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We’re back with Dielle Charon, a certified life coach and sales expert who transitioned from a 9-5 job to coaching and empowering women of color to achieve seven-figure incomes.
Dielle introduces her Power 75 Framework, which goes beyond the usual sales methods to create more genuine client interactions. Her framework focuses on building real connections and trust, transforming how sales are done.
She also talks about the challenges and lessons learned from growing her agency, like hiring the right people and running test projects that mimic real-life pressures, ensuring her team consistently delivers top-notch quality.
Watch the previous episode on YouTube ‘Making Seven figures teaching sales to women of color featuring Dielle Charon‘
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- Sign up to her FREE Webinar Training here!
Speaker 1:
Welcome back to the second of two episodes featuring DL Charan. And at the end of the last episode and I’m going to introduce her in a moment Right, Jamie, yes, Right At the end of the last episode, she said that learning sales conversations changed her life. If you have webinars in your business or discovery calls in your business and you want to greatly increase your income, I’m talking like going from a social worker at a university who has to commute 1.5 hours each way, so three hours of commute every day, making $29,000 a year. Did you say? That’s what you started with DL?
Speaker 2:
$39,000.
Speaker 1:
$39,000, okay a little higher to now having had three years in a row of grossing well over a million dollars in your business.
Speaker 1:
If that sounds like the kind of growth you would like to have, well then, meet DL Charan. She’s a certified life coach, a seven figure sales expert for women of color coaches, and she’s the host of the Women of Color Sales Show podcast with over 150,000 downloads, and she runs two sales programs, the Five Figure Freedom and Six Figure Liberation, which have served over 300 women of color. We just wrapped up, moments ago, a phenomenal episode where we got to know DL a bit. We got to know about where she came from, how in the world she went from making $39,000 a year as a social worker to where she is now, and some of the yeah, I guess we’ll just call them life journeys. In this episode, though, we’re going to talk about sales and DL. You have something called the Power 75 Framework. You said you also are down to audit our sales process a little bit, so it seems like in this episode, we’re going to have to get a little transparent.
Speaker 1:
I want to share, though I resonated with that sentence. First of all, welcome to the show.
Speaker 2:
Thank you, I’m so excited to be here again, right.
Speaker 1:
I’m excited to also interview you again and to chat with you again, though it feels like you’re about to interview us.
Speaker 3:
Right.
Speaker 2:
I’m a little nervous. It’ll be light. It’ll be light, don’t worry.
Speaker 1:
I had to remind myself to change my body language and lean towards the microphone so people can hear me rather than loud, all right. So I had a question and before we get into everything else, what is the sales unlock? If you will that more people should be learning. I know it has the AI word unlock, but I wrote that question myself what’s the one thing that? You feel like really does change the game, though, for people who have discovery calls or sales calls or webinars.
Speaker 2:
Well, I would say first, do them. I think, like there’s so many people that don’t have any live call component as a part of their business. They want it to be fully evergreen or fully referral based, or I’ll see them, you know, write blogs and emails and instagram captions until they’re blue in the face, all to avoid talking to people in a live call. So I would say, if you don’t have those things, put them in your business. Your business will literally double. If you just did that, like if you just did that, your sales would go through the roof. So, number one, do them. And then number two, I would say, keep it simple.
Speaker 2:
One of the things I talk about when it comes to sales calls is we are told one of two things to kind of just wing it and be personal and don’t try to be salesy. And then the other part is to have like a 14 step script to make you know you have to say this and then it’s like a tree and if they said this, then you have to feed into that question and don’t leave the call unless they pay. And it’s those two extremes, right, like I call it, like the used car salesman being like wait, wait, wait, I’ll slash another $500 off. Right Is that energy? And there’s another way between both right, where you don’t have to wing it.
Speaker 2:
I’ve been on so many sales calls where I want to buy something and I could just tell that and it’s from good intentions, like I could just tell that the person doesn’t want to be salesy, so they don’t have any process. But then it’s like am I leading the call? Are you leading the call? I have questions I have like, and then we’re kind of in this like power play versus like that hardcore script that I was talking about. You can ditch both methods and there is a different way.
Speaker 3:
Nice, I love it, I like it.
