Struggling to Make Sales? You May Have a Problem With Intimacy!
(Guest Post by Stephanie Padovani)

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I reached out to Glenn Livingston on a whim, fully expecting a rejection.

I’d set myself a challenge to have 100 conversations with inspiring entrepreneurs, and he certainly fit the bill. Even asking him felt like a stretch, but he’d been so kind and accessible inside the Alpha Wolf mastermind that I thought, “Why not?”

I expected him to retreat behind “appropriate boundaries.” I’m not a podcaster with a big audience. I don’t have a list of his prospects. It was just me and my crazy experiment.

He said yes.

As a result, I got to meet the man behind the persona and the credentials. He showed up as himself, with a vulnerability that was both unexpected and intimate.

It’s not a small thing to meet someone in a conversation by showing up as who you are. It was an act of bravery for me to ask, and an act of courage for him to let himself be seen.

What does this have to do with your business?

Intimacy is how you make sales.

It’s how you make an impact. It’s how you transform lives.

Let me quote our own very good Dr. Glenn Livingston:

“Many sales problems result from a fear of intimacy…You need a piece of their soul to be burned on your soul if you’re to write in such a way that convinces them that you really understand them. You need to take the risk of that level of intimacy.”

This isn’t quite what we learned in Sales 101. It usually looks more like this:

We buy an expensive course on Selling Expensive Stuff People Will Buy. We study. We spend hours in forums and groups. We scour the internet gathering market research, analyze the numbers.  When we can’t put off working on our Next Big Thing anymore because our excuses are getting threadbare, we huddle over a computer in isolation until we’ve perfected our creation.

Then we launch our baby into the world and…nobody cares.

You can’t create something that connects with your audience unless you connect with them.   That means you need to talk to them. Yes, TALK, as in having a real conversation with a living person. That’s something you can’t do digitally. It requires actually being real.

We’re afraid to touch one another, but that’s exactly what we need to do if we want to make an impact.  The way in is intimacy.

Blech! Intimacy. Save it for couple’s counseling, sister.

Let me follow the example set by the marketing gods and talk about the benefit.

Here’s what’s in it for you when you get close enough to touch your prospects people you want to help:

1. Trust. You earn trust by being vulnerable and accessible first. People need to trust before they’ll buy.

2. Priceless market research. Ask questions and really listen to the emotion behind the answers. You’ll have the exact language and motivation you need to get them to buy. You can’t get that from reading a forum post.

3. Sales. Use what you learn to craft the message and offer that are irresistible to your audience.

4. Visibility. When you speak your audience’s language in a way that connects, the word spreads. You get noticed.

There is a price to pay for this kind of power. You can’t see into someone else’s soul like this unless you’re willing to let them see into yours. You must “burn a piece of their soul onto yours” and to really know them.

Glenn took the risk of following his soul by writing Never Binge Again without blind reliance on the numbers. He speaks to his audience as a person who understands their struggle with the animal inside of them. He climbed down off his digital pedestal to let people see that he’s experienced that struggle, too.

The result is that without exhaustive research and a meticulous business plan, he’s reaching people. Doors are opening and people are buying. 

I’m not suggesting that you throw out the education and research skills you’ve learned in your quest for internet marketing greatness. I am suggesting that it’s time you got your hands dirty by connecting with real people.

Peel back the layers. Shed your clothes. Get intimate.

This is the way to sell more, help more people, and become known. It’s scary to step out from behind your computer and let yourself been seen.

Take down your walls. Glenn did this with me and it restored my faith in what’s possible in internet marketing. He did this with his new business, and its growth is exploding.

What could it do for you?

Stephanie Benedetto Padovani is a writer, marketer and business coach at The Awakened Business and Book More Brides. She believes that what you’re called to do is too important to be stalled by challenges. You’re here to overcome them, and she’s here to make that inevitable…and have fun in the process.