Breaking through Sales Myths with Sara Dalrymple

Catherine Erdly: Hello, welcome to episode number 188 of the resilient retail game plan. Hi, I’m your host, Catherine Erdly. I’m also the founder of the resilient retail club, which is my membership and mastermind for product businesses. Head over to resilientretailclub.com to find out more. 

Welcome Sara Dalrymple, Author of More Sales, Please!

Catherine Erdly: Today I’m joined on the podcast by the very lovely Sara Dalrymple. She is the author of more sales, please, which is a guide to selling aimed specifically at small business owners. I can’t wait to jump in with Sara and share her tips and thoughts about how to make selling easy and clear, and to leave you feeling really confident.

Welcome to the Resilient Retail Game Plan, a podcast for anyone wanting to start, grow or scale a profitable creative product business with me, Catherine Erdly The Resilient Retail Game Plan is a podcast dedicated to one thing, breaking down the concepts and tools that I’ve gathered from 20 years in the retail industry and showing you how you can use them in your business. 

This is the real nuts and bolts of running a successful product business, broken down in an easy, accessible way. This is not a podcast about learning how to make your business look good. It’s the tools and techniques that will make you and your business feel good.

Confidently plan, launch and manage your products and feel in control of your sales numbers and cash flow to help you build a resilient retail business.

Sara, good morning. Welcome to the podcast.

Sara Dalrymple: I’m so happy to be here. Good morning.

Catherine Erdly: forward to our chat today? Do you want to start off as we always do with an intro to you and what you do?

Sara Dalrymple: Yes. Okay. So I’m Sara Dalrymple, sales with Sara, much easier to say than my surname. And I’m a sales expert. I’m basically here to help the creative business economy just thrive. And you know, we’re really good at what we do, but sometimes the thing that we do is not naturally like talking about the products that we have, the reason our business is here.

So I’m here to make sure that’s much easier. 

Catherine Erdly: Amazing! And of course you are the author of more sales, please.

Sara Dalrymple: I should leave with that these days. Shouldn’t I? Yeah. One month old today at the time of recording. So yes. I wrote a book as well, which is still extremely novel.

Catherine Erdly: It took me a really long time. I would be on a talk and then people would be like, do you have a copy? And I would be like, I actually don’t have a copy. It took me a long time to have it now. It’s always within arm’s reach so I can do my da da. Yes, one whole year it of Tame Your Tiger. And we are actually What’s the word?

Publishing sisters, something like that. We’ve, we published through the same publishing company, Practical Inspiration. And we’ve had many a chat about the process of writing a book as you went along. But it’s such a fabulous message that you have in the book. 

 So you are very passionate about the message that you share in the book and do you want to just tell us a little bit more about that message and why you feel it’s so important to get it out there?

Sara’s Message behind her book – We live in a time where anyone can open a business, but we aren’t really taught about sales and marketing. Most small business owners feel ist complicated, Sara wants to prove that its not.

Sara Dalrymple: Yeah, really what it comes down to is I am so here for the fact that we’re living in a time where we can have our own businesses. We can earn money in our own way and we can do all of that on the like on the internet if we want to or physically if we want to. These options were not available to us when we were growing up so this is almost like a brand new kind of moment in time.

We’re the first people to be doing it really in this way and I know how many people aren’t already like super comfortable with how to talk about what they do online or how to show up online in a way that’s productive, efficient, effective. It’s a real sticking point for a huge portion of the small business community.

And there are loads of reasons why that is, and I’m sure we’ll get into all that. But for now, like the point, like the reason why I’m so keen to help people is that actually it’s so much simpler than we think to connect with the people who ultimately are the right people to buy from us. So I think it’s one of those things that feels really complicated and just really isn’t.

And because I know that, it’s just something that I can’t help. Everyone’s got those things that they just can’t help talking about. my, mine. 

Catherine Erdly: And your background is in sales. So you’ve done the sort of big multi million pound sales.

Sara Dalrymple: yeah, my background is in a completely different type of sales, you know, corporate sales, investment banking sales. So very masculine, very yeah. Very male dominant, dominating, dominated environment and selling, things that I wasn’t necessarily as passionate about maybe as a small business community and all the lovely like purpose driven brands that are out there.