Speaker 1:
Love it. I’m chuckling to myself because back in my previous business, where I taught folks who are working in China how to learn Mandarin Chinese, I had at the very end, you know, after I gave them an option and both options were yes I would always, almost all the time, say that like how about I just stay on? Like we stay on this Zoom call, like while you authorize the payment, because but I had an excuse, which was because I was living in China using whatever payment processor here in the States. I was like sometimes there’s just hiccups and it doesn’t work out, so like I’ll just stay here while you go ahead and process the pavement and if there’s any hiccup, like I can help get you around it and like that worked most of the time.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, actually people were like, okay, cool.
Speaker 2:
But I think it’s just that, like I could feel your authenticity and like it was a real thing, like I could feel that as you were delivering it, and it also made sense like logical sense, versus like a lot of people don’t have that reason and don’t have that like goal in mind, and you can also feel the energy of that. So I also say like I use the example all the time like when I was planning my wedding vendors would say like hey, it’s just easier if I take your card over the phone, or you’ll have to do a 3% charge fee if I send you a link, blah, blah, blah. And so, yeah, there could be several logistical reasons that make sense, but if it’s more of a pressure reason, I think people could feel the difference.
Speaker 3:
Yeah.
Speaker 1:
People can feel the difference. Prior preparation prevents poor performance is a quote that I stole from a guy named Sean Cannell, and who knows where he got it from. What do you believe makes the difference in a sales call?
Speaker 2:
Well, I can just kind of share my method here, if that’s okay. Sure, well, that’s actually a messaging tool. My sales call framework’s a little different yeah.
Speaker 2:
So messaging and I think this is a good, like even point of conversation A lot of people confuse, like marketing versus messaging, versus sales, sales, all of those different things and I think messaging and marketing are more of the front-facing client things. I’m sure you all, as ad specialists, do a lot of things with messaging, and then what I kind of count as sales is where you’re having a conversation with someone, and it could be conversation through email or something else, but it’s typically a live conversation, either on a webinar or on a sales call. So my Power 75 framework is great for messaging, which I’ll, of course, talk about. But my sales call process is very simple and it’s also pretty intuitive. It’s called triage, treatment plan, tell the offer and so triage, just like how you were to go to urgent care or the doctor and you want to get clear on the problem first.
Speaker 2:
I can’t tell you how many times people have been taught to start the sales call off with so this is my offer and this is what I’m going to offer you, or do you want to buy it Like? No, you got to. You have to triage the client first and then you have treatment plan, and this is what a lot of people miss is you don’t want to go from problem to solution. You want to offer a treatment plan. So here are the three things that we’re going to do together. Here are the three solutions that we’re going to solve, and you want each one to be custom to your client and then you can get into telling about the offer after they agree that the treatment plan is what they want and you don’t have to make any edits to it. So, triage treatment plan, tell the offer. It’s very social worky, because that’s my background.
Speaker 2:
That was the process that I used when I had to assess people and I had to get a stranger’s trust about very difficult and vulnerable problems pretty immediately, and so that was the framework that I use in order to get someone’s trust and that is the process that I’ve taught my clients, and they get a hundred percent sales call conversions. That’s kind of like the vibe and freedom, as you should be aiming for a hundred percent sales call conversions If if a client.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, if a client said no, that’s thousands of dollars walking out the window, like something happened. Especially if you’re working on part-time hours, every call counts, and so a hundred percent conversions is the goal. Is the goal not?
Speaker 1:
oh, it burns me up when people like oh, 30 is great 30 no, no, no, that’s bad, that’s terrible right, that’s terrible.
Speaker 2:
Or even 70 I’m like seven that other 30 could have kicked you over to 500k, could have kicked you over to whatever income goal. So yeah, I’m very passionate about a hundred percent conversions.
Speaker 1:
Well then, can we like camp out here? Because as I interview folks on this podcast, I hear and I learn a lot, but having been in the online course creation space like, I guess the amount I’m learning it’s shrinking somewhat, If that makes sense, Cause we interview a lot of people.
Speaker 3:
I guess the amount of new things.
Speaker 1:
Now I always tell people that 60% like it’s pretty solid, and you just kind of changed everything that’s going on in my brain because you’re like, no, we should not be settling for 60%. Did she just say 70%? 70% is not even that great so what’s the difference between a 70% and 100% closing rate? And if you say a percentage, I’m going to hit. Stop record.
