Episode 76 | Top 5 Sales Beliefs That Are Holding You Back: Overcoming The Barriers To Becoming A 6 -7 Figure Firm With Denise Mandeau

Some of the things we believe in are holding us back from growing and succeeding. In this episode, Michelle Weinstein discusses the top five sales beliefs that are holding you back from getting to a six or seven-figure firm with business growth strategist, Denise Mandeau. Denise explains the concept of shifting your perspective to a clearer vision and energy. It’s time to discover a wide range of possibilities that exist in your organization and explore strategies to help you reach your desired destination. Listen to this episode and take the ultimate step to get to where you want to be!

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Top 5 Sales Beliefs That Are Holding You Back: Overcoming The Barriers To Becoming A 6 -7 Figure Firm With Denise Mandeau

It is great to be back with you for another amazing episode. We have a very special guest. Before we welcome our special guest, I wanted to share if you are an accounting professional and you’ve been feeling frustrated and stressed trying to get the right quality clients, being confident in saying no to the ones that no longer serve you and feel like you have no control over who you’re working with or how much you can charge, it’s not your fault.

Nobody’s training how to fix these problems and connect the dots. Up until now, my only higher-end clients have had access to the information. I’m excited to share with you that I am offering a complimentary coaching session to discover what possibilities could exist within your firm. We’ll explore and discover what those look like together on the phone.

If you are looking for those ideal clients, you want to get paid what you’re worth and build the dream firm doing 6 or 7 figures so you can have more time and money left over to go on a family vacation, unplug 100% and have a margarita with the little umbrella on top. I recommend heading over to TheAbundantCall.com book a chat with myself or someone on my team. Also, getting to the depth of what’s holding you back. In this episode, what we’re going to talk about is the sales beliefs that could be holding you back and exploring and getting to the truth of what that could look like. Head on over to TheAbundantCall.com.

Our special guest is Denise Mandeau. She is also my partner in crime here at the show and you probably know many episodes if you read episodes number 1 through 20 or 30. She is a business growth strategist and has proven success as not only a business owner, a financial planner but also as an award-winning sales professional with over 35 years of experience. She has learned what it takes to produce results and has been working with professionals and sales teams over the past few years helping them generate millions of dollars in new business.

She has personally closed over $1.8 million in revenue of the new business in months. Denise is passionate about teaching others how to learn and how to enroll sales process and calling it more of enrollment, so you don’t have to do that without being pushy, salesy, annoying or a nag. She is the yin to my yang and we complement each other well. Let’s give her a warm welcome.

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Welcome to the show, Denise.

Michelle, it’s good to be here again with you. It’s been a little while.

Start reprogramming yourself into something new and shift your mindset. Click To Tweet

I’m super happy to be here back on the show with you. For those of you that don’t know Denise, she is part of the show team. We’ve done a lot of episodes back in the day. If you go back to the first 1 to 20 episodes, I’m sure you’ve learned about us there. Denise, please feel free to make an intro of who you are and where you live.

I live in Neptune, New Jersey, about ten minutes from Asbury Park. If you know anything about Bruce Springsteen, you know that’s where the boss got his start. I’ve been in the financial services industry for years. I love working with other financial service practitioners. I love accountants, everything about sales and enrollment. That’s why Michelle and I are absolute buds.

We are all about that in this episode. I was talking to Denise and it’s so interesting when we have phone calls with those of you who choose to want to explore what it’s maybe like working with Denise and me to improve the revenues in your firm and get out of the rat race that you’ve been in. What I’ve learned is putting together Excel spreadsheets to come up with your pricing and not getting to where you want to be. We’re going to talk about the five sales beliefs that are holding you back from getting to a 6 or 7 figure firm that we’ve come up with.

One of them stemmed from a phone call that I had with one of our students in our Eight-Week Sales Mastery Training and we’re going to call him Bob. I’m going to talk about Bob in our conversation and how some of these thoughts might be percolating in your head and how those thoughts are so powerful. Also, how your words and what you say to yourself, to each other, your family and your inner critics in your head. You’ve got your whole committee up there and I’m sure they’re giving you feedback on a daily basis as to how great you’re doing or how not great you’re doing. All of that is what’s holding us back.

We’re going to talk about the five sales beliefs that are holding you back from where you want to be. Also, we’ll go through one way you can reframe and shift that. Your homework is going to be to do that for the other four beliefs. Denise, thanks for being here with us. Let’s dive in because I want to share what Bob had to say on the phone call.

Hating The Sales Process

He was like, “Michelle, I hate sales.” That’s probably one of the biggest beliefs that are holding us back. The belief of hating sales or hating the process of asking for the money from clients or whatever you define sales is running the show. The belief that you don’t like sales and you hate it was a strong word that Bob had.

