Episode 185: Amanda Abella – Sales and Marketing in Today’s World: Overcoming Fear and Finding Success

Amanda Abella  00:02

Making Sales Social is leading with curiosity. People are trying to fight and make their points or just shove things down people’s throats. And I’m here like no lead with curiosity, Right? Like, “Oh, why do you believe that?”, “Oh, that’s interesting”. Why do you say that and really try to get to know the other person because one thing I have found with a lot of our clients that we do sales training for, and even when I was training my team there were two things I had to constantly say all the time. Listen, and Respond.

Intro  00:33

Welcome to the Making Sales Social Podcast featuring the top voices in sales, marketing and business join Brynne Tillman and me Bob Woods. As we each bring you the best tips and strategies. Our guests are teaching their clients so you can leverage them for your own virtual and social selling. Enjoy the show.

Brynne Tillman  00:58

Welcome back to making sales social. I am truly truly excited for my conversation today with Amanda Abella. She is an award-winning content creator, keynote speaker and business coach who specializes in helping business owners activate their persuasion prowess, so that they can make more money and live a more affluent life. 

Her clients go from hating sales and marketing to achieving 90% closed rates and closing multiple five-figure deals. Her work has been featured in Forbes Huffington Post Business Insider Univision and many more prior to teaching, marketing and sales. Amanda spent a decade as a financial writer and wrote content for companies like Wells Fargo, Discover Credit Karma, Santander and more. 

She’s also partnered with companies like Capital One and TransUnion. In financial education campaigns, she’s also the Amazon Best Selling Author of make money, your honey and has created a community of over 60,000 people across social media channels. 

So why am I so excited to have a man to hear? I spoke with Amanda a couple of weeks ago, and I have now hired her and her company to do for me what she is doing for her and now I’m excited to share what that is, with all of our listeners. Amanda, welcome to the show.

Amanda Abella  02:24

Thank you so much for having me. I can’t tell you how much I love. As soon as we met. I was like, yes, women who understand sales and understand the assignment. It’s like we automatically connect when we find other women who get it.

Brynne Tillman  02:38

Yeah. And oh my gosh, do you get it and I am so excited to share your insights. But before we jump into that, we ask all of our clients one question, which is what does making sales social mean to you?

Amanda Abella  02:52

I have a really good answer that you’re going to love. I think making sales social is leading with curiosity. 

Brynne Tillman  02:58

You’re right. I love that. 

Amanda Abella  02:52

And here’s why. I would say I was contemplating this in the last couple of weeks. I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, you hang out on LinkedIn. So, maybe you’re not seeing it as much as I do. But I started noticing how people’s black and white thinking either or thinking is really screwing them over in business, in sales and in life in general. 

So, there’s a lot of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. And there’s a lot of going to extremes, to the point where five people said to me that, “Oh, well, you know, you shouldn’t do marketing. Marketing is bad.” And I’m like, what this makes no sense. Now, the thing that’s interesting is you see people fighting, Right? 

So, what you’ll see on social media is a lot of people fighting in the comments and trying to make their point. They try to do the same thing. And sales and marketing. People are trying to fight and make their points or just shove things down people’s throats. And I’m here like no lead with curiosity, Right? Like, “Oh, why do you believe that?”, “Oh, that’s interesting.” 

Why do you say that? And really try and get to know the other person because one thing I have found with a lot of our clients that we do sales training for, and even when I was training my team, there were two things I had to constantly say all the time, listen, and respond. Because people have also had a very hard time listening, because they’re not curious. And they’re not curious because they’re taking everything as a personal attack.

Brynne Tillman  04:24

That’s an aha moment. Yeah. You know, as salespeople, we always want to be right, because we think we can’t make a sale unless we’re proving that we’re right.

 Amanda Abella  04:33

Exactly. And we take rejection as a personal attack the same way that people are taking some sort of disagreement on social media as a personal attack and then people start making blanket statements like sales is bad. Marketing is bad. Don’t do it. And it’s like, but you won’t have a business. This doesn’t make sense.

Brynne Tillman  04:53

Well, you know, if you really care about helping that prospect, you are not giving them a cookie cutter pitch. 

Amanda Abella  05:02

Yeah. 

Brynne Tillman  05:03

You’re finding out what matters to them. And if you’re not truly curious, then you’re not truly there to help them.

