Discovery Calls for Virtual Assistants with Tracie Patterson #136

Tracie Patterson  00:00

It’s very normal to kind of have that feeling whenever you hear a word like sales. But when you go beyond that and look at what its real purposes and there’s actually just two keys, just two little secrets that will make you feel comfortable with it as well as get the results you’re after.

Emily Reagan  00:21

Hey, everyone, I’m Emily Reagan, and you’ve discovered unicorns unite. This is a podcast for freelancers, service providers, virtual assistants, and curious listeners who would like to experience the freedom and flexibility of working virtually, where the magic makers movers and shakers and the real people doing the work behind the scenes of online businesses. Welcome to unicorn tonight. Hey, it’s Emily. Welcome back to the show. I’m your fellow freelancer. I’ve been doing this since 2009 When I accidentally started freelancing, and I did not have the vision or the know how to make this a six figure business and fast forward 10 plus years, and it’s all clicked into place. And so now I help my friends, especially my over educated underemployed, military spouses and stay at home moms are going back into the workforce, I help them get jobs on their own terms of working from home as digital marketing assistants. But the crossover is crazy. There are so many options out there for you. If you can learn the marketing mailroom tasks, you can turn into almost anything you want. You can make your freelance independent contractor business, almost anything from an agency to VIP models to being a full time employee, or you can stay part time, it’s such a beautiful thing. Part of being a successful service based business owner is being good at selling yourself. And I know a lot of us have this knee jerk reaction of who I can’t sell. I don’t want to sell I don’t want to be associated with those gross schmucky People who think they’re being so smooth, but they’re really just trying to be manipulative and it doesn’t work. I know I have my own limiting beliefs when it comes to selling it stems all the way back from Girl Scout Cookie selling is a really kind of like traumatic learning very quickly that I hated rejection, I hated putting myself out there. But I didn’t understand at the time that adults want to support girls, they want to encourage girls and that cookie is not just a trade of $1 for an expensive cookie or half a cookie or whatever. It was a support thing. And I wish I had learned to articulate this back in third grade when I’m peddling cookies around the neighborhood, which we totally aren’t allowed to do anymore now. So it is funny. I told you at the beginning of this podcast, I was an accidental freelancer. And I didn’t know about this term discovery call. I didn’t know I was supposed to have a proposal and a portfolio and go through all of these steps. I just started working with people and it was so easy to sell myself because they trusted me. People just trusted me but it’s a different day and age or getting on a sales call or a discovery call is pretty much a must do before any online business owner hires anyone to do any kind of work, you need to check them out. Especially when people are over promising what they can do under delivering and we have this whole digital con thing. I mean, you’ve heard of different scams, and I’m not trying to scare you. But people just want to jump on a call and make sure you’re the person for them. And I’m always a natural at this. But now that I understand the psychology of sales, it’s so much easier and there’s less pressure. And that’s why I brought in sales and offer strategists Tracy Patterson to help us get better with Discovery calls, especially when we’re brand new virtual assistant or marketing assistant. But these tips you apply no matter where you’re at in business. If you’re an experienced service provider, freelancer, creative specialist, you need the same tricks. And it really is about articulating your value, making sure you’re the right fit. And you guys will work well together. You are capable of being good at sales. You can be yourself authentic, awkward, shy, and still be confident and still have the prospect saying yes, I want to work with her. And that’s what this call today will do. Tracie is a friend of mine. I have to tell you every time Tracie and I chat I’m always just blown away by her brain. She’s so wicked smart. And she’s such an authentic person and this training inside my unicorn digital marketing assistant school is gold. The good news is if you choose to do the self study version, when that opens up soon you will get the recorded version of this trading with Tracie. Now you won’t get to participate live roleplay with her live but it will be ever so important to you getting better at Discovery calls. I also have my discovery call training inside my freelance business Kickstarter. It’s for somebody who is sitting on a skill ready to transition into offering mat and getting paid and just wants the quick know how on how to set up a business and all that things they need in place, the system you need in place for clients to be able to say yes, I want to work with you. Tracy is going to give you a good taste of that here in today’s episode, Tracy is a sales and offer coach for introverts and HSPs. And those who don’t like the common sales schmuck that they see, her mission is to empower service providers and coaches to say goodbye to sweaty pits and lumpy throats, and enjoy talking to people about our offers. And she’s going to show you how to create sales with intention. So you feel good, and you have permission to show up as yourself. So let’s jump in Hey, Tracie, welcome to the show. I’m so excited to have you here today. You teach sales inside my unicorn digital marketing assistant school, and I am thrilled to introduce you to my podcast say hello and tell everyone where you’re from. Hello, hello. 