Denise, what do you feel when someone says they hate sales? It’s probably true. I know Bob hates sales. I get it. He doesn’t have a process, a plan and he feels like he should come together with how many hours he thinks that will take then reduce it to get clients to say yes to him because he’s desperate for revenue. It’s interesting how we’re desperate for revenue but then we also hate sales.

That’s the funny thing. People say that but then when we start digging in a little bit more, people want to make revenue but the thing is that people don’t like to be sold but they like to buy things. I like to buy things. It’s about our experiences maybe we’ve had in the past or our insecurities coming up. It’s like, “What if I ask somebody to work with me and they say no?” People get scared of even that little word, no. What does that mean?

 

With Bob, he felt like he was an internal pessimist. He resented his clients. He said to me, “Michelle, I resent my clients.” He feels like a commodity and has to justify his prices. What he realized is why he hated the sales process was because he didn’t have a formula or a procedure to follow. For me, it’s almost like going to the gym. If I didn’t know what to do at the gym, what weights to lift, what I had to do to get the end result that I wanted, I wouldn’t enjoy that process either.

I’d be like, “I’d rather lie down in bed or sit on the couch and drink another cup of coffee or have some tea.” I want to bring this up because if you’ve never read Jen Sincero’s book, You Are a Badass at Making Money, I wanted to listen to it. There were many similarities about the power of our beliefs, what we think and how what we think, our beliefs and thoughts happen.

It’s true, Michelle. We think, “I’m going to get on the phone with someone. I’m going to meet with them and they’re going to try to get me to discount my fees. I hate that.” If that’s what’s always there, that’s the energy and the vibration you’re putting out and what you’re going to attract. People are going to prove that to be the truth. When we can start examining how we’re thinking about things, then we can begin to shift that and create new beliefs that will produce new results.

That’s the only solution that there is for your current beliefs. We’re going to talk about the top five sales ones that are probably holding you back. The way to shift these is to rewrite them so you can start reprogramming yourself into a new belief. Let’s say the belief is, “I hate sales.” Bob was feeling like a pessimist and resented his work. He felt like a commodity, justified his prices and also charged a commodity.

If that’s you, which I know there’s a few of you that might resonate with this, we’re doing our clients a disservice by lowering our frequency. If you justify, discount, start answering client emails and they’re not even paying you and you start giving little tidbits of answers, we’re lowering the frequency that we’re vibrating at in order to generate the wealth, abundance and money to go on those vacations.

I was on an accountability call. Dave went to the lake and checked out for a whole week without his laptop and kicked his feet up. Diana went and hung out with her daughter for her 39th birthday and drank some beers on the lake. Barbara went to Spain. They’re completely disconnected to the point where they don’t even want to talk to me. I’m like, “This is fantastic.” We have to think about the energy of the exchange that we’re having with our clients.

If we’re below sea level, then we’ve got some problems. We need to start coming above sea level where we can have an energy of exchange that what Jen says in her book and I loved it so much was clean. We have to have Tesla energy, solar energy and renewable energy. Anything else is toxic. Resenting clients is toxic. Hating sales is a toxic statement that will lower your frequency and vibration to below sea level and not have you in the flow of abundance.

You’re going to go down to the bottom of the ocean. That’s what these statements will do to us and they’re so powerful in that way. Is there anything else on how we shift that? What would you say? Bob hates sales. How could he reframe that to see it from a different perspective to increase the energy of that frequency and to keep that energy clean, not toxic and soon after a while, will start to shift?

If you look at the rejection in a good way, you can tell yourself that you just dodged a bullet, saved yourself from something that’s not worth your time and effort. Click To Tweet

It could be as simple as, “I love serving people and I love people making choices to invest in their future.” It’s all about having conversations. I love having conversations with people about improving their future or lives so they can have more peace and possibilities. Especially for accounting professionals that we work with, that is what they do. The result that you provide for people is peace of mind.

Maybe it’s shifting from, “I hate sales,” to, “I create peace of mind and remove the mental clutter that my clients have.” In our class, what came to me was for all of you that do pumpkin planning, profit first, tax planning, accounting, bookkeeping, payroll, balance sheets, trial balances, tax resolution, you name it, to Denise and I and all of your clients, you could pretend we’re in Japan. You dumped us off at the subway.

We’re in the tunnel. We can’t read a thing and understand anything around us. That’s what it’s like for us. We’re in a tunnel and we couldn’t even know what direction or how to comprehend anything that’s being said to us when it relates to accounting, tax, the complex financial stuff or any of you with tax resolution clients. They’re dodging the IRS. They are in a pickle.

They want help getting out of the tunnel and you can do that but they have to know you can do that.

