Breaking Through Sales Plateaus: Clarity and Consistency as Your Key Tools
The Importance of Clarity: Know Your Ideal Client
Who Are You Solving This Problem For?
The first step to overcoming a sales plateau is gaining clarity on who your product or service is designed for. Often businesses try to appeal to everyone, which ultimately results in speaking to no one effectively. Amy emphasizes the significance of focusing on your ideal client avatar – a detailed profile that represents your perfect customer.
Creating Targeted Content
By having a clear understanding of your ideal client, you can tailor your messaging to speak directly to their specific needs and challenges. This approach makes your content resonate deeper, leading to higher conversion rates. Much like Amy’s medical background where she specialized in outpatient orthopedics, knowing your zone of genius and staying within it ensures you're the best equipped to serve your target audience.
Choose the Right Platforms
Once you know who your ideal clients are, the next step is to determine where they spend their time. This enables you to position yourself effectively and avoid spreading your efforts too thin. Focus on the platforms where your ideal clients are most active and engage with them there.
Consistency: The Backbone of Sustainable Success
The Role of Data
After establishing clarity, the next crucial component is consistency. This entails regularly tracking and analyzing your data to understand what's working and what's not. Many business owners find this part daunting, but as Amy points out, data drives decisions and tells a story. It doesn't have to be complex to be effective.
Simple Data Tracking
Start by calculating your total audience reach – the sum of your social media followers, email list subscribers, podcast downloads, etc. Track this figure month-to-month to gauge your growth. For example, even if Amy’s email list decreased slightly, she noticed a 7% overall audience growth, which is significant. It’s crucial to look at the bigger picture and not get bogged down by minor setbacks.
Adjusting Strategies Based on Data
By consistently monitoring your data, you can notice trends and make informed adjustments. If certain strategies or platforms are yielding better results, double down on those efforts. Conversely, if something isn't working, be willing to pivot. For instance, if a group program isn't selling as expected, it might make sense to focus more on lucrative one-on-one client sessions instead.
Leveraging Social Media and Content Creation
Quality Over Quantity
In the quest to stand out in a noisy online space, there's a temptation to flood social media with posts. However, Amy advises against this. Rather than blending in by following every trend, focus on being authentic and leveraging long-form content like podcasts to showcase your knowledge and build credibility.
Building Relationships
Use social media as a tool to connect and collaborate. Form meaningful relationships, engage in conversations, and provide value consistently. This approach not only helps you stand out but also builds trust with your audience over time.
Conclusion
Breaking through a sales plateau requires a strategic approach centered around clarity and consistency. By narrowing your focus on your ideal client and regularly analyzing your data, you can make informed decisions that drive growth. Embrace authenticity in your content and prioritize quality over quantity. Remember, business is an ongoing experiment – test, revise, and continuously improve to achieve the results you desire.
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Transcript for Episode 326. The Secret to Consistent Sales
Amy [00:00:02]:
Have you hit a sales plateau in your business? First of all, I want you to know you're not alone. It happens. This is what I work with clients every single day to overcome. And overcoming this challenge isn't really as complicated as you're making it out to be. You need two things. That's right. Just two to break through your sales plateau. Number one, clarity as to who.
Amy [00:00:35]:
Who are you solving this problem for? And then consistency as to what. And this is where the data really comes into play. So let's dive in and unpack this even more. Let's start with the clarity piece. Clarity as to who. As much as it feels counterintuitive, your product, your service, whatever you're selling, it is not going to be for everyone. I want you to really go back to that ideal client avatar. I see you rolling your eyes.
Amy [00:01:18]:
I get it. I've done it. But this is the missing piece. This is what allows you to create content that converts, because now you're speaking to one person who has one problem on one platform. It's so simple that it's complicated. Gary Keller does an amazing job breaking this all down in his book. The one thing, what we're trying to do as entrepreneurs is we're trying to be for everyone. Right? We try and do this because of the primal need for acceptance.
Amy [00:01:58]:
We want to be accepted by the tribe. We want to feel busy, because being busy makes us feel important. So what happens is we do all of the things all of the time, and we don't do any of the things well. We end up confusing potential clients in our messaging because we're speaking to everyone. And when you're speaking to everyone, you speak to no one. You want to be known for one thing, just one thing before you go wide. It goes back to my. My career in the medical field.
Amy [00:02:39]:
I was a specialist in one thing. I worked outpatient orthopedics. I knew outpatient ortho. I knew knees, hips, shoulders, bones, muscles, like all that stuff. You had a neurological condition. I was not a specialist in that. Could I fart my way through it? Sure. But was I the best person, best equipped to serve that patient? No.
Amy [00:03:06]:
I knew my zone of genius. I knew what I was good at, and I stayed within it. So really having that clarity as to who is my product or service for and breaking it down once you know who it's for. Okay, where are they? How can I position myself in front of them? Because the key is not being everywhere. You want to position yourself in front of the right people on the right platforms talk to their problems in a way that makes them pay attention. The online space is noisy. The things and tactics that were once working no longer work. In order to stand out, you have to be different.
Amy [00:03:55]:
You have to be loud. You have to catch their attention. And no, this does not mean going online and doing 50,000 posts every single day, doing dancing reels. All the trends, all the filters, no, stop. That's exhausting. That makes you blend in. I want you to start by just being you, by starting to leverage social media as a tool in your business to connect with people again, to collaborate, to form those relationships, using long form platforms like podcasts, to really show your credibility how much you actually know. Because anyone can go online and throw up a post on social media saying, oh, my gosh, look at me, I did a, you know, long, with this much money.
