fbpx

I am finding my way back into the rhythms of home after two blissfully spiritual days at a sales seminar.

Yes, you heard me right – a sales seminar. A blissfully spiritual sales seminar.

Oh, isn't this a complex statement on so many levels?

First of all, we soulful types often have a harder time than others with sales and marketing. Sales, marketing and other business-y type concepts feel so sterile and heartless… I know that's not true for every soulful business owner of course, but enough of us struggle with this that there's a good chance that you do, too. So spiritual sales might seem like an oxymoron… impossible, really.

Not if you hang out with Mark Silver of Heart of Business, though. His whole premise is that business transactions can promote spiritual healing and growth. Which is all fine and good in theory, but can a person really back this kind of radical statement up with experience and facts?

Yes. He can. He showed us how in this workshop – and I am positive that it's true, after what I experienced. (And really, it affirms all of my business exchanges in my business… though I didn't have nearly as much language and as many tools before to maximize this part.)

I'm going to share the highlights of my takeaways in hopes that you'll get even a nugget of what I got from this experience. Then, I'm going to encourage you to check out his The Sacred Moment Home-Study program (which is $100 off just until March 29th!! Hurry. I am not an affiliate nor is there any other way in which I get compensated for my passionate endorsement of this program) or sign up for his next offering of this beautiful gift of a seminar, whenever that may be.

Here are my top 5 gifts from The Sacred Moment seminar:

1. Remembrance is available anytime. I would never have called this heart-connection process Remembrance. I would have said something like “checking-in with myself” and maybe that's easier to understand for some as I explain this part, since Remembrance is a Sufi tradition – unless you are a Sufi. The point is, anytime we are uncertain, feeling lost or unclear how to answer a question or even indecisive about resolving an issue, our connection with the Divine (however we experience it individually) is available. We can access that connection then ask our heart to act as a conduit for communication. Mark's guidance around this process was… well, divine. We practiced this often and I learned how to listen better over the course of the two days. For me, this alone was worth the price, time and energy expended for this seminar.

2. Compassionate Questioning is the way. I already loved listening before I got to this seminar. I truly believe that committed listening is the most powerful interactive sales tool we have. Yet, sometimes my excitement and intense curiosity cause me to take potential clients in directions they weren't intending for our discussion. This happened while I was doing a practice exercise with another participant who helps women find clean and organic cosmetics. I was so excited about her business because it's a personal mission of mine – removing toxicity from our products in my home all around –  that I started to ask her questions that were more about my own interests than her needs. While my enthusiasm is genuine and non-manipulative (I had no sales agenda with it), it can be overwhelming at times and take things off track. The focus on Compassionate Questioning in this seminar reminded me that I need to stay open to listening for their needs – removing my own curiosity in service of determining if I can really help them.

3. Your potential clients want to say “yes”. I have been on the other side of a zillion situations where this was so true for me. Yet, somehow I hadn't realized how absolutely true this is. As soon as Mark said it, I had flashes of the immense relief I had when I found my designer (heart, soul & talent abounds!), our two amazing caregivers for our three daughters (oh my, the relief and gratitude!), my website developer…  I could go on with such a list! The point is – I wanted to say “yes” every time I met someone for each of these needs. I just needed to find the right person to say “yes” to!

4. It really is about Contribution, even during the sale. The gifts matter – on every level. The talents and skill matter. Whether you really can meet and resolve the need matters. Your greatest gift is making it abundantly clear when you can meet that need – and letting them know when you cannot meet the need. The kind of gifts that often come in wrapping paper and fancy bows matter, too. The samples of your Contribution that come in the form of “free gifts” with newsletter subscriptions, the tips you give on your blog, and the referrals you hand over when you can't meet a person's need are part of what make the business exchange a soulful exchange. You are two human beings – one with a need, the other with help for that need. While I live this approach in my business every day, the practical reminders and examples throughout the seminar were powerful reinforcers of that approach. Giving generously feeds your heart and soul and makes a real difference for another human being – and, frankly, spreads goodwill all around. Give big on behalf of all of that.

5. It's all about genuine, human, soulful connection. All of it. Once we establish the baseline that our potential client has a need that we truly can meet and resolve, the sale is about making an honest connection with your potential client during the exchange. Mark lead us through this shocking (and slightly uncomfortable but way worth it) totally silent exercise where we connected with our own need (yes, our needs, not the clients need), then our own gifts, then the other person, then literally bowed in service (it's way more dramatic and powerful than that remotely describes… you just have to be there doing it) to feel how the sales cycle works even without words. It's totally real. You feel the shifts in curiosity, then offer, then agreement, then service. It's gorgeous.

So, if you have a desire for spiritual connection in your sales experiences – especially as you experience sales yourself – you'll probably find The Sacred Moment a beautiful gift to your business. I really did.

Regardless, I hope these concepts that I learned in the seminar will spark something in you that gives you a greater connection to your own soulful approach to sales. Will you let me know? I'd love to hear about it.

Much gratitude to Just Chaos for the lovely Sacred Lotus image.