Maybe that’s your reframe. Instead of, “I hate sales,” “I help people get out of the dark tunnels so they can see a light at the end of their tunnel.” I like that one. That was the first sales belief that I wanted to uncover because this was brought up by Bob. Denise, what’s the second belief that we’ve come to figure out that’s holding someone back from having the 6 to 7 figure firm that I know you all can have? It’s possible. It’s not that far away either. What is that one?

Another one is, “I feel like I shouldn’t have to sell anything. People should come to me.”

Not Selling Anything

You shouldn’t have to feel like you have to sell anything. Think about being in a tunnel in Japan. I’m in Japan. I don’t know Japanese. I can’t read a thing or understand anything. I need to be guided out of the tunnel and told what to do so I can get back to my level of playing field where there’s English around.

If you think about that and envision what that could look like for someone like me, we need to be shown the way. We can’t figure this out on our own. That’s why accountants, CPAs, EAs, profit-first professionals, their CFO services, there are all of these things out there for people like us, your clients, who have no clue what they need and they need to be told what to do.

 

Another good one is, “I don’t know how to say no to people.”

Saying No To People

This is up there with, “I hate sales.” It’s from the students and everyone who Denise and I have worked with. You say, “I don’t know how to say no to people,” because they’re your friend or neighbor. Think about how much you resent doing that work when you know you didn’t get paid. I want to share a little bit more from the book. Jen was talking about how she would give her friends maybe a discount because she didn’t want to say no to them. She didn’t want to not help her friends out. Not only was she devaluing her work but she gave her friends an easy excuse to devalue their efforts.

Think about when you haven’t said no to someone and you’ve brought them on as a client. You gave them a pretty cheaper rate and you devalued their efforts. They didn’t get you their documents in time. They came to you on April 14th on an April 15th deadline, saying they’re leaving town tomorrow and that they need their stuff in the next two hours. They don’t respect you either.

How many people needed a rush job? “I’m so sorry I’ve been gone. I’ve been so busy. Here’s my paperwork.” At the end of the day, they’re not that invested. When we take everybody on and we feel like we can’t say no to some people because we feel bad, they need our help or they’re in financial hardship due to a pandemic or whatever it is at that time, they’re not that invested in fixing the problem and getting you the documentation that you need to do your work in a timely fashion. Then you end up justifying your prices and now we are lowering the frequency.

Not only are we doing ourselves and our clients a disservice by lowering our frequency because we can’t say no. When we can’t say no, that is a form of going below sea level. With the energy of that exchange, you’re going to drown. It’s like putting a boat anchor on the boat and it drops down to the sea, so the boat doesn’t move around. We’re stuck. It paralyzes us and them at the same time.

It’s rewarding bad behavior, so they keep thinking they can do it again and again if we allow it.

It’s a vicious cycle that is hard to get out of. A lot of you probably have a roster on your client list of people that you couldn’t say no to because you felt bad. It was the daughters, the kids of your best friends, your neighbors, co-workers or whoever it is. That list of 1 to 2 has grown to 20 to 30. That is going to hinder our flow of abundance because the energy of that exchange was muddled and toxic.

When we resent the work and then we feel like we’re the commodity, that’s when the energy isn’t clean. Your homework is to come up with new ways, maybe your own beliefs or some of the ones that we’re talking about. Denise, how would you shift that belief into a new statement in order to get to an energy that is clean and pure? We’re back to that Tesla energy, the solar and the renewable. It is not toxic.

Learn how to say NO and feel good about it. Click To Tweet

You’re talking about feeling good about saying no. No is not a dirty word. It’s in my best interest and the interest of my clients to say no at times when it doesn’t serve them or me. That’s what came to mind. It might not be a no forever. Sometimes it’s a no for now.

Thinking that you’re going to give your clients an easy excuse to devalue their efforts. If they don’t work with you because you said no and you’re going to stick to your guns, they’ll find somewhere else to go or they’ll pay you the fees that you should and deserve to charge because you are worthy. You are valued as a tax or accounting professional in the field.

In order to work for somebody, we have to charge for it unless you are part of the nonprofit community. If you’re in the nonprofit business and your goal is not to double, triple fees or get 6 or 7 figures in your firm, then that’s okay. There’s a beautiful thing, Denise, that Jen talked about in this book. It’s a great book and I love it because it reinforces everything that we talk about here and what we teach in our Eight-Week Sales Mastery Training.

There will be a point where you will want to maybe take on a client that you’re not going to charge for or maybe you want to take on a church, synagogue or some other place and not charge for it but coming from a place where your energy is clean. It’s not muddled from a belief where you can’t say no to a client.

There’s a different choice and a different place where you make that decision to give your time or make that contribution to someone else from a place of contribution, not from a place of, “I can’t say no. I need every single person I can get. I’m lucky to even get a client. Michelle, the competition’s high. I have to lower my fees in order to get a client. I’m just starting out. I’m lucky to even get someone to knock on my door. I can’t say no to anybody.”