And it was, yeah, it was, I’m not going to say it wasn’t like great in terms of a training ground and a place to learn how I like to sell, how I don’t like to sell, how I don’t like to be sold to, all that stuff. And to an extent, sales is similar wherever you’re doing it, but actually I think there are some really particular nuances for our kind of small business community that, the way that sales is done in big companies is not actually that useful for us here.

So what we need to really get into is how do we do it as individuals? And it is an individual thing rather than a set of tasks. It’s not like a script type situation here. Thank goodness.

Is there a way of approaching sales if you are more of an introvert?

Catherine Erdly: Yeah, sure. And one of the things that I often hear people say is, Oh, I’m very introverted and sales can feel quite extroverted. Do you think that there is a way of doing it if you are an introvert? 

Sara Dalrymple: Oh my goodness, of course, absolutely. In fact, I think that’s one of the most common myths about sales. And that’s because of the way that we’ve been I suppose the stereotypes of sales, if you think about any film you watch or any TV program or there’s like always a wheeler dealer isn’t there, or they’re normally a man as well and that’s fine.

There’s obviously nothing wrong with men selling things, that’s fine. But it’s just not the same as, I think we’ve got this idea, haven’t we, that it’s got to be all like extrovert and jazz hands and loud and precarious. But actually what makes a really good salesperson is the person who is really like prepared to put their customer before them.

And actually that’s all about listening and giving the right information and then letting, like empowering the person on the other end of that, to make the right decision for them. We’re not trying to do this sort of slippery cajoling, the tactics, the, sell this at all costs. That’s just not.

What we’re doing here. Absolutely not. So I think we can leave those stereotypes in a whole other category cause most of them came from either the eighties or like a corporate setting. They didn’t come from a small business setting. So they’re not really, it’s not really about that.

Catherine Erdly: Yeah. That’s great advice. So for anyone who’s feeling like, actually I just can’t do it. It’s about listening. 

Sara’s process to make sales feel more natural 

Catherine Erdly: So you talk in the book, you’ve got three sections. You talk about clarity, confidence, and ease. So can you tell me a little bit more about each one of those and how they build together to make the sales process feel more natural?

Feel easier?

Sara Dalrymple: Yeah. So the book is like a 10 step journey. So there’s 10 chapters split into three sections, but it tends 10 kind of key actions if you like to get your head round in order to have a really natural relationship with. promoting, talking about selling your products and services. And section one is about this clarity piece, which is about, let’s actually all go on the same page with what we’re trying to do here.

I, we’re not trying to, as I said, just then we’re not trying to cajole anyone here. We are absolutely not trying to be like a transactional, seller of. Something really impersonal. So actually, like the section, what the first section is about helping you drop your shoulders a little bit around forget all that.

We’re not trying to be, a sleazy stereotype here. What this is actually about is as a business owner, especially if you’re a business owner of one or you have a small team, being the person who you’re working with. Is positioning what your products are for, who they’re for, what you’re all about, and making sure it’s landing in the way that you’re intending for it to land.

So it’s how we can find, find the right words, if you like, to do that in a way that feels nice for your personality type. So that’s clarity. It’s just like what it isn’t. Myths, sterotypes, Let’s get them all out and then park them to the side so we can move forward. And then section two really builds on now that we know what we’re trying to do, how can we get really confident about that?

How can we, strengthen our mindset around, why we need to be the people doing it and how can we start to actually understand what that looks like in terms of for the buyer. So on the other side what is it that they need? What is the information that they’re really after when they get onto your social media account or your website or your podcast or whatever it is?

Like, What are the things they want you to talk about that are going to help them make easy decisions? And then the third section is about making sure that’s really straightforward, simple, easy for you to do. So it’s the practical, the really practical end of the types of content that really help that you should concentrate on and how to describe.

What your business is all about and all that kind of stuff. So they’re really practical side.

Catherine Erdly: And I suppose if you make it easy, then if you’re having that day where you’re thinking to yourself, Oh, I can’t do it today, then you do at least have that Ease built in just makes it, it’s like when you use,

Sara Dalrymple: I think it’s that thing, isn’t it? I think it’s about being really kind to yourself. If you haven’t done loads of sales or marketing before you became a business owner, which like I said, the vast majority of people don’t establish their business on day one with a fully complete training in sales and marketing.

But in reality, that’s half the job, right? Half the job is creating and the other half is promoting, talking about it, finding your ease and your kind of neutrality, I guess, with, with talking about what you do. So we have to be kind to ourselves while we’re on that journey to neutrality. And that natural effortless moment that it doesn’t, it’s not a big deal.