Amanda Abella  05:08

Yeah, there’s actually someone I’m training now. And I’m helping them with theirs, I’m helping them with sales skills, we’re gonna be helping you with your automations and systems. And I was reviewing a sales call and I was like, we didn’t get to a real objection. 

 It was one of those things like, “Oh, can you send me more information?”  And they were like, “Well, how do I respond?” And I’m like, “Well, we got nothing.” So here’s what we have to say in order to get something and then I can tell you what’s going on here. 

We have to figure out what really matters to them or along the lines of curiosity, when I listen to a call, sometimes I can pick up on people’s emotions and inflections on their tone of how they’re saying things. And because we’re not listening, because we’re so wrapped up in our own heads, we miss stuff like that, like, “Oh, when they were talking about this particular thing about their marketing, not getting through, they sounded really pissed.” 

I probably need to figure out why they sound pissed. But because people are not leading with curiosity, because they’re wrapped up in their heads because they’re stressed out about money, we can go on a whole thing about that. They’re missing things.

Brynne Tillman  06:13

Yeah. What an aha moment because I think it’s human nature, at least from my experience with salespeople over decades and decades, that we think we have to convince them to buy from us. And so when we’re coming from that perspective, we’re attached to what that prospect is worth to us. We’re not attached to what we are worth to them. 

Amanda Abella  06:38

Yeah, right. 

Brynne Tillman  06:39

And when we can shift then, and a big piece of this, I’m now like, pulling together is curiosity, because you can’t help them until you know what matters. So I love that.

Amanda Abella  06:54

Yeah. And it also helps with people’s fears about things like, I don’t want to be pushy. I’m like, Well, if you’re curious, you’re not pushy.

Brynne Tillman  07:00

Right? Pushy is pitching too soon. 

Amanda Abella  07:02

Yeah. Pushy is shoving something down someone’s throat. That’s not what we’re doing. We’re trying to find out what the actual problem is. So, we can solve the problem.

Brynne Tillman  07:11

So yes, Curiosity is, I think, currently my favorite answer. Question. Thank you.

Amanda Abella  07:18

I’m doing lots of firsts here. Brynne, the first person you hired on your podcast?

Brynne Tillman  07:25

Oh, it’s so cool. I love it. Love it. Okay, So let’s, let’s talk about a little bit around the fear that people have when it comes to sales, and or marketing, right, there’s two buckets, both with the goal of business development, but to talk first about sales. Why are people afraid?

Amanda Abella  07:49

Yeah, it’s interesting, because I’ve seen people lash out against sales for a long time, but recently is when I’ve seen them lash out against marketing. And I was like, “Oh, That’s new. I’m curious.” I wonder why they’re doing that. 

But basically I’ve come to the conclusion, the same reason why they lash out against sales, and they’re afraid of it. Because everybody’s been on the receiving end of bad sales. 

Brynne Tillman  08:09

Oh, they don’t want to be the victim. 

Amanda Abella  08:11

They’ve been a victim, and they don’t want to be that guy. So they make all these assumptions about what sales is and because they’ve never been properly trained. They can’t tell that whatever was done to them wasn’t actually sales.

Brynne Tillman  08:24

Ah, I’ve gotten mic drop moments here. That’s like this … kind of moment, Right? Like, why are they afraid of it? Because they’ve been victims of what they thought sales is, yeah, but it’s not what it’s supposed to be talking to me about what it’s supposed to be.

Amanda Abella  08:41

It’s really just supposed to be about solving people’s problems and getting paid for it. We’re also having problems all day long. It’s just that salespeople get paid to solve people’s problems. All day long, they get a commission. 

For it, it really is, um, you know, I think sales is this great thing where you really learn how to communicate, and you really learn how to just engage with other humans, which I think is a big part of what’s going on now, too. I think there’s an added element that we’re dealing with right now, which is humans are afraid of other humans.

Brynne Tillman  09:13

What are they afraid of? Are they afraid of rejection, or they… 

Amanda Abella  09:17

They’re afraid of rejection, they’re afraid of coming off. I think it’s mostly rejection. But I think I don’t know. There’s been some weird conditioning between social media and everything we’ve been through in terms of isolation, stuff like that, where I’m getting the feeling that people have gotten kind of shut down. 