Tracie Patterson  05:53

Yes, I am Tracie, I am a sales and offers coach for introverts highly sensitive people, those who just don’t like that kind of classic sales system. And they just feel like it’s like, yeah, and I am currently living in Texas, if that’s what you meant by where am I from? 

Emily Reagan  06:09

Yeah, I just like to get people talking about themselves. And what I really love, I love talking to different freelancers and finding out how they pivoted this online space because there’s just so many options. And what I teach is entry level marketing skills that really turn into like, different businesses, right? There’s so many different like forks in the road here. So tell us like, what did you used to do in your past life? And how did you become into sales? I know you do copywriting all of these things. Yeah. 

Tracie Patterson  06:38

So corporate dropped out. Hello, everybody else. So after multiple, multiple degrees, and I’m doing like, mainly director level stuff, managing teams, finance teams, I actually never wanted to do anything with sales. Because people always told me I was good at it. And I thought that was like a handicap. You know, I thought like some sort of supervillain was going to find me and like use my powers for evil. Like that was what I always had in my mind. So I never wanted to do anything with it. And it wasn’t until I started noticing all of these new graduates going into sales development roles, which just means teams, you know, like, they call it business development. But really, it’s just a sales role, same damn thing. So they were giving like this kind of warped view of how to treat other humans, and how they were being treated as well. So me being this just a secret that I was like, I want to fix that. If everybody says I’m good at this, then I’m going to change this. I don’t know how grandiose or odd that sounds, but that that was the idea. Because it’s like, the these kids graduate, they go into a corporate job. And if they don’t perform to a certain level, they’re thrown away and someone else comes in. Right. It’s just such this like Kleenex mentality with humans. And because they’re treated that way, they also see the other people on the other side, their leads their, you know, all this other stuff as the same thing. If they don’t do what I want, I’m ignoring you. And I’m moving on. There’s no like long game thought and relationship creation, you know, especially with like LinkedIn, and just that the way that we change jobs all the time. Now, you never know if the person on the other end of the phone or the other end of the desk, or the other end of zoom is going to end up either being your boss or you’re gonna end up being theirs, or what that relationship will end up being later. It just was kind of this aha moment of, they’re picking up the wrong kind of skills of being an adult. And it just cascades until the rest of their life with, you know, how they treat service industry people or how they are with their friends. It’s like, what can you do with me if you can’t do what I need and moving on, because they feel so much pressure themselves to not get used and tossed aside? Right? So it’s not maybe a traditional reason, but that was why I was like, I can make a difference here and change that. And I want to do that. 

Emily Reagan  09:11

That’s crazy. So how did you start moving into this role? What did you? 

Tracie Patterson  09:15

So my last corporate job I left that actually three years ago now. And I was like, I want to teach sales. I want to do this thing called sales messaging. How do I do that? Insert Google Google. Right. And I learned that there’s an entire industry called copywriting. That copywriting that is the sales words of the internet of decks, you know, that you make for corporate jobs of scripts that people do in videos of everything. And I was like, okay, cool. I have a marketing degree. I’ve never heard of this. I’ve heard of ad writing, but I’ve never heard of like copywriting one where did my education fail me? And two, how do I dig into all of this? So I went down like a two and a half year study. To really deep dive into it in the purpose and the hopes of using it for sales coaching, so that way, it’s like whatever medium that you use to get your message across, we can figure out how to how to make it where it matches you. And it’s not just some, you know, 1980s, slimy, direct to video kind of script that people are repeating over and over again, of buy my stuff because I live on a yacht and life is great kind of thing.

Emily Reagan  10:29

I love this, because I think our in our online space, our buyers are getting more sophisticated, we’re getting more aware of those bro marketing tactics that worked 97654 years ago, are going away. And so you’re hitting it at the right point. And I am going to be on a big panel podcast. And I was thinking about like, what’s my answer going to be when they’re like, how is the market changed? And I it’s kind of what you said less eloquently. But people need more time. And they need more relationships in this, like, this type of sales you’re talking about? We’re also over it. And I don’t know about you, but my friends who are sales coaches, like I see it, I can tell you think you’re being smooth. And you’re not like No, I know what you doing. 

