If You Don't Ask, You Don't Sell

If you don’t ASK, you don’t SELL.

(And why you should DEFINTELY go to the Women Ties Retreat, if you are anywhere near upstate, New York this Thurs. October 15th)

Let’s be honest here for a moment. I decided to go speak for Women Ties in Fayetteville, NY (which is near Syracuse, NY) for two main reasons. 1.) I wanted my Mom to be able to come see me speak in all of my glory since she lives in the area and

2.) I thought Tracy Higginbotham was a firecracker when I met her one year ago at a Women Ties lunch and I decided right then and there that if she ever asked me to speak, I’d say yes. So, I did.

Then I had a few colleagues in New York ask WHY I was going. Wasn’t upstate, NY really far away? Wouldn’t it take me away from my clients? And what they were REALLY thinking, “C’mon, you’re not going to get any business up there and with times being what they are, shouldn’t you be focused right here in the Good Ol’ Big Apple, where there are PLENTY of prospects? Let me answer those in order: No, Upstate, NY is not that far away, it’s 45 minutes on JetBlue, (sure it takes longer to get TO the airport from my apartment, but still a 45 minute flight IS compelling!) Yes, it would take me away from my clients, but I had planned the trip several months in advance so all of my face-to-face clients knew I was going and I arranged to do all of my client sessions with them before I left. I could work with my phone clients over the phone, like I always did. And, No, I probably would not be getting any new clients from this event.

But I remembered what I always tell *MY* clients when I am coaching them to sell more effectively. I tell them, “If you don’t ASK, you don’t SELL.” So I stayed up late the night before my Women Ties presentation watching my Mom painstakingly print out 60 full color flyers that advertised my most popular sales coaching program. (She said she’d be happy to do this so that I could spend my time worrying about what was really important—whether I was wearing the pant suit or skirt suit the next day. I choose the pant suit, because it was kind of chilly!)

The next day I was delighted as Tracy Higginbotham announced it was a SOLD OUT event! Now, the heat was on for me to DELIVER a lot of value to this most excellent group of women. I crammed as much of my 90 minute “Create the Perfect 15SecondPitch” presentation into that 30 minutes as I possibly could!! I was truly amazed at how willing the women were to jump right up and try out their newly crafted pitches. It was an amazing day and I’m so glad that my Mom was there to see me in action. (She also got to pitch her venture, which I’m going to devote a future blog post to talking about, because it’s a BRILLIANT idea and people love it.)

At the end of the Women Ties lunch, Tracy invited me up to give a quick pitch about my services. I let everyone know about my “Professional Pitch Package” and that there was a special offer just for them and all of the information was on the flyers. Imagine my surprise and delight as not one, not two, but THREE women came up to me after my presentation and said they wanted to work with me!! AND that they would FLY OUT TO NEW YORK CITY to work with me face to face.

I have to admit, I did dance a little jig right there in front of everyone as I spoke to these three incredible women. I thought that if I had the flyers ready and the offer was compelling enough that MAYBE one or two women would say yes to working with me over the phone. Never in my wildest dreams did I think they’d want to fly out to the city to work with me in person!! AMAZING!! So, it just goes to show you, if I would not have printed those flyers out and let the women know about my special offer, I doubt I would have made any sales that day. So, if you are on the fence about going to the Women Ties retreat on Thurs. October 15^th, please allow me to gently push you off the fence and into the game. I can’t tell you for sure that you’re going to get new business at the retreat. However, I can tell you absolutely that you’ll meet amazing, inspiring, NICE professional women that you’ll want to work with. And I can tell you for certain, that you’ll never know, if you don’t go.

P.S. I’d be going to the retreat myself, however, I have client presentation that day. I’ll definitely be going to Women Ties lunches in the future when I’m visiting my Mom though!!