And it’s also being on the receiving end of bad sales, Right? Because I did a post the other day, and I was like, you can’t shut down everybody who DMs you just because the three people before you didn’t know what they were doing. 

So, what’s going on is like people are, again, it’s throwing that baby out with the bathwater where they’re shutting down. Or another common trend I’m seeing, maybe not on LinkedIn, but this is what’s going on on Facebook. I don’t know if the whole Internet has introverts thinking that they’re broken, can’t talk to people and can’t sell.

Brynne Tillman  10:06

Most people are introverts. So, there are a lot of very successful sales introverts.

Amanda Abella  10:13

Yes, I was just on a networking call with podcasters. And they’re like, Yeah, we’re all introverts. 

Brynne Tillman  10:18

Yeah, Well, so correct me if I’m wrong. But the definition of an extrovert is, I do lots of training and networking, and I’m with a lot of people and when I leave, I have more energy. And revert is okay, I need a nap. 

Amanda Abella  10:36

Pretty much. 

Brynne Tillman  10:37

Right. So that doesn’t change how you are with people. It just changes how you deal with it after you’re with people.

Amanda Abella  10:44

Right! And I’m an ambivert. It depends on where I’m at, who I’m with, like it changes, you know, part of my cycle I’m on.

Brynne Tillman  10:54

It might be what feeds you and what doesn’t, Right. If you’re inspired, you’re probably leaving with a lot more.

Amanda Abella  11:02

Energy versus if I’m just exhausted, Right? Because I’m not inspired. I’m just tired then or I didn’t. I didn’t feel fed by it, then.

Brynne Tillman  11:12

Yeah, it’s like, you know, Thanksgiving is good until you’ve eaten too much and then it’s uncomfortable. 

Amanda Abella  11:16

There you go. Yes. 

Brynne Tillman  11:18

So I don’t know, I’m a food person. So, I just want to go and I want to mention something that I’m getting now from a marketing perspective. So, we touched on why sales are uncomfortable, or people are afraid of it. But I’m getting a lot of messages right now that I’m putting this to the top. I know you’re busy. 

You haven’t seen my message. There’s no other message, except they want me to scroll down and see their previous message that I chose to ignore. And I now just unsubscribe as soon as they do that, because to me, it’s about them. There’s nothing there. That’s a value to me. So, talk to me about why people, why you’re hearing now people are afraid of marketing, what they’re doing wrong and what they shouldn’t be doing. Right?

Amanda Abella  12:02

Yeah, I guess in terms of marketing, it’s similar. Like people just feel like they’re being manipulated. It’s being very aggressive. There’s a lot, at least in marketing, especially with the tech stuff, Like, “Oh, Yeah, those fake countdown timers that aren’t really countdown time”.

I think people have just caught on to the game and what’s become very interesting is I’ve been talking about this for years, Brynne. For years, I was like, this is all gonna get exposed, it’s all going to come down. You guys really need to learn some sales skills, you can’t get away with Facebook ads, good looks and charm anymore. 

You need to actually know what you’re doing when we get into recessionary times. And I’ve been saying that since 2020. And I guess we didn’t feel it because you know, the market got flooded with water. But now we’re like with money like it was water, but now we’re feeling it. 

So I’ve been on several podcasts interviews this week, where they’re like, Yeah, you know, it’s just a harder market. And I was like, Yeah, I know. And I’ve been telling everybody for two years that you know, times ticking on getting away on personality, good looks and charm.

Brynne Tillman  13:02

So, what do they need to do now? What makes marketing successful in today’s world?

Amanda Abella  13:07

Oh, I just posted about this. I think there’s a couple things I think number one, have a damn opinion about something and be okay with people not agreeing with you. It’s totally okay. If people don’t agree with you, it is not a personal attack.

Brynne Tillman  13:18

Love that. And I have a story when you’re done with your things I’m gonna come back to.

Amanda Abella  13:24

The second thing, and I just posted about this earlier today, I was talking with one of our partners and I had noticed something but she said something along the lines of a lot of people feel like they have secrets, Right? And that because they have secrets, then they can’t be fully themselves when they’re marketing. 