It’s just something that, gets done. But this is really about Yeah. Acknowledging. Of course there are days where we don’t want to be doing that, but actually in five, 10, in just a few minutes, you can actually just take that off the list as long as you know what you’re doing. So I

Lot of you get into these overthinking cycles where you’re like, Oh, but is it too much if I mentioned my products again, or I only talked about it like a few days ago, what will people think?

And then all your fear of judgment comes up or fear of, I don’t know being too much or it brings up a lot of our stuff that we all have around, how we were brought up to think that, showing anything that might be perceived as showing off might be too much. And a lot goes on in our heads.

And this book is about making sure if you are able to spend 10, 15, 20, up to 30 minutes a day, there’s a load of really practical actions that you can just pick up and grab and go and just wash the idea that it ever has to be a big deal.

What is the difference between selling a product and selling a service?

Catherine Erdly: I love this and I love the way that you talk about sales because I think so much of sales training, which I mean, for me as a service business owner. It’s slightly different, I think, from for product businesses, although product, obviously everyone has to sell, right? But for service business owner, you often are having to have that actual conversation for sales.

So over the years, I’ve probably looked at a fair amount of sales training. But the thing I’ve always found really tricky and what I like about what you do is that there’s this. And I’m sure you’ve found this. You’ve, I’m sure you’ve been through umpteen sales trainings that there’s this very fine line between persuasion and manipulation and depending on who you, depending on who you come across in the in the sales world, there’ll be more on they’ll walk that line more on one side than the other.

And I just remember being horrified and looking at training on, for example, when you’re doing a sales call as a service provider, there’s this concept of closing, right? Closing the call and the tactics that I would see for closing, I would just was like,

Sara Dalrymple: Not doing it.

Catherine Erdly: never do anything of anything like that.

The like anything to get them over the line. And that is the thing I think that gives sales a bad name. It’s that’s car salesman who goes over Oh we could make this work for you. We’re like, you feel like you can never actually leave or you’re being walked down a path that you don’t want to walk down.

And I think that is what people worry about a lot. And I think. So many small business owners are like so far the other end, it’s like they’re not even on the same spectrum almost from that sort of manipulative bit. But do you, so what’s your view then on, in terms of, do you feel like it’s very much the persuasion bit is about setting everything out so that the can make the final choice?

Sales isn’t about forcing the buyer’s choice. It’s about creating a space where they are happy to buy.

Sara Dalrymple: I actually don’t like the word either, persuade I’m not, I don’t think any of us are here to persuade anyone to do anything. In fact, it’s horrifying to even think about it, but right, I’m so pleased you brought this up because there is this real association between getting the sale, like kind of desperate energy that somehow in order to get the sale in inverted commas.

You have to literally chase people down, or I’ve even heard that terminology chase people down or close people down, actually, whatever for me, that’s just not it. It’s just not about that. It’s about we all are perfectly we’re all grown ups, we can all make our own decisions.

And actually, in order to do that, and I don’t know about you, but I love to buy I love to buy things, when things are really nicely laid out, whether it’s in a physical shop or online or Whatever. Like it is a joy to be able to make that decision and buy the thing because you know it’s the thing that you want or it looks really nice or whatever.

You’ve got certain kind of pull towards having it and there’s no mystery and there’s no like, Oh, now you’ve got to get on a call and yeah, like you say, go through this rigmarole that is completely unnatural on all sides, feel like you’re being sold to. It’s just none of that is required. And actually like when we just completely step out of that paradigm and into the one that we’re living in right now, which is the availability of put, like there is no shortage of, you know, people can go online whenever they want and buy whatever they want, whenever they want, however they want, if they want being the crucial thing. And actually our role as marketers isn’t to decide for them what they want.

It’s to let them have the information and have the experience and build the connection with us and to feel really clear and happy about what it is they’re buying if they buy it. Because also, if you think about buying things online, we don’t know we don’t know who’s online when, or how long they’ve been there, or how much they already know, or what their individual requirements are.

So actually, in the absence of a sales call, which I don’t even do anymore, really, to be honest. But anyway, let’s just assume that your business model does not have sales calls in it. The responsibility of the content that you’re putting online is so much greater focus, like the focus of it must be to give people that information because we can’t rely on them asking us personally or walking into a physical shop, or we just can’t rely on that.