Speaker 2:
That’s such a good question, like what is the difference? I see all sorts of things. Oh my God, I’ve seen all sorts of things. I would say if I were to group it into themes.
Speaker 2:
This is one thing that people get wrong a lot is they say their framework that’s like on their sales page, or whatever they say their framework on the sales on their sales page, or whatever they say their framework on the sales call, that will immediately drop your conversion. Nobody wants to feel like they’re in this pre prescribed box and like to fit themselves into something. So I always say do not talk about your framework. Give a custom plan that your program and your course or whatever can provide. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying like do one-on-one coaching and do private. You know custom builds the whole time. Your offer can provide it, but you want the sales call to feel so custom and so specific. And it’s it’s very simple logic to me. Like if you are a money coach and you’re over here talking about your program and your framework and part of that program and framework is investing, but the client is struggling with debt payoff, they’re like well, I don’t wanna pay for something, that’s not my problem. So that’s the reason why I say don’t put your framework in it, because the client only has one problem. But you’re selling them on five. You think you’re doing a value out, but they’re like wait, I don’t want any of that, that other stuff.
Speaker 2:
I’ll tell you a little bit of a fail that I had and you can apply this on webinars too. I tell you a fail that I had. So I had the bright idea to include a coaching certification inside of my program, because a lot of people that we would get emails and be like what if I never coach anybody before, can I still join your program? And so I said what if we created a certification or a training program for people? So I was on the webinar, I was pitching my program and I was mainly talking about how it’s a sales program. Then I said and we just rolled out this certification no cost to you, you also get the certification. We got so many emails being like can we buy it without the certification? I don’t want that. That’s not my problem. I don’t want that in there.
Speaker 2:
And so we think that it’s a value app, but people only want to pay for what they need and nothing else. Yeah, it’s a little interesting, but I would say, like, that’s probably one of the main things where you’re converting but you’re not converting all the way. If you took out frameworks, you’ll probably get there. I would say too, it’s called it’s one of the things I call believability where the person may not believe what you’re saying. So if you’re saying you’re going to help them lose a hundred pounds or you’re saying you’re going to help them, you know, double their income, they may not believe you. So one of the things I, one of the strategies that I offer people, is you have to sell support and you have to sell.
Speaker 2:
I call it togetherness, that you’re going to do things together so that the client believes you.
Speaker 2:
So example say you’re like, okay, I’m going to help you get a new job, you’ll have a new job in 90 days.
Speaker 2:
And someone’s like, oh, I don’t know if I’m going to believe you or I don’t know if I believe you. You would say, well, we’re going to do your resume together. You and I are literally going to share screen and we’re going to go line by line and do your resume together. I’ll also do mock calls with you for your interview so that you can get really tailored on what exactly you’re going to say. So then, once you actually get the interview your first interview you actually are going to close and that they’re going to go with you as the candidate, and then the client can see the bridge, because they’re seeing all the levels of how you’re going to be doing something together, versus it’s not just this pipe dream that the client’s going to have to figure out all on their own. So there’s several like hacks and little things like that, but I would say frameworks and believability and togetherness is what I call it are probably the top two.
Speaker 3:
Nice Because people want to feel, yeah, supported, and they need to see how it’s going to work. Right, yeah, okay.
Speaker 1:
We never do the listener enough service by waiting until the end to say where can they hear more from you. So, like right now, where can the listener go to learn more from you?
Speaker 2:
Like the next step, because this is going to be a really good episode but like things happen and not everybody finishes the episode, oh sure you could tune into my show. It’s called the woman of color sales podcast. I would say that’s the best place. And then DL Charon, my name, on all platforms, yeah.
Speaker 1:
Okay, nice.
Speaker 3:
Lovely.
Speaker 1:
Thank you for sharing that by the way, sure. Is it time, so ask your question.
Speaker 3:
Well, I have one more question before we get to sort of our audit, if you will. But, was all of this your kind of your sales training or how you got to be so good at it? Was it just trial and error and you started noticing like these things are working? Or was it you know through books that you read, or you know different tactics that you tried, or kind of how did you develop this, this knack?