So I was like, oh, okay, well, in sales. If there’s some sort of elephant in the room, you just call out the elephant in the room first, get it over with and move on. But people feel that they don’t realize that they can also do that in their marketing. So, I gave the example of back in my finance days, I got hired to be a keynote speaker at a big insurance company that if I said the name everyone would know. 

And I was a keynote and they hired me because like the employees were not investing in the 401k was a thing Amanda get in their minds, get them to invest in the 401k and I was like, “Well, I have to disarm them” First otherwise, they’re just going to think I’m just like some financial expert here to scold them and do boring presentations or slides. 

So, what I did was I literally opened up this way. I said I have debt. I have credit card debt. I just called myself out for having credit card debt and then I swear to you bringing their shoulders went from up here all nervous, like what is this financial expert going to tell us? My boss made me do this blah, blah, blah too …

Brynne Tillman  14:44

She’s one of me. 

Amanda Abella  14:45

She’s one of me. 

Brynne Tillman  14:47

Yeah.

Amanda Abella  14:48

Yeah. So I think that the second thing is to have an opinion. Put the elephant out in the room, just upfront.

Brynne Tillman  14:55

You’re authentic. 

Amanda Abella  14:48

Just be out there and that’s the other thing is when you put your secrets out , You don’t have to pretend to be somebody you’re not.

Brynne Tillman  15:02

Yeah. I love that. So is there a third one? or?

Amanda Abella  15:05

Well, the third one I would just say is frequency and consistency, right? Because I mean, people out here aren’t even consistent in their marketing. I’m trying to get on live streams and videos every day. There’s a reason for that, because I know it’s going to build a lot more trust.

Brynne Tillman  15:18

Yeah. And that seeing you over and over again, they feel like they know you like.

Amanda Abella  15:23

Oh, yeah, no, I have people who wonder where I am. If they don’t see me on a live stream at this point.

Brynne Tillman  15:28

I love that. I think that’s awesome. So, I just want to tell you a quick story that totally aligns with your number one, we’re going back probably four or five years ago, there were four guys. I’m friendly with most of them now. I mean, I know them. Well. Now, the lead was Jeb blunt from sales gravy. 

They did a video on how LinkedIn and social selling is awful. So, I publicly called out Jeb and said, “I want to debate you on your podcasts.” And he took me up on that. And then broke it up into what my podcasts into a lesson, sold it and sent me tons of money that he made from my level.

Amanda Abella  16:10

All because you didn’t take it as a personal attack and had an opinion and Oh, my gosh, you guys had a debate. You didn’t agree. It was okay. Nobody died. It wasn’t.

Brynne Tillman  16:20

And I have a friend. And you know, he’ll still teach. I mean, he’s absolutely incredible. Prolific sales. That’s a learning system. And it’s incredible. My stuff’s on it. Now. That’s so cool. Right? So it was great. I didn’t take it personally. 

But I wanted the debate and he was open to it. And it just and now, you know, I have relationships with a lot of these guys. But it was so fun. To your point number one is, own it. Be okay with it. Not only don’t take it personally, but don’t attack back, Just say, “Hey, why would you do that?” Because I think it’s human nature.

Amanda Abella  17:03

Yeah, I think our egos get in the way. It’s interesting. I shared her friend’s posts that I know very well. Are well enough. And it was amazing how pissed people got in the comments from me from the post itself. And what I thought was so fascinating was the assumptions they were making about another person without even knowing them. Just for one sentence on Facebook.

Brynne Tillman  17:25

Yeah, it’s the world we live in. And yeah, we need to calm down and come back to.

Amanda Abella  17:30

You need to calm down and everybody needs to smoke some weed or take some CBD, or whatever, Right? And just calm down.

Brynne Tillman  17:39

Come back to civility. I couldn’t agree more.

Amanda Abella  17:45

Sales taught me how to do that, though. And that’s why I love sales. Because when you’re in sales, I mean, you have to deal with all kinds of people all the time. My first sales job as I affectionately call it, I was fundraising and asking people on this Miami Beach on the street for money. 

I got called all kinds of stuff. And I also made a lot of money. Right? Or when I worked in recruiting my gosh, recruiters will all tell you like you see everything there is to see about human nature in recruiting. So, you just don’t take it as personally anymore.