Those are some beliefs right there. There are some other terms also when you’re talking about energy like anabolic or catabolic. Anabolic energizes you and lifts you up. Catabolic drags you down. Even in that way, it’s all the point of view that you have. You could go, “I don’t know what’s going to happen,” or, “I don’t know what’s going to happen.” It’s the same thing but it’s a different point of view.

It’s like, “I could say no to somebody and release them.” It could be the best thing because maybe they’re going to find somebody who will say yes to them that could serve them coming from a place of contribution. If I’m feeling like, “I don’t want to do this work. They’re coming to me at the last minute. I’m so frustrated,” it’s on a cellular level. When you’re in catabolic energy, that’s when you get sick and burnout.

What is the fourth belief that might be holding someone back? Your homework is to take this belief and shift it to something a little bit more empowering that would create that flow of abundance that I know you’re looking for and that is also possible for you.

 

Pushy Or Greedy

Another one we were looking at is, “I don’t want to be pushy or seem greedy.”

Sometimes when we feel bad for a client or it’s a financial hardship, if we said no because that client wasn’t a good fit for us, then we won’t even have that feeling of greed or pushiness. The pushiness typically stems from inside of you because of desperation. When we’re desperate, that’s where the pushiness comes from and explodes from that, to be honest or you can take one of the other ones. I would practice what we’re talking about and think about how you could reframe it and rephrase it in order for you to shift the frequency of the thought into something different. What’s the last one?

Rejections

“I don’t want to be rejected.”

Who wants to get rejected? I don’t think any of us want to get rejected. What if you look at the rejection as if you dodged a bullet? You saved yourself from a PITA client. If you don’t know what PITA means, that means Pain In The Ass client. What if you saved yourself a million emails, headaches or phone calls that you never got paid for? What if you saved yourself so much time on the paperwork side of someone who didn’t value and appreciate you, to begin with? That’s possibly what a rejection could turn into. What do you think, Denise?

Rejection could be an injection of time that you put back into your bank because you don’t have to work with someone who doesn’t value what you do.

Every single rejection that you get, what if you saw that as, “I saved myself and got an injection of time.” We all want our time back and that’s the one thing we never can get back. I wish we could go back in time, go in the time capsule and get our time back. Once it’s gone, it’s gone. How can we reinvent and reinvest that time from seeing it as a rejection from that client?

It created so much more space than openness for the perfect client to come. I love how you said the injection of time. Your homework is to think about all of those sales beliefs that are holding you back from getting to where you want to go, that 6 or 7-figure firm. They’re going to be negative ones, by the way. Is there anything else, Denise, that you want to add? You always have so many amazing gems.

You begin to shift these beliefs and start to feel more confident. It’s about having conversations with people so that they know that you’re there and they don’t have to do it on their own. In fact, they shouldn’t do it on their own. That’s why they need you so much. It’s about helping people understand that what you do, they can’t afford to not have you work with them. When you start to shift those beliefs, all of a sudden, a higher quality vibration of people will start to pop up on your phone and your calendar when you are out and about with people. It’s going to be a whole new experience, so you’re going to have a lot more fun and your top-line revenues will start to grow.

 

Your bottom line net incomes will increase through better margins. Thank you so much, Denise, for being here with us on the show. It is always a pleasure and honor to have you here. For those of you reading, if you’re frustrated and stressed trying to get a grip over who you were working with and who you’re not, busting through some of these sales beliefs that we talked about, you don’t believe that you can get clients to pay you those higher monthly fees and increasing monthly recurring revenue and you think it’s all based on what a client can afford, it’s not your fault. There’s no one training on these.

Denise and I would love to explore what that could look like working together and what possibilities could exist if you’re willing to get to the truth and to the bottom of what’s holding you back. I invite each of you, if you’ve had a firm for at least two years, to head on over to TheAbundantCall.com to book a call with myself or Denise.

It is completely free. We do this because this is our clean energy, where we love to help you see something that you don’t see. We’re going to be a mirror for you. Head on over to TheAbundantCall.com if you would like to explore and discover what it could possibly look like on the other side of what’s holding you back with these beliefs. Thank you all so much for reading and we’ll see you in the next episode.

Important Links:

• TheAbundantCall.com
• Denise Mandeau
• You Are a Badass at Making Money
• https://TheAbundantAccountant.com/accountant-masterclass/

About Denise Mandeau

Denise Mandeau is, Business Growth Strategist and has proven success as a Business Owner, Financial Planner and award-winning Sales professional for over 35 years. She has learned what it takes to produce results and has been working with professionals and sales teams over the last few years helping them to generate millions of dollars in new business. She has personally closed over $1.8 million in new business in the last 12 months. Denise is passionate about teaching others to learn how to sell without being salesy!