It’s not how it works. And we know that three quarters of all businesses, like all sorry, customers are going online. Either online or on social media specifically to aid their decision making process. So actually, if we stop thinking of ourselves as sleazy salespeople and start thinking of our buyers as curious and interested in the thing, the information that they’re looking for, if we’re not giving it to them and we’re not laying it out in a way that’s really like simple and, doing that on a regular basis, we’re not giving them a very good service.

And I don’t know how. Anyone else listening to this, I suspect, like you say, with like huge integrity filled hearts, we don’t want to be the business owner that wasn’t doing a very good job at explaining what we were doing. We want to be a business owner who is absolutely clear and committed to making sure that anyone that kind of comes into our store, wherever that is, is completely at ease with what’s going on there and you know what their options are and then they can make a decision whether that’s with you or with someone else, that’s fine just having that like solid approach rather than this really sketchy I’ll just get you on a call and then I’ll just sell to you and I’ll make you, and it’s that is first of all horrific for everybody but also really short sighted, really transactional because they’re probably not going to come back if they didn’t enjoy that call. Isn’t it a bit of a longer game, isn’t it about relationships and actually being And the lovely joy of a fantastic service. You know, We get as well. I really must feel this. Like I could cry when I get good service. I’m so happy. You’re just like, Oh, that’s something we can all do, isn’t it? We can all be really brilliant service.

Whether, whatever you’re selling, you can still be a really brilliant service provider of the pre sale experience. And I think that’s really important. I

Catherine Erdly: think you’re absolutely right. And yes, and I do have sales calls, but it is very much as an information gathering exercise and also a chance to really explain things to people in more detail and to find out more about people and see if it’s the right fit. But I think that, there is this con.

A concept of said, like these tactics, but you’re right. We’re all grownups, we all know what’s best for us. And I hate the idea that anyone other than the customer or the client is the person who’s best place to make that decision, so I think one of my favorite things to do as well when it comes to product businesses, and I think this is a, this I’m always thinking about selling in terms of whenever I buy something, whenever I make a purchase of a product, I’m always thinking about what it was that got me to buy.

And I, I often say to the club members, for example, inside the Resilient Retail Club, like when you’re making a purchase, especially when you’re spending a bit more money than you would normally, it’s really useful to drill down and ask yourself why. And I’ve used before the example of my giant Yeti bottle, which I now have a lot of Yeti bottles, which is.

Sara Dalrymple: Me what was it?

Catherine Erdly: But it was because I was able to go onto the website. First off it was word of mouth, to be honest. It was we’d seen some relatives from the States and they’d they’d had this Yeti bottle these Yeti bottles and they were super happy with them, which is, I think another reason why, as you say, great customer service is really great sales in the longterm, isn’t it?

Sara Dalrymple: And reputation, like Bush being a nice per a nice, place to buy from.

Catherine Erdly: yeah, but then there was all this information out there to me available on their social media pictures of people using them and but then also super practical information about the fact you could put them in a dishwasher and it was all helping me all of these different elements and I think it’s so useful to think about what it is that gets us to buy.

And it’s often, as you say, it’s like all of those different elements. It’s not like one thing. It’s often, you might need to see things a few times and really think about it and go back and understand how you could use something and feel really confident that you’re going to have a good experience and it’s going to be good quality and do what you want it to do.

Sara Dalrymple: That’s exactly it. And that’s, I’m so pleased that you have given that example because it’s exactly that. It’s, you had heard, real life example of someone raving about the product. You went obviously online, as I said, most people do go online to have a little look about, and then you take your own time.

Sales can start off as an emotional journey, so we need to set the stage for our buyers with the messages we want them to receive.

Sara Dalrymple: You go back as many times as you need. There’s probably a few steps in that journey, which if. Like your last hundred things that you bought the things that you went looking for were probably similar i.e. It probably started with let me just get an initial flavor for you know Feeling when I look on this social media, you know, as you said, there was a variety there was like practical stuff It wasn’t just all about this is how you can buy or the size, you know There was also like the more people using them probably going on height Imagining or in the city and there’s always like pictures aren’t there of like people with their bikes and a nice one, whatever We’re getting into the role of you can see yourself with this thing, whatever you’re setting.

It really is emotional to start with. It’s like the, can you see yourself with this product? It’s, I think a lot of the time we overly focus on the logical elements as business owners, we think, Oh, we need to get into the practical kind of logic of what it does. But actually before that, it’s much more about whether you feel anything when you have a look on the website, the social media page, whatever, when you are.

