Are You Ready For a Change?

Perhaps the worst piece of sales advice I’ve ever received is this:

“Don’t let the person you’re selling fall in love with you; make them fall in love with the product.”

The advice came from my time at a Fortune 500 company training us to sell protection plans for their product. They wanted the conversations to be focused on the product itself because they knew they had a big problem — people didn’t stay in this job for a long time. 

Rather than relying on the relationships built to do the marketing, they wanted to rely on the people to be mouthpieces for the product and use their talking points to make sales. This way, no one realized when that person had left. This way, no one fought back on the protection plans when they returned and didn’t need to use them. This way, everything felt safer for the company.

I skyrocketed in sales at that company. I moved up the corporate ladder quickly because I ignored their advice. 

When people would come in, I’d get to know them. Why were they there? Why did they want to buy it? What were their immediate next steps until I saw them again?

Sometimes, I’d flat out not let them purchase those protection plans when I knew they wouldn’t really benefit. I built their trust.

Sometimes, we’d laugh so hard that it felt like we’d known each other for years instead of minutes.  I built a relationship with them.

Sometimes, I’d actually listen to them, and they could feel that they were being heard. I made them feel seen.

Sales isn’t about what you sell. It’s about the promises you make to your audience. 

That’s good news for all of us who are feeling burnt out, overwhelmed, exhausted, and drained by operating in the online world. 

It’s extra good news for all of us ready to make big pivots in our business, pull ourselves out of a slump, and get back to getting clear on what we want out of this entrepreneurial life. 

I’ve talked to many RVers and entrepreneurs who built their brands as full-timers. They were the adventure-seekers that people wanted to follow because this lifestyle was so fascinating, and the people who were known as living out of a few dozen instead of a few thousand square feet.

That was, until they realized they had checked all the boxes they sought to check while living on the open road and wanted to have a home base to return to. That realization didn’t just spark the idea of finding sticks and bricks to call home again. It sparked the recognition that their entire brand would change from full-time to part-time.

The answer is yes to all of the above, but when faced with the challenge of reinvention, it’s hard to feel those yeses at the moment. More on tackling that in a bit…

We’re in an era of information and platform overload. 

There are a million places you could show up, but is it all about the platform? Sure, features and audience play a huge role in those decisions, but there’s more at play when choosing where you appear. It’s about choosing how you show up in those places that will determine your success. More on that in a bit…

The buzz behind the scenes is this: Course creators are burnt out, membership owners are exhausted with the 24/7 expectations of answering their member’s calls (which often come in the form of a DM to their personal accounts), and product creators are looking for ways to simplify all they’ve built. 

Simplicity. That’s become the word of the year for 2024, whether it’s being spoken into the wild or playing between the ears of the burnt-out souls who took it all on in 2020 when the world forced reinvention and pivots. 

Here’s a great video that showcases what this looks like.

Although I’ve never been at this woman’s financial level, I can say that I felt every single one of the symptoms she talks about here. 

It led me to shutter Roadpreneur School, Roadpreneur Community, and Roadpreneur Experience. 

While I loved those areas and lost countless bucks on shuttering the doors to my group program, I know that it was the right choice. 

By burning myself out with lifestyle creep, I started feeling out of integrity with what I was teaching. And the minute my integrity is questioned, I stop, pause, reflect, and adjust. 

That’s how I’ve come to this point of reinvention, as so many others are muddling through. If that’s you, here’s how you can approach pivots too.

Now more than ever, people crave authenticity. We want to see the real-life behind those Instagram squares. We’re exhausted with perfectly manicured feeds that look overly done in Canva. We want YOU. 

And that’s great news because when you pivot, you get to share that reality in a refreshingly magnetic way. 

Take those pounds of stress and overwhelm off. People just want to know what you think, why you’re making decisions, and what you’re doing to strengthen yourSELF through your offers. 

Because your strengthening is their strengthening. It’s all a beautiful domino effect. 

Share the details about what led you into and out of that shift, and people will resonate because it’s your lived human experience. 

I’ve recently started doing this on Instagram by shifting from business coach to someone who shows up in your feed regularly to strengthen your mindset, body, and business chops with a healthy dose of fun and adventure.

That shift from a brand to a personal brand freed me up tenfold to tell the story I wanted to tell. 

One about freedom and enthusiasm for life.

One about showing up unapologetically.

One about soaking up every experience for the good it brings.

That story shift hasn’t been pushed back on, despite sharing fewer business-y lessons (boring). It’s had the opposite effect. Engagement has grown big time by just being me. And what a relief that is.

I recently kickstarted my Cruisin’ + Campfires Facebook group again. I had paused it because I thought that wasn’t a platform people wanted anymore. But I was wrong. 

If you want to adjust where and how you show up, lean into what feels right FOR YOU. See what sticks. Share what feels good, wherever it feels most enjoyable for you to show up. Give that platform a try, and the rest will resolve itself. This is the key to consistency — showing up. 

And to enjoy showing up rather than making it feel like a chore, you have to choose where and how it feels best for YOU. 

As scary as it might be, take that leap. If anything in your business is out of alignment and feels like it could get out of integrity, take that as a clear sign that it’s time for change. 

The beauty of an online business is that we get to choose. 

We choose how we show up. We choose where we show up. We choose what story we want to tell. We choose which versions of ourselves to put out into the world. We choose what feels scary. We choose what we want to pursue. We choose what feels good. We choose this lifestyle, which means we get to choose everything else. 

Feeling overwhelmed today? Take heart in the idea that you’re more in the driver’s seat of your outcomes than you realize.