Ditch the Desperation and Recognise Your Worth

Janine: [00:00:00] Today, I want to talk about becoming a hot commodity versus being desperate. I've been having so many conversations over these last couple of weeks with so many clients that as a result of current market conditions, the challenges that they are witnessing from an economic perspective, they are starting to be really desperate in [00:01:00] how they are negotiating and how they are proposing to work with their clients.

And we don't want to go there, right? So today I want to talk about how to become a hot commodity versus being desperate. Now, as an example, a couple of weeks ago, I was having this conversation with a client of mine. She'd shared that she'd organized this fabulous free event around 60 people who turned up and they'd loved.

The event, they're taking loads from the event. The challenge though, was the next day when for this client, desperation started kicking in. The question she asked me was how on earth do I turn these attendees, that time that I invested into sales? How do I get a return on my time? Now, my response, first up, it was, what do you think you should do? And then, I Moved on to don't [00:02:00] beg for sales. I said to this client that I wanted her to shift from chasing and hustling hard for sales to actually be in service. And I asked her to think about what that would mean. I asked her to think about how do you become a valuable resource? How do you become a hot commodity?

And the magic happened when she shifted the conversation. With those clients from buy, buy, buy, and a desperation to one of how can I help you? You see what happens when we have that type of conversation is service opens doors, connections actually deepen, and more information was actually shared. And for this particular client, that shift from being one of desperation of how can I convert this into sales actually resulted in a diary full of client and. work now being committed to for the [00:03:00] rest of the year. She actually ended up making way more sales than she thought by shifting her focus from one of desperation into being one of service. And instead of being desperate, what happened in this Grand business symphony is that the service levels that she offered changed the nature of the conversation and actually did result in sales.

Because desperation is actually the wrong conversation. You are not desperate. You are a hot commodity and deep down, you know this. So the question that I want to ask you to reflect on this week is why do you keep groveling for work? Why are you having that frantic scramble for deals, for sales, and for achieving that bottom line?

Now, I appreciate that some of you might be going, yeah, but Janine, it's tough right now. I know it is. I know it's tough right now, and I equally know that [00:04:00] the ongoing negative media that is going on, talking about cost of living crisis, talking about the fact that money is tight, talking about the fact that businesses are struggling locally and globally.

I totally appreciate that the ongoing negative media is having a significant impact on public and business confidence. We're seeing it. We're seeing budgets being cut. We're seeing decision making taking longer than usual. And maybe some of your clients don't have the money that it seemed that they once had.

And while negative media coverage can indeed impact confidence, it's crucial not to panic and implement knee jerk reactions. Because there is still money out there. There are still budgets that need to be spent. There are still people that require personal development and training, [00:05:00] and the cost of inaction, the cost of your clients not doing anything will ultimately lead to a negative spiral for them.

And they know this, so there's still money to be spent. The question or the challenge for you isn't one about going into desperation mode, but it is more about having a measured approach rather than reacting impulsively,you know, carefully analyzing what you think could be the root causes of the challenges that they're facing right now.

Understanding those underlying issues allows you to have a more effective response. It's important now more than ever, that you talk to their problems, that you show that you have an understanding of the challenge that they are now facing, and it's important now that you think about how can you help them right now, it may be that a longer term transformational style program is not [00:06:00] what they're buying, but actually what they're wanting.

Is a need for an immediate solution that will solve their short term problem. For example, one of my clients recently, one of my, retained loyal clients that I've been working with for going on 10 years now, this client works in big business and it's a global organization. And despite running a long term and annual league leadership program with them for the last nine years, this particular year, their budgets have been cut and cut from way up.

And instead of walking away, what I entered into was a conversation that was in service. How can I help you right now? What is the challenge you're currently facing? How much budget do you actually have this year to signal to your leaders, a continued commitment to their development? How can I help you?

And instead of walking away, what [00:07:00] What we did is we worked collaboratively on providing a solution that will meet a significantly, smaller budget this year. The message here is it's important for us to work in strategic partnership with our clients. It's important that we are in service, working in partnership with your clients to provide solutions that are going to help them through the tough times.

The second thing I want you to think about is it's so important to avoid short term fixes. What I'm seeing is a lot of hasty price reduction happening. And whilst that may provide temporary relief, it doesn't necessarily address the fundamental issues. Desperation doesn't work and it only leads to a race to the bottom.

It's like competing in a who can charge less Olympics. It's essential to focus on long term stability and sustainable solutions. This reminds me of years ago, those of you that listened to this podcast for [00:08:00] a while know that my corporate background was 20 odd years working in retail businesses. I worked in marketing for.

Big retail brands in the UK throughout Europe and here in Australia. And what that has meant for you can work out my age is I've actually lived through and worked through two GFCs already. And what I saw in retail over that period is significant slashing of price points. What we saw was a race to the bottom.

And yes, whilst it created a short time hit as we captured a share of the consumer's purse, the resulting impact of discount after discount meant that it was a race to the bottom and it became harder and harder for those brands to recover. So we've got to be really careful that we don't keep discounting and end up doing business based [00:09:00] on price.

It's actually about understanding how awesome the outcome of working with you is, how amazing the solution is that you have. And as opposed to a conversation that is about price and racing to the bottom, this is a conversation about the investment that people are going to make to achieve the outcome that they want.

It's got to be an outcomes based conversation. The other thing too, the final thing I want you to think about, the third thing here is that when we have a conversation that is based on strategic partnership, that is based on working together, when we have a conversation that is open and transparent, that actually builds trust.

It builds trust with our consumers. It builds trust with our clients. And much like my client above that shared. The successful event where she had 60 people turning up, much like [00:10:00] that client shifted her conversation from one of sell, sell, sell to one of adding value and building trust, she was able to shift the conversation and achieve an outcome that worked for both.

You can either choose, you see, to be desperate, Or you can choose to value your work and value your worth. My message today is one of ditching the desperation because desperation leads to undervaluing. And it's like selling a Mona Lisa for pocket change, worried that the frame won't sell. Instead, I want you all this week to think about how can you embrace service?

Because you aren't desperate. You have incredible experience. You have already created significant, awesome outcomes for your clients, and you are not desperate. But you are in fact, a hot [00:11:00] commodity. So this week, think about how can I add value to my clients? How can I build trust with my clients and work in partnership with them?

And how can I make sure that I am taking a more measured approach to my conversations. And rather than reacting impulsively, I am getting curious about the challenges that they've currently got and how I, and what I do can help them find an immediate solution to the problem that they are experiencing now.

Once again, you are not desperate. You are absolutely a hot commodity, and you need to own that. You need to own what it is that you do, the outcome that you can create for your clients, and you need to step into that power and become that hot commodity, because your clients want to work with the person that is the best in their business.

[00:12:00] Love to know what you think, love to know how you go, make sure to let me know and I'll see you next week.