Consuming information about this product, that feeling first uh, and then we back it up with logic. So that’s what I’m putting out in the book. It’s about okay, here is, three or four steps in every buyer journey that they’re going through, whether consciously or not, to mentally check off, what’s in it for me, is this suitable for me?

Is it relevant or will I just walk on by? Okay. If I think it’s suitable let me just understand a bit more about how it’s made or, is it dishwasher set? As you say, all that. And then we’re getting into does this seem trustworthy? Are they on, are they lively online? Or are they, have they not posted anything for six months?

Okay. That’s a particularly good vibe. Whereas if I check back, there’s something new for me. That’s good too. Cause I’m building really nice connection there and trust. And then is it easy? Are you making it easier? You’re committing to making it easy for me to actually get what I need and then buy it.

These people did this for you, hence you have several. And you’re probably going to rave about them. I’ve heard you talking about these bottles before, and I’ve probably seen them on your social media and been like, what’s that bottle? I need one. So this is the point, isn’t it? They’ve done, all they’re doing is rinsing and repeating those three or four messages over and over again, which is absolutely what social media, in my opinion, is for, which I’m happy to talk about, actually, because I think that’s another point that people think about social media or selling on social media as something like, It, this enormous task of Oh, I need to build my audience or, Oh, I need more people on there.

Or, Oh, I don’t know how to do like fancy reels or, Oh, I don’t know how to use Canva or whatever. Like all these different things come up when really all it is, whether it’s social media or an email or a website or anything else, any content that you’re putting online, that it’s job is exactly what we’ve just talked about there to go through the three or four steps that help any buyer, whether they’re brand new into your world or whether they’ve been popping in and out for several weeks.

get bits of information to help them move closer to being able to make an easy decision that feels good to them. So all you need to do is drip feed simple messages, the same messages over and over again. And that’s why it should only ever take a few minutes, not longer. We don’t need the fancy stuff. We just need the repeatable, simple clarity that we get when we, when we can see that you’re committed to making that easy for us.

Catherine Erdly: And you’re not tying yourself in knots, trying to do a million different things. You’re just doing the same messages. I always think about like Coca Cola, what’s their message? It tastes great. 

Sara Dalrymple: Yeah, something like that. I’m trying to think it should know. But 

Catherine Erdly: Father Christmas in red,

Sara Dalrymple: yeah, exactly. they’re not trying to be like, Oh, and you can, and we’ve got these flavors now and they’re just like, look, we know what we, and it’s exactly that. I think we really tie ourselves in knots thinking, Oh, but should I now talk about this?

And, but actually it’s really confusing. If you go back to someone, Yeti page like the third time in, and then we’re suddenly talking about. something completely like different to what they’ve been talking about. It becomes really confusing and the messaging gets really muddled then. And muddled is not a good place to be buying from.

We want people to be buying from like clarity, like having it affirmed over and over again. So we don’t, less is more is the point here. Less. It’s definitely more. Keep it simple, keep it repeatable, get into your rhythm with that, and you will not go back is the point because it suddenly really starts working.

Catherine Erdly: And it’s simple and easy. I love, I always love that phrase. The confused mind always says no. So it’s 

Sara Dalrymple: course confusion is not a vibe, is it? We just want to be like, this is what I mean when you think about any of your purchases. You don’t go, oh, it was a bit confusing, but I guess I’ll just go for it anyway. You go, no, I need to go away and think about that for a bit longer and I probably am not going to come back actually.

Catherine Erdly: Yeah. So you mentioned vibes and I want to talk about energy because I know that is a big part of what you talk about and you always have great energy. And I just wondered if you could share your thoughts about the relationship between your passion for your product and your sales.

What is the relationship between your passion for your product and sales?

Sara Dalrymple: Oh my goodness. It’s binary. It’s totally binary. That’s the short answer, I can never just give a short answer. So let’s keep going. I really believe that there’s such a, it’s like a just sheer drop, isn’t it? When you go from like thinking about your product, how excited you are about it, like all the stuff you want to do with it, all the collections you might want to bring out, all the colorways, all the things, whatever.