Speaker 2:
It sounds very egotistical, but literally just my own creativity. I I struggled for about a year on sales calls but then once I got it, like I would say, since I’ve been doing sales calls, so that’s 2020, so we’re up five years and I would say maybe five people have sent no to me total and I’ve done like maybe over 300 sales calls.
Speaker 2:
Wow yeah and so, and I haven’t read any sales books. I haven’t done any because I really try to keep my own IP, like mine, and so I don’t. I haven’t bought any like sales call courses. It’s really was just intuition. I love talking with people as, again, as a social worker also as a worker too, I interviewed probably over a thousand people in the prison system, so I got really good with talking with people and asking the right question, like I think it’s a lot of my background as a social worker and yeah, how I thought everybody knew this.
Speaker 2:
And then I would see, like my, I would force my clients to send their calls in, like their recordings Cause I’m like why aren’t y’all closing? This is so simple. And then I was like, oh, y’all are not doing anything that I’m doing. And then that’s when I started teaching it. But I originally I wasn’t teaching sales calls until, like, my clients were like, yeah, I never closed. I was like what’s wrong with you? Like what?
Speaker 1:
are you doing? This is?
Speaker 2:
so easy, just talk, and it’s like no, you don’t just talk, there’s a whole process. So yeah, I just kind of a knack for it.
Speaker 1:
Okay, cool.
Speaker 3:
Great.
Speaker 1:
Let’s make sure that the listener picked up what you just said, because I heard you say the word intuition and I’m saying this like in a heartfelt way from the bottom of my heart, that I don’t want you listening to this episode as DL and Jamie and I talk and I think that like it’s okay just to go by intuition in a sales call or just to go like and wing it Like we are not wing it, people, as far as sales calls go. And I’ve heard you say the word process a number of times and I’ll share quickly that the first time I learned sales was a process. It changed my life. I was working at those little yellow kiosks way back in the day from Rosetta Stone and because I’m a language guy, love speaking foreign languages, and I remember accepting the job because I liked languages, even though it did have a commission structure for sales, it was quite a generous one at the time. I did horribly as far as selling went. You know, for the first period of time I definitely made it with like the hourly, like base pay that they provided. And then I remember looking into the system because we could see like the territories and all the kiosks in the territories and every week they’d have to report their numbers. So I could see that like there was one kiosk that was crushing it in sales, like tripling, quadrupling what I was selling, which meant they’re making a lot of money off of like a part-time deal. And so I remember taking the day off and driving like 40 minutes to their kiosk, like walking up, introducing myself and being like, how are you posting these numbers?
Speaker 1:
And it was this guy named Joe Kunkel, like this at the time he already was old I was younger, but he was. He had to have been like mid fifties, maybe lower sixties at the time. And like he looked at me and just said, like Kwejo, sells is a, a process and once you learn the process, you will sell just fine. And like he told me some other things and he recommended a book to me and, to make the story super short, like I took his advice, I read the book, I studied the book that night and was able to see, like I think within within the first week, like 30% increase in my sales, because I just was showing up prepared because I wanted money.
Speaker 1:
It wasn’t even a noble enough to say I really wanted more people to learn foreign languages Like now I have something that, like, I believe in, which is that, like you and I were put here on earth for a reason, like with gifts and skills and passions, that, like, we can help other people to affect transformation in their lives, and so we need to be good with Facebook ads and Instagram ads so, like, more people can change, right. But then I was just like I just need money, so all that is to say I’m not sure what that is to say. I identified that when you said learning, sales and the process, uh, changed your life, because it did for mine too.
Speaker 2:
Back then, yeah, and to that point like we can really be hard on ourselves and it could feel incredibly personal getting a no or awkward oh, I’ll get back to you late. Like it you can. It’s sales is very personal, you can’t hide, right, Like it’s you. And so, yeah, I think when people learn like hey, you just were missing an ingredient to the recipe, it had nothing to do with you, it could be very healing.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, nice. So how do?
Speaker 2:
we, how do we jump into this?
Speaker 1:
Oh well, let me, let me ask you you shared your income previously, and so do you want to let the listeners know, or is it a secret? Oh well, so for context, dear listener, we were congratulating DL because I had seen on her Instagram that, like, this was her third year, right? In grossing over a million. And I was like that sounds amazing. I’ve been capped out at $250,000, just slightly under there, $230,000, $225,000. And she said, oh well, we could like do an audit, look at your process.