Tracie Patterson  11:11

Yeah, like being smooth and being slick are actually different things. Yeah. But it’s interesting because, well, I met most of the online world when I was going through DCA. And because my primary clients are corporate. And so then I was seeing this like entire online world. And I was like, does anybody realize that you’re just copying and pasting the crap that you hate from corporate, and all of those kind of like stereotypes, and you’re just putting it onto the world that you’re in now. You don’t have to, like we get to make whatever we want. And when it’s your own business, you can make it whatever you want. Right? And there’s there’s that thrilling this but also that fear, because it’s like, oh, if I can make up what I want, what do I make up? How do I do it? Right? How do I do it? quote unquote, right? Yeah. So what do you do you fall back to experts to old school tactics to whatever book was written whenever. And you just regurgitate that over and over again, slowly dying inside, but not really knowing how else to change it. 

Emily Reagan  12:17

Yeah, and it makes so many of us scared to start these digital service businesses, because a huge part of our success is being able to sell, sell our services, get buy in on our ideas, get people to trust us. And we’re seeing those tactics, and we just know something’s not right. Like, that’s not me. But the good news is we can change it. And that’s what you’re here to teach us and talk about. Because these negative you no ideas we have about selling, we don’t have to keep them going. So tell me what what is your business look like now? Like, what? What are you doing? What are your offers? Give us some insight to how you you have fitted into this world. 

Tracie Patterson  12:54

All right. All right. And this is where that, you know, introvert side of me, I serve my own people, basically, you know, because it’s like, Oh, someone wants to ask me like a personal me question. Instead of like an about my service. It was kind of like, shy away. As I physically move in. I laugh at myself for that, because I know that so I can create a tool to kind of help. Right? And that’s that key. It’s that self awareness. It’s listening to knowing when a butterfly in your stomach is a good thing. Versus a I don’t want to do this anymore thing. Right, and kind of bringing it a bit more of that scientific side where you’re tracking it. And noticing, after the emotions over looking back and thinking, Wait, why did I feel that way? And what can I do about it? Right? So that’s one of the reasons why I loved conversion, copywriting because it’s very much has that emotional appeal, but there’s the data and the metrics that turn around and back it up. So what I do is basically a coach people through this, they’re trying to figure out, well, this is the work that I do, but how do I say it? Because I’m afraid to seem like I’m bragging about myself? You know, how do I talk about all this great stuff? And how do I even showcase my testimonials? When I’m like, Oh, who me? Oh, no. And we get kind of this little like, we physically shrink whenever these things are happening. And it’s okay that you’re like that you don’t have to change. You don’t have to do 40 minutes of power stances a day in order to evolve into somebody that you’re not. It’s that that kind of movement. So whether you’re trying to write it to say it, to just kind of figure out how to get comfortable in yourself. That’s what I help people with. And I know you love secrets. So there is actually like a lovely little secret to being a better, like embodying sales better. 

Emily Reagan  14:46

Oh, yes. Do tell. 

Tracie Patterson  14:48

It’s not it’s not like this, you know, sexy answer, but it actually comes from knowing your offers better. The more that you know what it is that you’re actually doing and providing. Both in like a process standpoint, as well as what that outcome is, then the more you can just sit back and relax and listen when someone’s trying to talk to you. Right? 

Emily Reagan  15:12

Oh, my God, you just backed me up and everything I say only, you’re always 10,000 times more eloquent, but I always say it comes all that other stuff doesn’t matter, it comes down to your, your pricing and your services and like being very sure on that. I mean, that’s what you said. And I mean, I love it. Because ultimately knowing you can get out there and you can do the work and you can trust yourself to do the work. I mean, it sounds so simple. 