Brynne Tillman  18:17

Yeah. And if your goal is really to do what’s right for the person on the other side of the table, you can feel good about that, you know, yeah, you can’t do what’s right for everybody. But if you’re if your good intentions are to solve a problem and make money, do it, versus 

I’m here to make a sale, and you’re authentic, and that takes you back to curiosity that Yep, no, then what you’re doing is solving a problem. It’s not about making a commission. That’s just the benefit in the back end.

Amanda Abella  18:48

That’s an interesting point that you make, because a lot of times people will confuse persistence and passion for pushing us because they don’t know the difference

Brynne Tillman  18:55

I love that. So they all get pushy, But..

Amanda Abella  18:59

They’re not being persistent. And they’re not being passionate. And because they’re not being persistent and passionate, the deals are not getting done.

Brynne Tillman  19:05

I love that. Yeah. So how does one get over that? Because that’s part of being afraid, Right?

Amanda Abella  19:12

That’s part of being afraid you need to. Honestly, you need to get sales training and understand the psychology of what’s going on and what sales actually is. Because I’ll get pushback from clients when I’m training them on the skills and they’re like, “I’m afraid of sounding pushy.” And I’m like, “Does it sound pushy when you just like to plug these things into a spreadsheet and show someone the numbers of what’s available for them and you’re just solving their problem? Well, No? Okay.” Or they’ll even say things like, this was interesting, 

Because I’m sure you know this, we could get really nitty gritty with sales stuff, like even the language that you use in sales conversations. So I’ll be like, Okay, well, instead of being like, “Oh, okay, well, tell me what you think about this.” I’m like, “Uh uh I know we’re going to start acting like closers, but we’re going to be looking forward to helping you solve this problem.” 

I’m so excited to help you get this solution, when would you like to get started? And they’re like, that’s pushy. And I’m like, is it? No, they have a problem. They’re upset, I heard it on the call.

Brynne Tillman  20:14

I would almost say you have an obligation. Yeah, you’ve identified they have a problem that you can solve, you have an obligation to give them the opportunity to solve that with you.

Amanda Abella  20:26

Right. And then the other thing people don’t understand, and I teach this, and nearly every time I say it on a podcast, you were like, “I’ve never heard this.” I’m like, “I’m rolling. What do teachers come to join our sales training,” Which is the difference between passive, assertive and aggressive that changed my life. 

I actually found this when I was a writer, I was writing for a big personal development company, I was ghost writing for them and my first business didn’t apply to sales until way, way later. And it’s the difference between, so when you’re passive, what that is, is you value yourself less than the person you’re speaking to. 

So in sales, that will sound like oh, gee, if they say like, “Oh, send me more information,” you and I both know, that’s a stall, it doesn’t mean anything. But you’ll be like, “Okay.” And then they ghost you. For, you know, this is our price. 

But for you, I’ll do this or they go into the oversell or they ask for a discount, you’re discounting before they ask for a discount, you’re discounting if you even ask for money, because that’s that’s a whole other thing. How many salespeople don’t even go in for a close? That’s a whole other thing. 

Aggressive is when you value yourself more than the person you’re speaking to. So, an example of that would be me on the receiving end of bad sales. And the irony is I was speaking to a sales agency. Oh, God, it was horrible. So basically, I said what I wanted, and they’re like, “Oh, well, we don’t do that here.” And I’m like, “Okay, well, let me finish.” And clearly, you didn’t Google what I do. Because you would know, Okay. 

And so I finished and they’re like, Well, you know, we don’t do that here, blah, blah, blah, basically telling me that I was wrong. And what I wanted doesn’t exist. And I’m like, I have a roster of clients, who are what I’m looking for. They just have their own business anyway and then I was like, Well.

Brynne Tillman  22:10

It’s arrogance 

Amanda Abella  22:11

It’s arrogance. Right? Well, do you have referrals? No, I don’t know anybody. And then they’re like, Well, I don’t think we’re a good fit to work together. And I said, “I agree. I don’t think we’re a good fit to work to get they did not like that.”

Brynne Tillman  22:23

This is the first time in the whole sales process. You’ve agreed with them?

Amanda Abella  22:31

Yeah, I didn’t like it. Either. They went into what I call peacocking. Right? Which is the whole like, well, we’ll work with this kind of people and blah, blah, blah. This is what we do. I was like, Yeah, like, how are you a sales agency, and you just broke every rule of sales in the first 10 minutes. And you clearly don’t Google me. 