Speaker 2:
And I was like okay, sure, and so I would love to do that. So what is y’all’s current process right now, like from newly to buyer, how, what’s your funnel?
Speaker 1:
Good question. I should say that most of my clients actually come from word of mouth and I think since when did we really start getting serious about doing outreach?
Speaker 3:
Probably in the fall.
Speaker 1:
Was that in the fall?
Speaker 3:
Well, summer, no it was earlier because I started doing more outreach, probably May, so yeah.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, so for the clients we’re actually that’s still a big question mark. We’re still trying to figure out how to set up a funnel that brings in new clients who we did not previously know. Now, currently the outreach that we do or the lead magnet that we have the people that get those lead magnets usually are a better fit to work with us on the course basis or inside of a course or maybe one-on-one coaching. But some of the one-on-one coaching clients I’ve had have become ads management clients. So we could say if there was a loose funnel it would be lead magnet to course, to one-on-one coaching, and that has worked sometimes Okay.
Speaker 2:
What’s your income split between all your offers?
Speaker 1:
Oh, it’s heavy on the ads management side, like 90, I don’t know the percentage like most of it like 90, above 95, heavy on the ads management side, like like 90, I don’t know the percentage like most of it, like 90 above 95% comes from ads management.
Speaker 1:
Okay, well, sorry, the offers are a suite of courses. That’s not true. The offers are a suite of courses and one-on-one coaching and ads management, and actually I should just track it better. But one-on-one coaching actually makes up a little bit. Let’s call it 90% ads management for a good round number and like 8% coaching, and the courses are very small.
Speaker 2:
Okay, for the sake of this conversation, let’s just say that you have great retention for your retainer, for your ads retainer. Let’s just assume I’m assuming that’s the case, and so let’s assume that, perfect, great. You never know what service providers. And so I’m like let’s just assume you have great retention and if not, let’s fix that. But yeah, let’s assume you have great retention, so that’s great. So my next question is where are you creating ads education?
Speaker 1:
On what platform?
Speaker 2:
Yes.
Speaker 1:
Primarily Instagram. The podcast does get repurposed to YouTube. Unique content, though that’s not just more concisely edited podcast is on Instagram.
Speaker 2:
What’s your promise for your retainer?
Speaker 2:
Well then, this would be a great time to introduce Power 75. So Power 75 is my messaging tool on how you communicate your offer. So, similar to this conversation. We typically say, oh, I do business coaching or I have this ads management offer, but what does the offer do? That’s what Power 75 will communicate, and there’s five yeah, and so there’s five parts of it. It’s what’s who’s the person? So that’s the P who’s the person.
Speaker 2:
The outcome, what’s the general outcome of this offer. And then you want to think about it. It’s going to be general, short, sweet, like what you would put in an Instagram bio. You have the W, which is the skill, and so yours is very clear. A lot of people’s aren’t. It’s not clear where you have to think about what skill are you teaching people, because people love to buy skills. You then have ease, which are exceptional angles, and this is going to be my next question, like what makes your ad strategy different from other people’s ad strategy, or what are your ad philosophies? That might be a little controversial. And then your r is a result, and so what can somebody expect? If they pay you money, what are they going to get back? What result will they get back? And so that’s the Power 75 framework. So when I ask like what’s your result or what’s your promise, or how is your offer different, power 75 can kind of give you some language on how to articulate that.
Speaker 1:
Got you. Well, my offer is different because I focus heavily on testing ads and, like I believe that lots of money is left on the table when we’re not testing enough different messaging versions, if you will, of ad copy and graphics and so I’m a tester, I do all the boring testing so that we can find the one ad that outperforms the 19 or the one ad that outperforms the 49. And the closest thing I would have to a promise is that, like it’s like working with me, you find the highest quality lead at the lowest cost possible. It’s not just a cost per lead game, it’s about finding quality leads, and that has to do with well research, messaging and graphics.
Speaker 2:
I love that. Highest quality lead at the lowest cost. Is that what you said? Mm hmm, how often are you telling people that promise?