Tracie Patterson  15:36

But that’s the key part, trusting yourself, right? And that comes from feeling that completeness of you. And that’s what the people I work with highly sensitives and introverts and those who are just like, Screw this system, I’m doing my own thing. You know, it’s hard for us to do that. Because if you’ve always felt awkward, or if you’ve always felt like you’re missing something, you know that you don’t get what it is that makes all these other people front page cover successful, then it can be really hard to go in there and say, I know I’m really good at this. And this is how I do it. And I can walk you through this exactly, because you’re going to get fill in the blank, right? Because you’re sitting there going well, it’s happened over and over again. But every single time I freak out or every single time I have to, you know, like use my security blanket every time I’m not sure. Because you haven’t built that self trust and that worthiness to give ourselves a little buzzword there that helps with that, then I’ve actually turned into a little mini course so people can do it on demand. 

Emily Reagan  16:40

But of course, go ahead and tell us about it. 

Tracie Patterson  16:43

It’s called boost the value of your offer in a day. And I intentionally use the word value, because it’s not about just upping your prices. It’s not about you know, who has the grandest banner, it can see all that it actually the exercise starts with peeling it back and seeing exactly like were you personally come face to face with all of the goodness that you do. So you can’t back yourself out of feeling confident in it. And then how do you actually showcase that? So we start with the inside and then work to the outside? Like what ends up on your services page? How do you say it when somebody asks you, you know, all of that kind of good copywriting stuff that that that’s in there. But it starts with like figuring out why Why am I saying this? And how can I say without turning bright red, you know, without trying to like shrink under my desk, and all those kind of visceral things that people often feel, 

Emily Reagan  17:41

which is why I bring you into the unicorn digital marketing assistance school to help us do that we have a two hour training with our students where you walk us through that how to listen in this call, communicate our offers and be confident and just I can’t thank you enough for it. It’s like one of my most favorite trainings in there. Yeah, you’re so good. everyone’s mind is blown. I’m so excited that another one coming up too. And it’s just part of the process. Because I always say, I can teach you the marketing, I can teach you the tech, I can teach you the strategy and the workflows. But ultimately, it comes down to this most important piece that you’re actually going to learn from Tracie. Like, the confidence in yourself and communicating that value. Yeah. 

Tracie Patterson  18:21

And it’s about making that connection, right, creating that relationship. Like I say that it’s a relationship over a transaction. Right. And that’s what comes with that. And that’s what makes you comfortable to think about whenever you’re recommending your favorite book, or the latest TV show that that you have. You’re not sitting here going alright, today, I’m gonna go meet my friends. And I’m going to tell them how much I love Stranger Things. And why I think season whatever was better than season whatever. Right? What it comes up in the conversation naturally. Because something sparks, right, either alien if the topic comes up, or it’s like somebody says something or sings a song that makes you go, Oh my gosh, do you remember when this happened, and oh, if you haven’t watched it yet, you need to because of x y Zed. And it’s that same sort of energy and excitement and knowing it really, really well that you can actually do in your calls that you can do in your discovery calls that you can do when you’re talking about it when you you know are just kind of having that natural and even thinking about somebody else. And you’re like, oh, I don’t do that. But I know somebody who does it that’s actually selling today. You’re just doing it from that very different centered place where you’re not all in your head. But instead you are listening intently and reacting to the other person. 

Emily Reagan  19:41

Oh my gosh, so good. And I for years I was the accidental idiot Freelancer like didn’t see the gold night I was sitting on like, for years I didn’t even know that was called a discovery call. You know, I mean, I’m one of the OGs and but I think that just came natural to me and my first outreach my first outreach, email had all of those things that you’re talking about. And I even talked about how I could help them find someone else if I wasn’t the right fit, or if they needed something more advanced. But now that I know it’s a discovery call, if I went back to Emily in 2010, I would have been scared shitless. 

Tracie Patterson  20:18

Right you?