There are there’s so much good energy there and then as soon as someone asks you to start selling it or talking about it in a way that you feel immediate constriction, if you haven’t found that like ease yet with talking about it, everything just constricts and then. So much of the time, which is what I’m trying to overcome here, like so much of the time people then feel they have to force themselves through selling in a way that doesn’t necessarily feel that good to them, whether it’s getting on a call or doing a certain post that someone else has done because they think that might work for them. This is not an option. It’s just not an option to force yourself or to do something that anybody else is doing just because they’re doing it. Unless you feel really good about doing it.

So I think something that we just didn’t get taught, to be honest, I don’t remember getting taught it at school anyway, is to pay attention. When you’re a business owner, you’ve got your own business, like your energy is the most important resource you have. And it will always tell you if something feels off, it’s slightly different to like the resistance that you might feel the first couple of times you show up or the first time you’re selling something.

That’s just because it’s new and you have to normalize it. But energetically if you’re trying to do something in somebody else’s way, or in a way that doesn’t feel good to you, we will be able to tell, like the person on the other side of it can immediately feel something’s just not, they might not be able to put their finger on it.

They might not be able to go, Oh, she just obviously doesn’t want to be doing that. But they will definitely not get the kind of same energetic connection if you like, as if you are allowing yourself to talk about what you do. In your own words, in your own way, in a way that feels good to you. And I say talking.

It might be writing, it might, it doesn’t have to be actually like, face to camera kind of talking. But the point is, your words and the way that you put them out on the internet via any piece of content. carries whatever energy that you put out. I don’t want to start sounding all woowoo or spiritual about this, but ultimately the energy always leads in sales is the point.

So if you’re coming at something from a forced kind of gritted teeth energy, that’s just not going to work. And that’s why you get like all these people going I’ve been trying this for years. And the sales aren’t where they need to be like you versus this person who just come along and in three months, they’ve.

Gone to the moon, like absolutely rip roaring instant success so often that’s to do with the energy of what they’re putting into, they’re doing it in a way that’s aligned. So it’s really important to find this alignment and that we really commit to working on it until we are feeling in alignment because that’s when you get the true ease of, talking about something and getting the sales.

Catherine Erdly: It’s like you just can’t shut up about it, right? It’s like that sort of energy. You’re like I always feel like it’s like the pee in your pants excited about something you want to buy from people who are like, Oh my goodness, you would not believe what I just found, what I just unboxed, or I just taken out the

Sara Dalrymple: not forced. We don’t want it to be forced. We want it. It’s genuine. And that’s because we’re all hungry for real connection and human, human, human to human. We’re all human beings. Yes, we’re selling different things. But we’ve got to translate. We’ve got to give people a bit of that human connection so that they get to have that excited experience.

So we can’t be forcing it. We’ve got to find wherever it is within you and then, work from there as a starting point. So yeah, I think it’s so important. And that also is true for, how you’re running your business. Generally, if you’re exhausted behind the scenes and like burning out and there’s no time and there’s no like time for rest.

That also like obviously really impacts the way you’re able to show up because energetically you’re drained. We haven’t got, proper boundaries in place. So everyone, it’s just at you all the time. It’s really difficult to keep your energy like on a sort of in a useful place. Let’s put it that way.

So I am massively here for boundarying your time and making sure, especially something as important as promoting, talking about what you’re doing, selling, marketing, is boundaried. I don’t want people spending hours and hours on one social media post or just draining their lives away, scrolling Instagram or whatever platform of choice, because that is just an absolute, literally an energy drain.

What we want to do is we want to get on there. With the good energy, put your message out and then get off and go for a walk, live your life or do whatever it is that you’ve got to be doing. So it’s extremely important that we know we’re using these platforms as a tool to connect with clients, not to be draining all our energy because we don’t really know what we’re doing on there.

Leaps. Specifically

Catherine Erdly: Love that. Great advice. I always think as well for product business owners, it’s a really useful exercise. If you have ever been to one of these big consumer fairs, like a spirit of Christmas or country living Christmas fair or anything like that stylist live even, and you have a walk around and a lot of the time there’ll be stands that will have professional salespeople on them.

Although it’s just like a very sales focused environment because you’re there. It’s an event. These people are there selling to you. And it’s actually quite interesting to experience different selling styles and to see, okay, I liked that. And yeah, I wasn’t so keen on that. And you’re within the hall.

You usually have some people who are. Who barely even will tell you what the product is all the way up to the person who’s bit too pushy, jumps out at you and you feel like,

Sara Dalrymple: Yeah.