Brynne Tillman  22:49

Arrogance.

Amanda Abella  22:51

Arrogance, Right? So that’s the aggressive stuff really aggressive stuff is, you know, I see stuff like this, where it’s like, “Oh, well, are you gonna let $4,000 stand in the way of your dreams?” And I have seen this in sales scripts that clients have brought to us that they’ve learned in other places that I’m like that. That’s that. Yeah, Go ahead. 

Brynne Tillman  23:10

What keeps you up at night? 

Amanda Abella  23:12

Yeah. pushy, that’s pushy and aggressive. What I teach people how to do is be direct. But because we as a society have a problem with directness, We think it’s pushy, because we don’t know the difference.

Brynne Tillman  23:25

Yeah. But if you have if your intentions are to truly help them, you have an obligation to find out what they need help with.

Amanda Abella  23:33

Right? Somebody says it’s too expensive. I totally hear you. It’s too expensive. I agree. This is insane. We hear from people all the time, get the elephant out of the room, out of the way. Let me ask you if that is the only thing standing in the way of you moving forward today, or alternative question, if this was within your budget, would you do it right now? And you’re testing them great on a scale of 1 to 10? How do you feel about this? Then you go find out what the real problems are. Right? But people are like, that’s aggressive. No, it’s not. 

But once they understand it, right, then they’re like, oh, and then usually the response that I get is like, is it really that simple? And I say yes, but, you know, we have this idea that if people are selling, they must have done something nefarious. And then on top of that, we have all this stuff about money in our heads, which then causes us to overcomplicate the whole thing, making money must be everything. 

Making money must be hard. If they’ve made a lot of money, they must have done something wrong. If it was easy, they must have done something nefarious. For me, I had a giant trauma response after my first six figure month. I triggered ancestral trauma because my family fled communism. oh, yeah, that’s a whole other podcast for another time. 

But I had all these. For me, it was like subconscious programming that was keeping me stuck. So, like I’m making a lot of money and it’s triggering panic attacks. And so and Hiltz that’s exactly what it was. It was guilt. That’s what it was triggering and then panic attacks and then feeling like I had a target on my back because that’s what my family went through. 

So, not only do we not have the training in sales, it goes so much deeper, because a lot of our triggers and traumas around money, which everybody has, then get in the way, and our egos start coming out in the sales process. And then they can’t believe it’s that simple. I’m like, yeah, it’s because we’ve overcomplicated it because of everything we believe about money.

Brynne Tillman  25:33

Wow, that is a lifetime of learning what you’ve kind of gotten to so I think that’s awesome. I have a couple more things. I want to bring up one of them. I’ve heard us talk about women being more afraid than men in sales. Why is that?

Amanda Abella  25:51

Well, it’s wild because women are better at it once they understand it and then nurtured.

Brynne Tillman  25:56

Because we’re nurturer 

Amanda Abella  25:56

Because we’re naturally empathetic, Right? So, like us, the soft skills are a lot easier for us. Honestly a lot of it just comes down to how we’ve been conditioned about money and work and power, and all that kind of stuff. That’s really what it comes down to. Men are conditioned to like, go out, be the firefighter or be the hero or whatever. And we’re more conditioned to be nice.

Brynne Tillman  26:21

Yeah. But we’re also if we can take that be nice, along with the problem solver that we are naturally 

Amanda Abella  26:29

Yeah. 

Brynne Tillman  26:30

And get over the fact that we’re trading a service or product for money. But we’re solving a problem. 

Amanda Abella  26:38

Yep. 

Brynne Tillman  26:38

I think we would rule the world.

Amanda Abella  26:40

Yeah, I believe it. I mean, I’ve trained under some a lot of men in sales, and they’re all always telling me, “Amanda, we’re all the women we’re dying to get women in here.” They would wipe the floor with us. If they understood these things. I’m like, “I’m trying. I’m trying.” But there’s a lot more resistance to yeah, I’ve known yeah, there’s a lot more resistance. I’ve noticed, because we value different things. We’ve been conditioned differently. So, it just takes a little bit more massaging.

Brynne Tillman  27:06

Yeah, I’m part of a group called Women sales pros. So. 

Amanda Abella  27:09

You tell me about it. Yeah. 

