help them change
Don’t be afraid to call your client out on excuses or other. It’s important to do so from a caring and loving space

Tip #6 — Understand what drives buying decision

Most clients rarely buy on price alone
Clients buy because of the way it makes them feel
Questions clients may ask themselves, “Will I succeed this time?”, “Will it make me happier?”, “Will it make me look good to others?”, “Will I be supported & cared for?”
If the client is not confident that you can deliver they will say their decision is about money. They will use money as an excuse

About Louise Graham:

Vision & Mission Mentor for social entrepreneurs and conscious changemakers at www.louisegraham.me and Founding Director at The Glasgow Basket Brigade CIC.

I am here to support your biggest changemaker dreams and ambitions — helping you to clarify your vision, align your mission & make change happen.

You may be interested in my other articles:

A big thank you (!) for clicking the 👏 if you found this article useful.

If you have any questions or have anything you would like to share, I would love to hear your thoughts 💬