My goal is for you to feel much better about sales after you're done reading this email. And if you do, please hit reply and let me know. Or, hit reply with any questions you have.

Let's start ↓.

There are four experiences every buyer (of a mid-ticket to high-ticket program or service) deserves before they decide to buy.

These experiences are like four different dimensions of trust . . . that you can build into how you sell. [They also map to four answers you deserve as the seller . . . to reduce your stress, give you ease, and make sure you have good energy around sales. But we'll get into that in a second.]

Our buyers deserve: an Orientation Experience, a Demonstration Experience, a Collaboration Experience, and an Activation Experience.

Before we dive into each one, I want to share who these apply to . . . and my #1 plea to everyone who wants to sell meaningful programs and services online.

Who does this apply to? When does this apply?

This email, and everything we're about to talk about regarding selling online, only applies to people who are selling transformational coaching, consulting, or curriculum-based offers. Meaning: this email is a good fit for you if you are selling a program or a service that helps people meaningfully transform their lives, businesses, health, relationships, careers, etc.

And, whereas some of what we are talking about today can help you sell inexpensive items, this conversation most applies to selling mid-ticket and high-ticket offers.

Note: Low-to-high prices vary by industry (and based on who your buyer is) . . . but generally I'm talking about programs that are at least a few hundred dollars, all the way up to thousands of dollars.

And . . . I promised my #1 plea before we get started . . .

Stop launching products with a 10-day "open cart" window. Back up. Give your person more time to decide. Give yourself more time to sell. Take up space and cover all 4 experiences.
​I beg.

The 7-day or 10-day window is a holdover from the era of online sellers who liked to brag about how much money they made in a week. Almost everything about the way they used to sell does not work well for people who sell really meaningful work to clients they deeply care about and want to create safety for.

One of the biggest things making sales hard for these types of change makers and thought leaders is the container they use to sell.

This container often puts too much pressure on a specific multi-day sales window or single email course. Or, you'll host a solo sales webinar or invite clients to one type of sales call, and when your program/service doesn't sell all that well, you figure people don't want it. This is typically not at all true.

I wholeheartedly encourage you to give yourself more time to sell the program (for example: starting two to three months ahead of a program's start date; or keeping a sales pipeline on all year) and to take up the space necessary to cover all four of the experiences below.

—

Experience 1: Orientation

In an orientation experience, your potential buyer gets a robust answer to the question: "How does it work?"

❌ An example of a non-robust answer = a health coach with a 90-minute webinar where they teach that the "3 secrets to sustainable wellness" are: "1. Setting attainable goals. 2. Fixing your limited thinking. And, 3. Building in small celebrations as you go." Then, they proceed to share 12 testimonials from past clients and ask you for $5,000 USD.

✅ To create a robust answer to this question, you as the seller might ask yourself:

• Can I explain how my system works in enough detail that potential buyers (as well as me, myself, and I) understand the logic and structure of this thing?
• Don’t they deserve to know the true design and nature of my framework, model, or approach . . . how it actually works, and if it makes sense for them?
• What learning/action experience will allow and encourage buyers to interact with my logic and receive “proof” that my system has a smart structure that actually makes sense to them (not just to me—or even to 227 past clients) before they buy?
• Don’t they deserve a structure they’re able to analyze the “fit” of in a low-pressure environment? What could that environment be?

When you do a good job of sharing the structure and true substance of your offer, your people can develop trust in it. The end result is clarity. You've given your buyers the gift and power of understanding, for themselves, that they are aligned with you on what a smart strategy is, before asking them to buy from you.

Do you know how many sellers do not take the time to do this, even though they are asking for hundreds or thousands of dollars? 🧐

Some people do this unintentionally—because they don't realize their frameworks and materials lack substance. Or because they're trying to sell things the way other people seem to sell.

Some people do this on purpose—because they realize their frameworks and materials lack substance. Meaning, if they present just a little bit about their framework, they'll have given you everything they know.

Either way, don't your valued customers and clients deserve a framework or structure that they're able to analyze a little bit more to determine how well it might fit them? And don't they deserve a low-pressure environment to do that in?

—

One of my favorite ways to give people a robust Orientation Experience is with a Test Drive (an email or audio course and follow-along resource).

In a Test Drive, I break up the parts of my framework and spread them out over several days, allowing time for each one to sink in. As people go along, I'll typically pair it with a resource (like a digital template or notebook) where they can make key decisions related to their own situation.

