How To Get Over Your Fear of SALES! - With Patti Pokorchak

Tom Bailey, founder of Succeed Through Speaking, interviews Patti Pokorchak.

Patti Pokorchak was NOT a born sales professional. She was the shyest more introverted female tech pioneer, proving that ANYONE can learn how to sell, AND love it too. Patti now teaches Entrepreneurial Sales at Ryerson University, her alma mater - she gets paid to go back to school.

A serial entrepreneur since 1992, she helped co-found and run a software business, scaling to multiple 7-figures in sales and 20 employees before opening up her own hobby farm and garden centre. Patti will take you from Sales FEAR to Sales FUN to Sales SUCCESS, so you can do more of what you love to do.

Why you've got to check out Patti's episode:

- Learn how Patti helps service based entrepreneurs selling the intangible. They are typically stuck at 50,000-100,000 in revenue.

- The challenge of the revenue rollercoaster and why you should always be prospecting. You need to be making 5-10 prospecting conversations per day.

- Why you need to really learn how to sell. You need both the skillset and the mindset and why this is critical for all business owners and entrepreneurs.

- Get access to 7 Sales Secrets FREE ebook using the link below.

Resources / Links

https://smallbizsalescoach.ca/

Transcript

Tom Bailey: Hello and welcome to Succeed Through Speaking the place for experts and entrepreneurs who want high value ideas to boost business results.

Hello. I'm Tom Bailey. And in today's episode, I'll be getting to know Patti Pokorchak, who's a serial entrepreneur, and now teach yourselves at the Ryerson university. So, Patti, hello, and a very warm welcome to today's episode.

Patti Pokorchak: Thank you, Tom. Looking forward to it. Yes.

Tom Bailey: Awesome. Thank you. And whereabouts are you in the world right now?

Patti Pokorchak: Toronto, Ontario, Canada, my hometown.

Tom Bailey: Awesome. Wonderful. Thank you so much. And I'm just gonna share a little bit more about you from your bio before we do get started and. Nice that Patti was not born a sales professional, but having helped co-founded and run a software business and scaling it to multiple seven figures in sales. She now takes people from sales fear to sales phone, and sales success so that they can do more of what they love. The title for today's episode is How To Get Over Your Fear Of Sales. And Patti is going to show us how to do that in just under seven minutes. So, question number one is who are your ideal client?

Patti Pokorchak: Typically, I deal with service-based entrepreneurs selling the intangible and they've plateaued, you know, they might've made it to the middle six-figure or 50,000 or a hundred thousand, but they can't get any more.

Tom Bailey: So, yeah. Perfect. Yeah. I like it very succinct and what would you say is other than the plateau, what would you say is the biggest challenge that they typically face.

Patti Pokorchak: They do not know how to prospect, how to find and nurture new clients. Yeah. This the biggest problem. And then they fall down in the follow-up.

Tom Bailey: Right. And, and it's, it's a critical challenge to have as a small business owner. So, what impact does that normally have on them in their business?

Patti Pokorchak: I call it the revenue rollercoaster. As people know it as the feast or famine, they're so busy delivering that they forget. My mantra is always be prospecting. So, no matter how busy you are, get up earlier and make sure you make five or 10 client touches every day.

Tom Bailey: Yeah. Nice, perfect. Turn it Into a habit. Exactly. And what other advice would you give to somebody stuck in this sales plan?

Patti Pokorchak: Might be surprising coming from a sales coach trainer teacher learn how to sell it is a skill set. I call it the mindset and if you will learn to sell, then you should get a job, a job because you'll start, you'll struggle. That's it.

Tom Bailey: And, anybody looking to learn to sell what valuable resources or, you know, information you can offer people to get them started.

Patti Pokorchak: Well on my website, there's, there's the seven secrets to sales success, which is the compilation of decades of my experience, but even more important as a new show, we started called make more money now, which is what all entrepreneurs want to do. I have a cohost and we have decades of sales and marketing experience. Because when I, when I became a farmer, I realized everyone has to know how to sell in market no matter what business you're in.

Tom Bailey: Yup. From, from farmer to tech, you know, either way you need to be able to sell the business. And I've got your URL here, which is smallbusinesssalescoach.ca. I'll put that into the show notes so people can just click on that and they can find the book and the YouTube channel as well.

Patti Pokorchak: That's great.

Tom Bailey: Excellent. Quick question about yourself. Then what would you say is one of your greatest either mistakes or failures that you've made either in life or business? And what did you learn from it?

Patti Pokorchak: Yeah, it was a life and business thing I got into my first, when I first became an entrepreneur I started living and working with somebody and sort of my business worked for his business. We never really got it in writing, never after. So, get it in writing, writing, you know, don't believe in the fairy tale. So, get it in writing. I've created a few multi-million dollar brands and I'm still working. I'm still working. So, get it in writing, you know, don't believe in honor, I get it.

Tom Bailey:  It's an expensive mistake to learn. I guess over the years. Yeah, thank you. And my last question today is what is one question that I should have asked you that will also give some great value to our audience today?

Patti Pokorchak: Yeah. Believe it or not. What most people get wrong is the secret to selling more is ask better questions, right up front of this discovery process. So, be curious and caring. That's my secret hour is to be curious and caring as good questions is selling is actually listening. It's not talking. Yep.

Tom Bailey: Yep. Curious and caring, ask some great questions. Find out what their real need is or pain points.

Patti Pokorchak: And then that's how us shy people get to, you know, sell a lot because you don't have to talk a lot when you're asking questions and people love to talk about themselves as good questions, just like you're doing on this podcast.

Tom Bailey: I love it. Thank you so much. So that was a nice short, succinct episode, but lots of great value. I really appreciate you sharing that with us today.

Patti Pokorchak: Thanks for having me on your show Tom. I look forward to hearing it.