Speaker 1:
Never, probably. It’s written somewhere. It might be written on my website and it’s in my brain. Because it’s in my brain, so I think about it.
Speaker 3:
But, I don’t say that ever I don’t say that on the podcast?
Speaker 1:
I don’t think and I don’t even think. I say that on my discovery calls, my sales calls either yeah.
Speaker 2:
I’ve never heard of. I know a few ads people, but I’ve never heard of an ads person say that I really, really like that promise. And then the thing is, you would create content about that promise. So, for instance, it would be here’s the reason why you don’t have high quality leads coming to your webinar, right? So it’s not just like general ads education, and it’s then anchoring everything into your promise. And so, and then the whole entire, your whole entire business, your whole entire offers, all around that one promise. Then that’s what you become known for.
Speaker 2:
So, for example, in my mastermind, six figure liberation, we have six figure launches. That’s what we teach. We’ll help you have a six figure launch. I will literally get emails, inquiries, dm being are you the six figure launch girl? It’s like, yes, yes, I am. If that’s what you want, if you pay me, that’s what I can help you create. And so then that’s how you actually become known for a process, known for a method, and you’re not just another business coach, another money coach, another weight loss coach. You actually have a unique promise that separates you from everyone else.
Speaker 2:
So I say at 250, the number one issue I see uniqueness across the board is that you’re not unique. You don’t have a unique promise, you don’t have unique content, you don’t have unique IP frameworks interesting things where people are like, huh, I never tried it that way before or I never heard of that promise before. Like people always say, DL, you’re so bold to promise six figure launches, Like we do it all the time. Like it’s not bold to me? Right, and that immediately separates me. I felt this is probably terrible to say, but I felt so bad. This one person was like this is the queen of launching. I looked at her sales page 13 K launch, 28 K launch.
Speaker 2:
I said oh, we do that in our sleep I was like, oh, this is nuts, that’s how you want to feel, though, right, I don’t. I literally don’t have any competition, and so, and that just means, like, I know how to coach, I know how to teach, I know how to deliver, which in the done for you world, you can retain your expertise and you all have that skill. But the number one issue and the reason why people don’t go from 250 to five, that gap 100% about uniqueness. The leads are there. That’s how you make the money.
Speaker 2:
To begin with, the leads are there, but they’re like okay, what’s the difference between you and somebody else? Then you’re just competing off a price. What do you think Sounds?
Speaker 1:
good to me. Yeah, the question in my mind is can I really anchor content around that promise? Because that sounds like a promise that every ads manager would have.
Speaker 3:
But do they In my brain?
Speaker 2:
I don’t think they do right. Like for me. I’m like are you a launch coach If you don’t help your people have six figure launches? There’s a lot of them out there, though, and so, like I just said, I I don’t think so. I I think for me, in my experience with ads, I think a lot of them operate off of any money is good money, and what I’m hearing, the difference from you is like you really focus on the optimization, and so I am like actually letting the dollar like actually mean more, making more money from the dollar versus just making money period, and so I, with the ads people that I’ve talked to, they’re more just so worried about getting their client any sale and just getting them any ROI. That optimization is often an afterthought. That’s just my.
Speaker 1:
I’m curious, like what you all have heard, but yet that’s kind of like my thought Sounds good. I like that spot. I’m going to have to come back and study this episode.
Speaker 3:
Right.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, yeah, but I I definitely across the board. Uniqueness and being different and like having different things to say about the skill you teach is the number one thing nice, what was that different?
Speaker 3:
is better than you always say that different is better than better different is better than better yeah, yeah, that’s I like that.
Speaker 1:
I’m gonna start saying that yeah it’s not mine, it also came from that guy. Yeah, okay, good, yeah, any other episode?
Speaker 3:
Sean Campbell Okay, good.
Speaker 2:
Any other reasons why you think you’ve plateaued Well I guess there’s two reasons actually.
Speaker 1:
One is something that we’re working on right now, which is that we have a suite of courses that help Anyone who it just doesn’t make sense for their business to hire an ads manager run ads successfully themselves. But we’ve been sitting on the courses and not really developed a funnel to sell them. Let’s call it the secret behind the scenes email upsell funnel. We’re working on that. I don’t know. In the past weeks, how many sales pages have we made? Email sequences have we written? How many sales pages have we made and email sequences have we written? I think, not think, but I know. Specifically last year I did scale higher up to like where were we at? Like 40,000.