Emily Reagan  20:21

Yes, I wouldn’t realize I’m selling. And so it’s a beautiful thing that we have this knowledge, and we have better processes, and it’s more expected, but at the same time, it’s like, oh, now I see that whole time I was doing that. And I felt kind of lucky. It came. It came natural to me. But I think I was also in this place that this will open up a can of worms. And that’s not what I meant. But I was always in a powerful place, because I was booked out. And so like that part of my confidence was there too, always. And so where we get stuck is these new freelancers who are just starting and then making that big switch and having to communicate their value is probably like the biggest thing they need to work on. Right? And that discovery call or is there something else you can think of? Okay, let’s just take a moment here, it’s impossible to get referrals without putting yourself out there all the time. It’s really difficult to have a community when you’re doing the work by yourself. It’s also hard to stay up to date when you’re just one person and digital marketing trends, platforms, technology, and strategies change all the time. And it’s no fun having to do lead generation for your business when you’d rather be doing billable hours. So I have a solution for you. Come join my digital marketing workgroup. It’s a tight community of freelancers, virtual assistants, digital marketing specialists, who are all up leveling in their skills, getting advanced trainings, applying for my job ops, and becoming a digital marketing specialist, and managers and strategist. This is an online referral community for both skilled and up and coming Digital Marketing Service Pros and virtual assistants. We’ve shared over 800 jobs with our community, we’d love to have you too, if you need client work. If you need a squad behind you, if you need help raising your prices, promoting yourself to the next level, this is the place to be you can apply for the workgroup with the link in the show notes. We’d love to have you back to the show. 

Tracie Patterson  22:17

Yeah, well, no, I mean, seriously, it’s like, how many times does somebody interpret or directly hear why you and you’re like, oh, my gosh, you’re just asking me to validate my existence. You know, it’s it’s like that for like, the first time you meet a scary mother in law, right? It’s like, I don’t even know what to say right now. And it’s that sort of kind of like deer in headlights moment that we get when we hear words like sales, when we’re like, oh, you need to pitch yourself, Oh, you need to do this. And whether I’m like speaking to someone, or even if there’s like a little application, that’s like, tell us why you should, like, you know, you’re asking me to validate my existence. And I’m going to sit here and overthink this and never fill this form out. And then it’s not going to happen, you know, versus like, oh, well, I mean, freezing, right? We can work on freezing. But there’s also kind of this vocabulary, heaviness that comes on things. So in some ways, we need to keep it very pure. And know that when somebody says connection call, or coffee chat, that is nothing more than a peer to peer, we just want to get to know each other, do not turn it into something else. You know, it’s like do not mess with the sanctity of that time to just know other people. Versus when it’s a sales call, a discovery, call it insert whatever somebody wants to call it these days call. It’s like, let’s have very clear intentions on it. But then be comfortable in ourselves enough to walk away from the labels. Right? And be like, how do I want to show up to this? Do I want to just kind of be cool, calm and collected? Okay, great. Am I personally capable of that? Or do I have to become somebody else to do it? Like, what is my version of that look like? And I don’t want to like, like a discovery call sales call set an agenda connection call? Don’t you’re just there to chat know each other, you know, but how can you bring a little bit of that comfortable just getting to know each other into those other aspects. So you don’t feel like oh, my gosh, I now need to find a template. You know, it’s like, I have to find these kind of other pieces, because I now have this label that it is a sales call, and I’m scared to do sales. So how do I do it? Right? And anytime you’re asking yourself, How do you do it? Right? You’re getting away from your own version of it, and you’re looking to an outside source. 

Emily Reagan  24:41

Hmm. 

Tracie Patterson  24:42

Right. And it’s great to look at an outside source to learn something, but you always have to layer that bit of kind of like discretion or you know, just just like, extra knowledge of what is it that what’s my version of this and use it more like a checklist than using it for I have to do exactly this. 

Emily Reagan  25:02

Yeah, in this order with these exact transitions, yes. 

Tracie Patterson  25:06

And this exact words and these power words, and you know, and all these pieces, and it’s like, no, you know, you have to layer on that bit of critical thinking, and be like, Well, what about the person on the other side? How much do I or don’t I know about them? You know, what, what is happening in their life? What’s happening in my life? And how does this make me feel like I can sit back in my chair, versus feeling like, you know, I’m in school, and I have to sit proper, and my hands have to be like this and all those things. Right? If you’re starting to feel that uneasiness, you’ve gone too far. And you need to step back and layer yourself on to the advice that you’re looking at. 