Brynne Tillman  27:10

Okay, we’re gonna get you connected there. My last call, and I could do this all day long. But we’ve already gone over our normal time, which is fine, because I’m having so much fun. And I’m learning so much, what are the biggest mistakes that people are making with online selling?

Amanda Abella  27:25

I’ll tell you one. So, they’re doing things out of order. So for example, they’ll start going into a building I posted about this today that we have a funnel and our automated salesperson that we’re going to be helping with, I woke up to four figure sales on autopilot this morning, you know, you know, most of the high ticket sales activity is automated, we were telling you about that earlier, I can’t wait to be doing it. 

Because then you can like it if this is like my 10th interview this week, because I just don’t have to be manually sending text messages and things anymore. But the thing is, Right? It takes time to get there. 

So, what I posted was like guys, this is 10s of 1000s of hours of data of conversations like this, of practicing of webinars of marketing trainings, of sales trainings, of working through my own crap in my head, helping other people work through their crap in their head testing, tweaking, you know, a lot of grunt work behind the scenes that nobody ever shows you while they’re showing you their Instagram feed of them on a yacht or something or traveling the world.

There’s a lot of grunt work. So, I’m so don’t look at this post right of me celebrating and think that there’s something wrong with you, because you’re not there yet. It just takes work and what I find happening, and this has to do with a fear of sales.

By the way, when they will start I’ll talk to a woman making $5,000 a month and she’s like, I need all these automations I’m like, “No, you need to get to over six figures and pay someone else to build those automations.” But they think that that’s what they get it but really it’s just a distraction.

Brynne Tillman  28:56

Because they’re trying to do anything but talk to someone.

 Amanda Abella  28:59

Because they’re trying to do anything but talk to someone and when I’ve trained teams, it’s like a great sales activity today. Oh, well, you know, my email today said, you know, then I went to work on a website. And then I worked on my phone or and I’m like, “No, no first two hours every day, business development, all that other stuff can wait.”

Brynne Tillman  29:17

Yeah. And I love that they’re doing things in the wrong order to be well, I don’t love that they’re doing it. I love that you brought it to my attention.

Amanda Abella  29:23

Yeah. And then they make themselves feel terrible. And then it’s like this vicious cycle because they just don’t have the data and they’re like, I should be a millionaire by now. And I’m like, “No, this only has a one to 2% conversion.” So, they don’t know that. So, then what happens is they skip all the organic sales stuff, all the people stuff that you and I know how to do. 

Brynne Tillman  29:45

That’s where the high conversion is.

Amanda Abella  29:47

That’s where the high conversion is. And also not realizing that when they do the people stuff and they’ve done it often enough and they’ve put in their reps. That’s when they have the data to make the other stuff convert.

Brynne Tillman  29:58

I love that. Yeah. So you gotta put your time in period. 

Amanda Abella  30:01

Gotta put in the reps, got to put in the time, got into your 10,000 hours, no way around it.

Brynne Tillman  30:07

Well, I thank you. And I’m so excited to be working with you and your team like beyond excited. And so I want to share that with the world. So, one of the things that you offered was to download a free outbound sales script to turn social media followers into buyers. That link is in the show notes. And really, I am beyond excited. I think. Every once in a while someone comes around with a new message that just lands with me, and you land that lands with me, I love it.

Amanda Abella  30:43

You’re a professional and you’ve been in sales a long time. So, that means a lot. That means a lot to me, because I know at these levels in business, like you don’t hire just anybody because I don’t hire just anybody.

Brynne Tillman  30:54

Yeah, no, I’m really excited. And I’m glad to share what you’re doing with our listeners. So, Amanda, thanks for coming on. Well, obviously behind the scenes continue this conversation but go find Amanda Abella on LinkedIn, it’s A-B-E-L-L-A on LinkedIn at go download the free sales script that’s in the show notes. And when you guys are out and about don’t forget to make your sales social.

Outro  31:28

Thanks for listening and join us again for more special guest instructors bringing you marketing, sales, training and social selling strategies that will set you apart. Don’t forget to subscribe to get the latest episodes from the making sales social podcasts, leave a review down below. Tell us what you think, what you learned and what you want to hear from us next. You can also listen to us on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and Google Play. Visit our website socialsaleslink.com For more information.