Note: I'm usually breaking down one of 5 types of frameworks: Structural, Sequential, Hierarchical, Discretional, or Elemental. If you're interested, I cover them in this quick YouTube video.

—

Also, note: If you're a member of the "empowered decisions" sales vault, four of the sales operations that we're covering are really well suited to create this Orientation Experience:

• The Curriculum Storyline
• The Case Study Series
• The Test Drive
• The SEO^3 Pocket

—

Experience 2: Demonstration

In a Demonstration Experience, that's done thoughtfully, your potential buyer gets an answer they can believe to the important question: "How do you (the seller) work?"

If you can create an event or resource where you offer in-the-moment proof of how you teach/coach/work (instead of past proof and testimonials, or no proof), people's trust in you will rise. The end result will be belief because the buyer actually experienced how you work, in real time.

I've shared before that one way I've created an epic Demonstration Experience is using a fun "Live Demo."

To explain this briefly, let's say you have an 8-part process that you take people through in your deepest program. The 8 parts help people reach transformation in their life, business, or organization.

—

Imagine inviting people to an informal online room where you're teaching the eight-part process. But, instead of just talking/dumping info, after teaching each of the 8 parts, you pause, and ask two specific volunteers to come on screen (or on audio) to work with you live as you apply each of the 8 steps/moves to their situation.

And let's say you stick with the 2 volunteers (that you recruited ahead of time) through the whole experience, so people can witness the transformation of their ideas or situation.

And for all the other attendees, instead of just passively observing, you encourage them to follow along and take notes in a special form that you design ahead of time. This form can ask people specific multiple choice questions (to help them make key decisions in each of the eight parts) and give them several open spaces to record notes.

You can set the form to automatically send you and them a copy when they submit it. That way, you are learning so much more about your potential clients and you're making sure they have a take-home resource.

So, instead of just teaching the 8 moves (making it a standard webinar or training), the session becomes both an interactive workshop (due to the note-taking form) and a live strategy session, demonstration, and application (to the 2 volunteers’ lives, businesses, book ideas, or whatever you help with).

Every time I do these, the structure of the event helps to deepen everyone’s understanding of the process.

This experience also converts extremely well into my deeper programs that are several hundred dollars or in the 4-figure range.

—

If you're a member of the sales vault, we'll cover 4 operations you can tweak and run as your Demonstration Experience:

• The Compact Conference
• The Live Demo
• The Signature Training
• The Prerequisite Class

Also, if you're a member of the vault, the kickoff that we're having tomorrow (on Saturday, October 25th) will go into more depth on these four experiences every buyer deserves.

If you miss the live experience, no worries. A recording 📼 of the expansion class will be placed in your dashboard.

During this kickoff/expansion class, we will cover:

• Why sales feel like they got harder, even though the guiding principles haven't changed
• Why you might not need all four of these experiences
• Why (and when) you might want to actually charge for some of your sales experiences . . . where you are selling the deeper mid-ticket or high-ticket offer
• Why you actually deserve these experiences as the seller, too

Hint on that last point: It's because they will reduce stress for you and help you create better products and services. It's also because good sales practices are about the seller too, not just the buyer's experience. You have to work through your own emotions and wisely share your energy, not just design space for your buyer's emotions and energy.

All your content and experiences carry energy, and the four experiences we'll cover (plus the 4 or more options under each one 🎉) will set you up well.

—

Experience 3: Collaboration

When you invite your person into a positive back-and-forth exchange where they can truly feel the type of relationship they'll likely have with you, their sense of safety and the feeling that they’re in the right place will increase. The end result is belonging.

In a Collaboration Experience, your potential buyer gets a very important piece of information—an undeniable answer to: "How do we work (together)?"

And, offering a helpful, structured 1-on-1 session is just one of the ways to set this up. You can also create more leveraged Collaboration Experiences. You can:

• Host a small Open House event—one of my favorite past clients does these to sell her niche licensing prep program
• Create a live or asynchronous Challenge Community—where all the members are completing specific assignments, sharing progress, and getting feedback or interaction with you
• Host a Small Group Troubleshoot—where you invite anyone on your email list (or in your network) who is dealing with X specific problem to come to a small, intimate group session to help solve it

I typically limit my "troubleshooting sessions" to 5 or 6 people, so there will be time to address every person's needs. I'll generally teach a concept for 30 minutes to an hour, and then we'll address everyone's unique situation for 10 minutes each for the next hour.

I usually charge under $50 for each person, and make the troubleshooting topic relevant to my deeper programs so there's a natural path if people are interested.