Speaker 1:
We hit two $40,000 months right in there and at the time I was doing so with more like an agency model where I had an ads manager. I have two, we’ll say one and it just didn’t work out, Ended up dropping the ball too many times and at the end of the day I could not do at that level, like with that many clients. With my current systems that I had at the time, I couldn’t do the quality work that I would be proud of. So what we did is we restructured and now it’s just us managing ads for clients and building back the business. I think those are the only two things that we’ve really had to improve. Also, like marketing minutes would be a third Really getting good at reaching out to people that follow on Instagram, finding out what their needs are.
Speaker 2:
I love that. Can I burst your bubble?
Speaker 1:
Absolutely Please, please, yeah.
Speaker 2:
I think you should bring the agency back. I was going to say the second reason why people are at 250 and they don’t go to five Hiring.
Speaker 1:
Okay.
Speaker 2:
Hiring and delivery and like finding people to either coach for you or finding delivery. I have and I could tell you after this podcast or I could say it right now I have the perfect person that would help you scale an agency. I have and I could tell you after this podcast or I could say it right now I have the perfect person that would help you scale an agency. I have the perfect. She’s one of my best friends. She’s helped many agency owners hit half a million specifically and so, yeah, if you wanted to put that option back on the table, I have the perfect person and she’s heard it all as far as like delivery problems, like service provider problems. She’s heard it all and so definitely be able to help you there. But I was wondering if that was going to come up, and it certainly did. And the second thing would be hiring.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, yeah, no, I mean straight up, like I have the SOPs. You know, standard operating procedures. You know I’ve trained a handful, an actual handful. I can see their names of ads managers. And ultimately I had to decide last year. You know what I need to be the one doing it for quality and did you do a test project in the hiring? A test project?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, yes, what was the disconnect between the test project and like what was happening in the system? And I don’t know if this is too technical. We don’t have too technical.
Speaker 1:
The biggest problem is is, after the test project, the hiring process and even the onboarding process and the training process. Like my training’s rather straightforward, like inside my own programs, plus a bunch of onboarding, like you know, loom systematic. What eventually would end up happening over and over again is that the quality that I would see from like a junior ads manager would start to go down and I would end up spending more time like managing them and checking up on their accounts.
Speaker 1:
But the thing is is like the technical skills that they would have Great because I trained them well on the technical skills, would have great because I trained them well on the technical skills. But then, after a bit, like their attention to detail or just their commitment to, I guess, finish the finish the job and not make mistakes and client ad copies or actually continue to do like the rigorous testing needed to make sure, like we were as low as we could go while still having a quality client.
Speaker 1:
Like that just happened too many times, you know, and it’s a small online world and reputation is.
Speaker 1:
Ads manager is already like a swear word in so many circles you know, so, like reputation is really, really key and so, like I had to make a decision and that’s as far as I got. Like maybe I could swing back to this or revisit this agency model and like figure out how to have an employee that provides the quality and care that like I would, and that would be awesome. But up until talking to you right now, like I basically resigned myself to the fact that, like it would be me and Jamie managing the ads.
Speaker 1:
And then because it’s our business. Like we can, Because we care, we care about it.
Speaker 2:
If I were to give one suggestion. It sounds like the test project wasn’t stress test enough is what I call it where it’s not realistic in the trenches type of test project. So I’m just making something up, and I know nothing about ads, but what if the test project could simulate what a week in the life was like? And so what if it’s like I? Again, I have no idea how it would do this, but my brain is coming up to like. You have to manage three different accounts, so I want you to do the ads, whatever that means, for three different accounts. Also, one of them isn’t converting. What would you say to a client? And also, how would you then fix the ads without increasing spend? All within a 72 hour time period.
Speaker 2:
The test project is timed and you can’t ask any questions Go and so then right and so like for me. I just I just hired a new ops person. I gave her about six projects to do in four days and I said show me screenshots, give me a loom video and also break down all your reasons behind your decision and also answer these five customer service mock questions. And how would you respond? You have four days, there are no questions, go, and so I think often when that happens, like if the test project was good, but when they get into the business they kind of like fall apart a little bit the test project didn’t like stress test them like I think about.