Amy [00:04:45]:
Okay, that's fine. And D, and D, but we're getting sick and tired of that, right? You don't have to actually have any proof behind that lunch. And the thing I always get curious on is, okay, well, what was your actual profit margin? What was your overhead like? Tell me how much you actually made once you take out all of the expenses associated with that. Now we're talking. And we forget that. We forget that. And because we forget that, we get in our heads and we don't put ourselves out there. We're afraid to show up, we're afraid to be seen, we're afraid to be heard, because we're afraid of feeling judged, we're afraid of feeling rejected.
Amy [00:05:21]:
And I say, that's because I've been there. I've been there. But having that self awareness is the key to stepping into your true purpose, your true potential, to making that impact, to making that impact you want to make on the world. So take the time to really unpack clarity as to who. And then once you've done step one, consistency. Consistency as to what. This is where you need, this is not a non, this is a non negotiable, this isn't a, you should do this. No, you need to do this.
Amy [00:06:03]:
Start tracking your numbers. And it doesn't have to be complicated. Data drives decisions. Data tells a story. And I get it. Your plate's full. You don't want to take the time to look at the data, because again, you might feel like, oh, gosh, I'm not worthy enough, I'm not good enough. I'm not where I thought I would be.
Amy [00:06:29]:
But what that data does is it allows you to make those little minor adjustments instead of burning the bridges and starting from scratch every single time. So start looking and trending the data over time. I'll give you a real life example. I was very disappointed last month when I looked at my data and I saw that my email list didn't grow. It actually shrunk a little bit at first. I was really, like, in my head about this. And as entrepreneurs, the personal development piece is huge. So I've been able to become aware, like, oh, wait, I'm getting in my head, but I know this isn't telling me the whole story.
Amy [00:07:15]:
A few months ago, I started tracking my total audience, and I encourage you to do this, too. I heard it on a podcast a few months back, and it's really fascinating to track this piece of data. What we're doing is we are calculating our total reach. So all of your followers on social media, whatever platforms you're on, if you have a podcast, calculate in the number of downloads you received this month. If you have an email list, calculate the number of subscribers that you have on that email list. Anywhere you're putting yourself out there. What I want you to do is add up and get a number, and then next month do the same thing that is your total audience. And what I want you to do is figure out the percentage.
Amy [00:08:02]:
Figure out the percentage of growth. So when I did this, even though my email list decreased slightly, it was only like three less followers. It was not a big deal. But again, it was that triggering thought that, wait a minute, I'm moving the wrong direction, but having the self awareness to realize, okay, no big deal. Like, those aren't my people. And that's okay. I unsubscribe from stuff all the time because I am an inbox zero type of person. I don't like getting a ton of stuff.
Amy [00:08:33]:
So it's not relevant to me if I'm not going to be buying something from that person, I unsubscribe, not a big deal, but we have that awareness to realize when we're starting to go down those rabbit holes versus sit there in it, right? So what I did is I looked at this total number. My total audience grew by 7% last month. That is massive in terms of growth, 7%. But if I had sat there and dwelled about those three subscribers that opted out, I really would have set myself back. So it's really using that data to tell a story to show us what's working, what's not. So, the beautiful thing about technology, it makes it easy for us to track this. Every single platform you're using has analytics. So if you're new to the world of data and you're like, you know what, I am not a spreadsheet person.
Amy [00:09:41]:
It's okay, I get it. Start simple. Start tracking. Where are people finding you? How are you attracting your clients? How are you attracting your buyers? What's actually selling? What this does over time, it tells you a story of what's working and what's not working. And then do you know what you do? You double down on what's working and not focus as much on what's not. A lot of times we're so invested in something emotionally because we put so much time, so much energy. Let's take a group program, for example. You know, I created this thing.
Amy [00:10:19]:
It is my passion. Yet you sold two of them, and you look at it and you go, you know what? Most of my revenue is coming in working with clients one on one in the online space. We're scrolling, we're consuming, we're seeing other people doing certain things. So we're like, okay, well, that must be the shortcut. So then what do we end up doing? We end up doing what everybody else is doing versus what was actually working for us. And this is something. A lot of times I am posed with this question and people hate hearing my answer. They're always asking, you know, what's the best system out there? What is the best CRM for your business? And I go, well, it's the one that works best for you.
Amy [00:11:05]:
And people always scoff at that end. So they're always like, that's a terrible answer. But no, all of these systems are tools in our business, and they should be there to support us, to help make our business run smoother. They're meant to support us rather than cause us to waste more time. Your systems should work for you, not be more work for you. Systems are there to support. So the best system is the system that works best for you. Business in general is nothing more than an experiment.
Amy [00:11:47]:
It's test. Yes. Revise. Right? We go back to the whole hypothesis thing, that when we were kids in science class, it's all about testing. It's all about looking at the data, at the analytics, and getting curious as to, you know what, this worked awesome. How can I do more of it? Or, this was terrible. How do I make sure I don't replicate those results? Getting curious. And when you do these two things, when you marry together, the clarity and the consistency, that's the key.
Amy [00:12:24]:
That is the key right there. That's what makes it rinse and repeat. So that you can repeat over and over and over what's working and let go of what's not by making those small adjustments along the way. Try this and let me know how it works. Drop into my DM's anytime over on instagram me try. I would love to hear your biggest takeaway. And until next time, cheers to making the money you want so you can create the impact you desire.
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