Whatever "Collaboration Experience" you choose, here are some questions you can ask yourself as the seller:

• Where and how can I invite them to experience the way we’d work together—so they can feel the relationship?
• Don’t they deserve to get a clear sense of what partnership with me feels like . . . or what my support feels like before they buy?
• Isn’t it kind (and better energetically) to offer them real evidence of how they/I fit in this program, and, how we fit together?
• Shouldn’t they get a clear understanding of what will be expected of them (a.k.a. how much work they'll need to put in with me), and how they feel about that, before buying?

P.S.—In just a sec, I'll show you how all 4 experiences (Orientation, Demonstration, Collaboration, and Activation) can work together in a well-rounded sales journey . . . after we discuss the last experience below. Also, we'll talk about: what order should you do these all in?

—

Experience 4: Activation

This is where your buyer is intentionally or subconsciously getting an answer to one of the most important questions there is when it comes to your program: "How do I work?"

When you support how they work and create an environment for them to feel the fit of your program to a new level, trust in themselves increases. The end result is agency. You're inviting your buyer to decide, and begin the program/process, from a place of true self-power.

Here are a few of the "Operations" my clients and I use when designing for self-trust and activation:

• The Purposeful Prescription
• The DIY PDF or Workbook
• The Interactive Workshop
• The “Start This Week” Path

We go into much more depth in the Empowered Decisions Sales Vault, obvi, but let me share a few more details on a couple of these here . . .

The Purposeful Prescription is a sales operation where you share a smart, automated diagnostic that digs deep into a person’s/entity’s current state and provides what feels like a “customized prescription” with ideas on how to transform their state (based on one of your frameworks or systems) and an invitation to go deeper inside a product or service.

The case study in the Sales Vault that accompanies this operation is from a time I used this type of mission to sell hundreds of copies over time of a $75–$150 PDF resource, as well as an online course.

That said, one of my favorite options for creating an Activation Experience is actually the "Start This Week" Path.

What I typically do for this is:

• Break out an introductory or first key module/action from my deeper program and put it into its own product.
• Then I will take out "Start Your Book This Weekend" ads to invite people to a low-cost way to get started on their book, or their journaling for healing journey, or whatever it is.
• Inside this starter product, they will complete a very key mission that starts their project off with the right actions, ideas, and tools. As they finish these key activities, I will invite them to a discounted version of the deeper thing.

Note: My "Start This Week" products are typically DIY course dashboards with audio/video material and 1–3 specific projects clients are encouraged/guided to complete.

There are lots more details to it that we will get into inside the Sales Vault, so that's 👆🏽 just a quick overview.

Either way, to create an empowering Activation Experience, you might ask yourself questions like:

• Can I invite my people to actually do or practice something that will make it clear how well they actually (not theoretically) work with my ideas?
• Don’t my future clients deserve space to experience how they work? Space to act on my ideas on their own and be reminded of their own capability?
• Don’t they deserve a seller who cares about their levels of self-trust? A seller who isn’t trying to create an unhealthy/skewed dependency?

—

The magic is . . . and the key is . . . using all four of these experiences to sell your important mid-ticket and high-ticket services or programs.

And there's a version of each of these experiences that works best if you are selling B2B (business-to-business) versus B2C (business-to-consumer) versus B2E (business-to-entrepreneur or solopreneur).

Let's go through a B2B example before we wrap:

Let's say you run a DEI firm that sells to mid-sized organizations, with your packages starting at $30,000 for the year. I'm going to use all real-life examples (slightly modified) that clients of mine have done below.

1️⃣ First, your might offer a Case Study Series as your Orientation Experience.

This might involve taking the story of one of your client orgs (that you guided through transformation in six areas inside their organization) and creating a multi-episode private podcast.

• The first episode might share a snapshot of the case study: the type of organization, the transformation that occurred, etc.
• The second episode might cover the 3–5 most compelling reasons to make these types of DEI changes/moves in this current environment
• The third episode might be case study, in detail
• The fourth episode could be all about your six-part framework, giving people a lesson and helpful details all in one
• The fifth and final episode might go into detail about the types of orgs and types of leaders who are the best fit for this type of work, with an invitation to book an exploratory call

2️⃣ Second, you might have a Compact Conference as your Demonstration Experience.

This might be a paid 1-day event, with two sessions hosted by you (or by you and a team member).