Emily Reagan  25:43

Oh, my gosh, so good. I just flashed forward to like my first day of my internship and the Sports Media Relations office. And I went shopping, I showed up with this suit, peach, it had these zippers, it was so early 2000s. And I show up and everyone’s like, you know, in their jeans, like hanging out. And he was like, Whoa, and I mean, I was like, awkwardly walking. And I’m like, This is not me at all. That was like my grandma who took me shopping. So it was like, oh, influence when the reality of like, I just needed to be myself. And I like laugh about that day so much, especially because then my zipper broke. That’s like a whole nother story. But I don’t do well in situations like that like that. Like, oh, yeah, 

Tracie Patterson  26:28

It’s hard to be the new kid, right? You know, it’s so much of life, in my mind goes back to like, middle school lunch tables, you know, what it’s like to like walk in there and figure out where to go and what to do.

Emily Reagan  26:41

Over here. 

Tracie Patterson  26:42

Yeah, yeah. And because that was kind of our molded time of life, we do end up falling back in, you know, into those things, right. And that’s kind of like that cultural norm piece. But it’s very much like, to your point, though, about an outfit is you can still kind of armor up, you know, do what makes you feel good about it. Right? For me, I have very set things like I have one public photo. It’s the same one that I use for everything. It’s an orange background, it’s my face. Anything else is like a private photo or you know, I don’t even know where some I got it, right. But I have that one thing. So I’m not sitting there going, oh my gosh, what photo do I give them? How do I do this? What does this look like? If some people they like they need to be wearing real shoes and not just slippers in order to feel like confident and comfortable. Other people it’s like, it’s more like you know that Zoom mullet, right? It’s like what you see appears good. But what you see down here yet Oh, no. So like so like you’re super comfortable. And you know, in that that part becomes you. Some people it’s lipstick some people it’s not messing with their hair because then they they over fuss and they write? What is it for you that makes you feel physically comfortable? So you’re not sitting there like messing with your shirt all the time? Or wondering what’s happening or being like, oh, is my lipstick, right? You know, what is it about? Like, I have one bio, I don’t ever want to change it. I don’t ever want to touch it. Because if I do, who knows what I’m going to end up doing, it’s going to take me 14 weeks to figure it out. It’s those kinds of pieces that can make you forget about the external. So you can pay attention to that connection and what’s going on with you. You know, so it’s okay, if maybe That day you did need a power suit. But maybe it didn’t need to be peach with a bunch of zippers and picked out by your nana, or a six year old woman. 

Emily Reagan  28:28

Let’s start with age appropriate. And like it’s the elastic. Yeah, don’t make my tummy explode. 

Tracie Patterson  28:35

Right? Yeah, it’s like I have extra high waist with a wide bands. And even though no one sees it, it makes me feel good. And I’m not under the desk like fidgeting with stuff. And people are like, What is she doing? You know, it’s those kinds of things that make you forget all the pieces around you and be a bit comfortable in your own skin. 

Emily Reagan  28:54

It adds to that layer of being uncomfortable. And I like this whole topic. It’s about you being natural, and just building the trust and connection and from a place of honesty, like integrity. Really? 

Tracie Patterson  29:07

Yeah, yeah, and not feeling like you have to put yourself into or create some other sort of form. Right? That can often take guts, you know, it can feel like oh my gosh, isn’t my very first job or my very first, you know, internship. And I’m 19 and everybody else is 47. And I’ve got to show up with with you know, expertise and class. And then you will walk in like wearing something ill fitting carrying a briefcase and doing all these things that it’s not you and it’s not the place, right? So it’s finding that balance in yourself of what do you need to do? And, you know, I’ve given some in person examples and some lovely little Zoom Room examples, but it’s those kinds of pieces of again, layering on that critical thinking of you and being like yeah, I might feel like I have to wear this or be this to fit in. But does it fit me right

Emily Reagan  30:00

Right. And you do layer this in to win in person conferences, right? When you’re representing yourself now you’re just like, everyone’s looking at you for six hours in a row. So you better be comfortable, right? You better be able to walk around and you know, I’m flashing to some events there so

Tracie Patterson  30:15

that you think you have to wear in order to look, you know, this this level? 

Emily Reagan  30:21

Yeah, yeah, well know this about me. I came from the PR world. My last jobs are PR, I was part of prsa. All those girls were cute. And then I was like, I’ve always felt like the girl like, what am I doing here? Why am I in this room? And I mean, that’s what they did. They dress cute. They talked to media. I mean, they went on TV, and I can remember by the end of our week, doing our events, like, I didn’t care if my makeup had melted off, like, I’ll do the soundbite. Whatever. I don’t care if my husband crazy Ex girlfriend’s gonna see me on TV. And like judge me right now. Like worst case scenario. Yeah. So it’s so funny. Okay, let’s bring it back to discovery calls. What is your best tip for somebody who is new? I mean, you know, I’m thinking about Emily circa 2010, when I’m switching over to freelance and like, how do I sell myself when I’m new, and I am feeling insecure about it again. 