Catherine Erdly: Yeah. And you have to like shake them off. And then I remember when we went to spirit of Christmas, we were upstairs in the food and drink and there’s this one guy and he was selling this it was very nice actually.

It was like this winter spice gin or something, but he was just literally so enthusiastic. You must try this. So good. And you’ve got totally sucked up into it and it was again, that really fun, it was just a fun experience, but it’s just really interesting, I think, to see it in action and to observe how you feel yourself about things and to realize that so many, so much of the time, it’s that real genuine enthusiasm.

That is what makes it so enjoyable.

Sara Dalrymple: totally. And also, to be clear, it’s not always excitement, enthusiasm. If you’re a really calm quiet person, I’m certainly not saying you have to suddenly find this guy with his jazzy gin or whatever it was, which sounds amazing, but side note. It’s more about doing it in your own way.

So obviously using, the important piece here is your personality, like your own identity. Like whether it’s physically, whether it’s an in person fair like that, I’m thinking back to like wedding fairs that I used to do. There was always the, the guys leaping out like, Oh, here’s another, Another person I can talk out for 10 minutes and then there’d be the more reserved types that were just really happy to wait until somebody approaches the stand and actually listening and answering the questions.

It’s that listening thing again. So it’s really about committing to you, being yourself. And also being available for exactly whatever the information that your person in front of you needs to be able to, you just need to provide that in whatever way works for you. So I think like when we talk about energy, it’s really about understanding that people buy.

they buy something when they know what’s in it for them. Is it going to change something for them? Is it going to get them closer to something that they want? How is it relevant specifically for a certain type of person? And do they feel something when they’re interacting with you or your content?

If it’s not you in person, but that’s something that they feel doesn’t have to be like, Jenny, it doesn’t have to be like jazzy jazz hands. It could be, I felt really well looked after. I felt really

Catherine Erdly: Silence.

Sara Dalrymple: Talking to that person, or I really had a sense of clarity and calm and genuine, just so quiet in a confidence about, cause so much, if you think about it as well, so much of the time we really dart around, like when someone says, Oh, what do you do?

And like you were saying it’s. It’s something really a difficult thing for people to answer directly a lot of the time. And I think that comes from either a lack of, it’s almost like a kind of scarcity thing where it’s like, Oh, I don’t want to say the wrong thing. And I can help these kinds of people.

Or you could do, you use my products and these guys, and it just becomes this really garbled thing. And actually from a sales perspective, it’s really important that we get that clear. Simple answer and people buy things that are simple. Like we were saying, we don’t have, we don’t want to be adding to confusion.

So we don’t want to be going, you can drink my gin here, or it’s, you can use it in this cup or you can, yes, all these things might be true, but upfront it’s first, can we be confidently that can we answer the question confidently and with, less words, less is more sometimes. So I think that’s also a really.

I can imagine like walking around one of those events and just potentially like asking that question a few times and just seeing what people’s responses are, because it’s nice to know you can really tell people who have done that thinking so that you don’t have to, versus the people who haven’t and then they’re just like talking at you and you’re like trying to 

Catherine Erdly: Piece it together.

Sara Dalrymple: You’re trying to distinguish, is this for me, is this for me, is this for me, I can’t tell because you’re still talking.

So it’s like we just need to tell people is it for them first and then stop talking.

How to connect with Sara Dalrymple

Catherine Erdly: Fantastic. Thank you so much. I really enjoyed this. So go check out more sales, please. By Sara Darren Paul can get all good bookstores online and you want to tell people where they can find out more about working with you.

Sara Dalrymple: of course. Thank you so much for having me. That went far too quickly. Two chatterboxes. You can find me, maybe you can find me is on Instagram at sales with Sara. Because everything goes out from there. Like my, as I say, my surname is one of those, it’s a tricky one to spell, so you can find everything you need on Instagram and, or on my website, saradalrymple.co.uk. But yeah, thanks for having me.

Thank you so much for joining me today. I’d love for you to head over to Instagram at resilient retail club and let me know what you took away from today’s episode. And of course, I love to see it when you share your photos of where you are tuning in, where you’re listening to the podcast. If you have a moment to rate the podcast inside the Spotify app or rate and review it inside the iTunes or Apple podcasts, then that would be so appreciated. And of course, inside Apple podcasts, you can leave a review as well. And if you subscribe or follow the podcast, you’ll be the first to know about every new episode that comes out each Thursday until next week. See you then.