• The first session might be a keynote/panel hybrid session where you share impactful ideas about the new caliber of leader required to foster safe cultures in the current environment . . . followed by a panel discussion you lead with 3 leaders (perhaps your clients?) who are doing an exemplary job in various DEI areas.
• The second session might be an action-oriented one. Let's say you have a proprietary, framework-based, non-accusatory assessment of the leadership team that you always kick your 1-year package off with. You do this because you know that if you and your team, plus them and their team, don't have honest answers to these questions, the real work can't begin. Maybe in the second session, you lead people through a version of that assessment and help them interpret the results, in terms of what their next moves should be, regardless of whether they work with your firm or not.

Note: Once you create this Compact Conference, you can edit it, create a follow-along resource, and make it available all the time in evergreen mode.

3️⃣ Third, you might create a Structured 1-on-1 Call or Small Group Troubleshoot as your Collaboration Experience.

Let's go with the Small Group Troubleshoot for this example, as it's a little more unique in the B2B realm.

You might offer a paid 2-hour session that an organization can reserve with you, where up to 5 members of their leadership team are allowed to attend.

During this session, you could do a modified version of your intake assessment and give them an action plan afterward, or you can let them choose from one of let's say three current issues they're having inside the workplace.

You could guide them through some pre-developed materials (since it's a topic you address in your deeper, yearlong program) and then do a customized back-and-forth consultation or coaching to help resolve the issue.

4️⃣ Fourth, you might create a "Start This Week" Initiative as your Activation Experience.

This might be in the form of a private podcast, video portal, or short book that specific leaders inside an organization can use to "jumpstart greater psychological safety" in their organization "this work week." It might give them simple "plays" or activities that they can do every day for five days, or every workday for a month.

These plays would not only give them the feeling of small wins, but they would also create noticeable, small shifts in their workplace. Another important side effect? The leaders who participate in your "challenge" will know they can act on the guidance you give. They'll know that your guidance makes a difference.

—

So now, imagine with me for a second . . . that instead of just having a single one-on-one exploratory call or a static white paper and an exploratory call, you actually set up all four of the experiences above to sell your deeper, year-long program.

How much of a difference would this make?

If you're a member of the Sales Vault, I can't wait to share more examples with you (from clients and from my own businesses) across many industries, niches, and the B2B, B2C, and B2E realms.

I truly believe, and have honestly witnessed my clients and myself experience this . . . selling through these four experiences can create a low- to no-stress container for you and your clients.

It fosters actual excitement 😲, creativity 🤯, and joy 🤩 around selling . . . and around buying.

Not only do you get to know your products and services so much better . . . not only do you get to understand the way you work, the way they work, and the way y'all work together so much more, but you create a more peaceful experience for everyone.

Honestly, I plan to rename all of this to the Emotionally Intelligent Sales Vault because that's what I believe it creates . . . an emotionally intelligent container, where you are:

• Extremely self-aware of your energy and emotions around sales and connection . . . and able to manage them instead of those emotions controlling you or pulling you into desperate sales decisions
• Able to design around the empathy you have for your clients and the way they need to make the decisions that are best for themselves or their family/organization/relationships/career/business/etc.
• More likely to develop and maintain strong relationships with the people who buy from you . . . and those who don't

—

Last quick question: What order should you do all these in? Do they go in 1 → 2 → 3 → 4 order? Orientation → Demonstration → Collaboration → then Activation?

Great question, friend.

The short answer is: we'll purposefully work together to decide which one is the best "on-ramp" to the buying journey for your people (hint: it's often Activation or Orientation). Then we'll discuss which ones make the best "acceleration" and "cruise control" experiences. And finally, we will get into what might be the best "off-ramp" sales experience, based on your unique clients and your own style.

But the answer is: they don't have to go in the order I presented them above . . . and they often don't. I think it's important to have all four available (and note: sometimes you'll only need two or three) at all times.

—

Thank you for reading this massive lesson (which FYI is a version of an "Orientation Experience"—giving you lots of details on a key framework and the way I think about this topic). But, whether you join the Vault or not . . . as I said: my goal is for you to feel much better about sales (and the types of things you can do to sell your programs and packages) after going through this email.

Please hit reply and let me know if you have any ideas or questions. Thank you 🙏🏽.

Regina out.

Reminder: The Empowered Decisions Sales Vault (perhaps soon to be called The Emotionally Intelligent Sales Vault) is still at it's special price today. And, we get started tomorrow at 1p ET.

If you miss the live event, I'll provide you with a recording in your dashboard. The price increases tomorrow.

​