Tracie Patterson  31:14

So the biggest thing is to remember, it’s not about you. To it’s not like I tell you about it, it’s it’s a window, not a mirror, like you’re not looking at yourself, you’re looking through to the other person the entire time. It’s about their need, what they’re after listening to their concern, and then deciding whether or not it matches, because you can actually have a great call and realize you don’t want to work with that person. Because what they need isn’t something you have any interest in doing, or you know, something that’s going to take you 15 hours, because you haven’t tried it yet versus somebody else who could do it in 30 minutes. Right. And which, again, is that level of awareness and that confidence in yourself, but it’s not about you, and getting through your set bullet points and seeing what happens, it’s about letting the other person feel like they were heard, and then parroting it back to them. And making a very blatant connection between what they’re asking for and what you can do for them, including of what you can do for them as referring them to someone else.

Emily Reagan  32:19

 Yeah, yeah. Oh, my gosh, so good. Can you tease out a little bit about what we do inside the school with what you teach in those hours? 

Tracie Patterson  32:26

Yeah. So in the calls that convert, which is the name of what I do with Emily, what we’re looking at is, it’s like, well, what’s that prep work about? Then? What do I need to do to build in myself the ability to sit back and listen? How do I do like what’s typically called active listening? Like, how can you parrot it back and use those words to make those Blyton connections? And then how do you even do that close without feeling like, Alright, now I’m going to sit here and sell you my shit. You know, it’s, it’s that kind of piece. Where? How do I keep making it feel like I’m recommending a book? How does this feel like this is a natural segue to the conversation? And what happens afterwards? You know, what are those pieces look like? And what does it mean to not nail it every single time? How do I look back on historical data and figure out where my groove is because it does show up over time. Even if you feel very comfortable and very natural with selling, it doesn’t mean that having these kinds of calls, or you’re now putting yourself out there as the one and only versus like, if you came from corporate where you were one piece of something, and you had somebody’s title in somebody’s company name behind you. And now you’re all you. 

Emily Reagan  33:50

That is why I love having you in the course. Because we do this for two hours. We cover all of that, and we do role playing and we get you to pull it out of them. Right? You make everyone show up on video in practice. So I’m so grateful again, that you do this in the group. Okay, so that leads me into what you said earlier about being able to articulate communicate our value. So tell everyone about the freebie you have for us listeners. 

Tracie Patterson  34:15

Okay? Before whenever like you’re trying to figure out that that sales call part. I have a little freebie that walks you through how to do that discovery call. What does prep look like? What does during the call look like? And how do you kind of marry those and then come into your own with that. Whenever you are ready to rock and roll and you’re out there and you’ve got your services going. That’s where boost the value of your offering today comes from. Okay, so kind of that before piece is the sales with ease lab in the workbook. That’s the freebie part where you get to kind of like, write it out and make it a little bit more of a Section process, which takes that pressure off and you understand, like what’s actually behind the labels. So those labeled those words as vocabulary don’t scare you so much anymore. So you no longer have that kind of, you know, sweaty palms feeling whenever you’re, you’re going to do the big sales call, right. And then whenever you’re ready to share it all with the world, and you really want to have that wholeness belief in yourself, and let other people see that. So they can start thinking about what it’s like to invite you into their world, then that’s boost the value of your offering a day. So they really kind of complement those two stages, you know that that before and after piece. 

Emily Reagan  35:35

So our big tip today is for every single virtual assistant, digital marketing assistant service provider, listening to this wanting to get better at sales calls. The big tip is to not make them about you anymore, stop worrying about you really listen to the potential client on the other side of that Zoom video, and pull out what they need. Right? Is there anything else you want to add to that? I mean, this is huge. It’s such a reframe, with how we look at it, 

Tracie Patterson  36:01

I think it ya know, it’s knowing that offer and listening to what it is that they had to say, right, because there’s always a piece behind what it is that they’re asking you to do, or that they’re asking you for. There’s a reason that they need it. And you need to link those so they fully get that value that you’re going to provide, and to kind of see ways that you can expand working together. 