Speaker 2:
This is right. At disney world that acts like a car simulation, like where you’re, you know being crashed into the car, like you stress test it. That’s actually what you want the the test project to be and a lot of people will, that my clients will do it and they’re like oh, I had five applications that I loved, but only two test projects back good that’s what you want. You should have then one or two people who actually make it, and that’s that’s.
Speaker 1:
That’s the point and I want to be clear for everybody on the episode.
Speaker 2:
The test project is paid. It’s paid for their time. But yeah, yes, yeah, a little shift that may or may not help, but yeah, I think that could help, yeah, I.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, I think what you just said off the top of your head actually is a lot closer, like having a test product that’s way closer to a week in the life. Because if they can think of how to communicate with the client if the going is not smooth, plus how to handle like those other requirements and not ask me questions, well then that also saves me time from a management perspective right they’re telling me what they tried to figure out, instead of just dropping the ball and not saying anything.
Speaker 2:
Or yeah, okay, all right my thing when it comes to hiring is if all these other businesses can figure it out, if all these other large ads agencies can figure it out. Similar to sales as a process. What if hiring is just a process? I’m just missing a piece. Right, I’m just missing a puzzle. I’m like, oh, my test project wasn’t good enough. Next time, like I’m going to have to rehire a marketing person and I know exactly like my test project didn’t include what I want, next time I’m going to include that, I’m going to stress, test that. What if it’s just a piece missing? Same thing with sales.
Speaker 3:
That’s good.
Speaker 1:
That’s extremely good, really good.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, Can you run back through really quick? The power stands for one more time.
Speaker 2:
Sure yes, for anyone that might have missed it Sure, yes, p stands for person, o stands for one more time. Or yes, or anyone that might have missed it. Sure, yes, p stands for person, o stands for outcome. So this is the general outcome of your offer. W stands for winning skill, so what is the skill that you’re teaching? E is exceptional angle. So what makes it different? What makes your offer different and unique?
Speaker 2:
And then R is a result that can be measured. People ask me what is the difference between the O and the R? The outcome and the result. Outcome is general, R is specific. Yeah, so like for me and like my five figure freedom program, the outcome would be have a full-time business. The result would be make 10K in 90 days. Okay, great.
Speaker 1:
My fingers are are furiously typing, I put the keyboard in my lap so hopefully you can’t.
Speaker 3:
No, no, all right deal.
Speaker 1:
This has been a very thank you so much, very impactful episode this was super fun.
Speaker 2:
I love having these type of conversations. Right, right, I got quiet.
Speaker 1:
When I get quiet, that means okay.
Speaker 3:
My brain is really thinking he’s thinking everything that’s been coming in, no, thank you, that’s okay I could have my.
Speaker 1:
I could have my video editor edit out the quiet parts.
Speaker 1:
So no, you were great, you were great it just looks like I have responses right away. You know, not like I’m like oh my gosh, I can’t answer this one, yeah you had said in the last episode that the place that people should go to hear more from you because I’m sure everybody’s going to want to hear more from you after this is your podcast. Do you want to talk about anything else right now, or are we going to just say let’s go listen to your podcast?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, go check out the podcast. And if you want to go to my free training, you can go to dlsharancom slash free dash training. There’s a free training there. But my podcast is where you can hear more of my sales musings and all my ideas and how you can increase your sales.
Speaker 1:
I like your ideas. That’s the Women of Color Sales Show Podcast. I’ll link it up in the show notes and the YouTube descriptions below. Otherwise, your training is at dlsharoncom. Forward slash training, forward slash free, or was it forward slash free? Forward slash training?
Speaker 2:
Free dash training.
Speaker 1:
Free dash training.
Speaker 2:
Free dash training Awesome.
Speaker 3:
Great, thank you all.
Speaker 2:
This has been great, so fun. Thank you, thank you so much.
Speaker 1:
Thank you.
Speaker 3:
We appreciate having you on the show.
Speaker 1:
Thank you all, so much, all right and listener, as always. So much, thank you. We appreciate having you on the show. Thank you all so much.
Speaker 3:
All right and listener, as always be blessed and have a great day. Thanks for listening. Bye.