Emily Reagan  36:24

So and if we want to get stronger with our offer, that’s also where Tracie comes in. So I encourage you to check her out. We’ll put all of your links below grab her freebie, so you can start now communicating your offers better words and on your your website, your sales pages, your book a call pages, and then where’s the best place to connect with you, Tracie? 

Tracie Patterson  36:42

Ah, well, being one of those introverts and HSPs. Technically, I have an Instagram, but you can always email me and you can always DM me whether or not you see public posts are very different. I’m much more chatty with people in my world than I am with like, you know, that grand stage public place. So that is something that I am working on myself. 

Emily Reagan  37:03

Tracie doesn’t play a big social media game, but she’s still you’re still in all of the places like you’re on all the podcasts, all the platforms. 

Tracie Patterson  37:11

But yeah, I love podcasts. I like live calls. It’s just that you know, pose for a picture and write something witty underneath. It’s too much pressure. I can’t do it.

Emily Reagan  37:21

Because you and well, one of the other reasons I wanted you on my show is every single guest and like this is your your network is expanding. But sometimes our clients need help with this. Some of our clients are business coaches and other service providers. And they need to be able to articulate their value and better at calls. And their success factors us when we’re behind the scenes. So if you have a client who needs help with their offers help with their sales, this also applies to them. So don’t be afraid to reach out to Tracie for on behalf of your client, get your client to do it, too. So I have to put that out there. Because we need our clients to make money and be able to. Right? that’s how we keep our jobs. 

Tracie Patterson  38:00

Yeah. And it’s that beautiful ecosystem, you know? Yeah, and the stuff that you learn, like as far as how to write in the messaging, you might be asked to do that for your client. So the skill is not just for yourself, but it also translates into other arenas that where you do your work. 

Emily Reagan  38:16

Yeah. And that’s what makes my podcast so fun. We talk about it all and it applies to everything. Okay. All right. Thanks for joining me, we’ll catch you later Tracie. Was that not gold? I always love talking to her. I feel very passionate about non pushy sales tactic. And this was amazing. I also want to encourage you to go back and listen to episode 119 with sales coach Michelle Terpstra. We talked about non salesy strategies for social selling and using those strategies and discovery calls. And I have another episode that was really good that I did with Alexandria Cox, and she shares her best discovery call tips, I encourage you to listen there. I also have a blog, I’m going to put in the show notes if you want to dive into this. But hear out of everything you heard today. Just know this is how you talk about your price and how you communicate whether you can do the work that’s really important. But ultimately the power is in your hands. You’re going to get better with Discovery calls by doing them. Don’t be shy look at as an opportunity, an opportunity to pick your client, an opportunity to pick your dream clients and work together. There’s a huge power shift when this happens, even when you’re a new service provider. If you’re already good with the services, you’ve got it down, you’ve worked with a client or two, you’ve got your booking link down and you are ready to rock and roll with client work. I want to encourage you to apply for the digital marketing workgroup. We’re going to be closing the doors December 15. And we’re going to go to a closed a membership where we only open it a few times a year. So if you’ve been on the fence, this is your opportunity to join Send us before December 15. Do you enjoy this episode? Would you tag me and Tracie at any copy over on Instagram and let us know we’d love to hear from you. And stay tuned for next week when we’re going to be talking about pricing some services and something you really should never ever, ever, ever do. And the week after that we’re going to be talking about my big lessons from 2022 is going to be a good one. It’s always one of my most downloaded episodes, I’ll talk to you then. If you want to start earning income as a digital marketing service provider, or digital marketing assistant, you only need your laptop, you can tap into what online business owners really need help with by downloading my top 10 most requested tasks. These are the services I did four years for my clients behind the scenes. You can take this download and apply it to your own business and start by offering these very same services. If you want to niche down in digital marketing, this is your guide. Just use the link in the show notes or go to Emily Reagan pr.com/services. Let’s talk about the leaves Give me a minute here. I’m not used to people watching me when I woke up.

Tracie Patterson  41:28

It’s okay it’s okay. I’m comfortable. I have no pants. I’m comfortable. I’m like be blooper.