Episode #174. There is so much opportunity for selling in Instagram DMs, but at the same time, we’ve all had those really sleazy, spammy sales attempts in our own inboxes. How do we utilize DMs as a sales tool without coming off the wrong way? Victoria Boyd is the queen of this fascinating tactic and she’s here to share her secrets! Listen now to learn how to get your audience to actually welcome you in their DMs and the keys to pivoting a conversation into a sale.
In This Episode You’ll Learn:
- The secret to selling in Instagram DMs without being sleazy
- Tips to getting welcomed into your audience’s DMs
- How to get out of the friendzone and into sales on IG
- The secret hack to finding ideal customers to DM
- Why voice memos can increase your engagement productivity
- How to go for the sale in a natural way all in your DMs!
Favorite Quotes
“There’s not the pressure of a sales call in your DMs. There’s not the professionalism, so to speak. It’s welcoming, warm, and casual.”
“I actually believe it’s okay to give away your best stuff on Instagram Stories because it’s only there for 24 hours. Give it away, help people, make a difference in their lives and they’ll come back to you again and again.”
“Don’t be afraid to pivot and pitch. That’s where a lot of people drop off. They build amazing rapport, great friendships with their people, but they never actually bring it to business.”
More About Victoria:
Ready to make money in your DMs and make your sales go boom? Victoria Boyd is the marketing strategist and DM selling expert you need if you’re a service-based entrepreneur ready to explode your business.
With a Masters in Internet Marketing and over 7 years of digital marketing experience as a social media strategist and manager, she has helped clients at every stage of business scale their online presence. Victoria is also a successful coach and course creator who has multiple online education opportunities under her belt, including the Sell In Your DMs Playbook, Make It Marketable, Services That Sell, and personalized coaching.
Her specialty? Helping you craft strategic messaging that speaks directly to your dream clients so you can scale your business and close sales from the comfort of your DMs, without the sleazy tactics. She’ll guide you on how to tie all of your marketing together so you can generate leads, get your brand seen, make sales, and have fun working on your business instead of in it.
Find Victoria:
Show Transcript:
Jaclyn Mellone
Welcome to Go-To Gal Episode number 174. As always, I’m your guest. I’m your host. Brain, brain, turn on. As always, I’m your host. Do you think I would know this one by now? Jacqueline Mellone. And today we are talking about How to Sell in Your DMS Without Being Spammy. Now, if what I say selling and DMs, you immediately get PTSD from, I don’t know, rondos from high school sending you messages about MLMs that they’re in or just really slimy messages, spammy messages that we’re getting on IG all the time. When I say someone DM you think spam, you think sleazy, you think “Oh, that’s not for me.” This episode is for you.
Jaclyn Mellone
I’m obsessed with your focus on selling in the DMs because one, I think that there’s so much opportunity for selling in the DMs. But at the same time, we’ve all had those really sleazy spammy on the receiving end of them where people are trying to sell us on the DM. And it can feel this contradiction of “Okay. Well, we hear that there’s opportunity, but I want to show up as that person.” And yes, I think a lot of times, it holds us back maybe from really utilizing DMs as a sales tool. What is your philosophy with this with the whole selling in the DMs thing? Now do I think everybody needs to be selling in their DMs? No. However, if you are spending time on social media, if you’re growing your social media, if you’re building engagement on social media, one of the best places to actually convert that follower into a student or client is in your DMs. How do we make that happen? How do we approach that sell in a natural way? How do you find ideal clients and customers even be DMing with? How do you not be spammy but also not get stuck in the friend zone, where making an offer or selling a DM just feels totally out of line with the conversation? There’s a lot of things to navigate here.
And that is why I’m so excited to have our guest today, Victoria Boyd breaks this all down. There is a goldmine in your DMs, and you just have to know how to approach it. It needs to be in a way that feels good for you that feels good for them. But you have a plan. And you know you can tap into this because if you’re not, if you’re never bringing up this opportunity to make a sale in your DMs, you’re leaving money on the table. How do we do this in a way that isn’t spammy, and that can really be bringing in some amazing results for you? Well, I’m so excited to dive into this conversation with Victoria. Before I do, let me formally introduce to you to Victoria Boyd, and then we’ll dive in.
Ready to make money in your DMs and make your sales go boom. Victoria Boyd, the Marketing Strategist and DM Selling Expert you need if you’re a service-based entrepreneur, ready to explode your business. With a Master’s in Internet Marketing and over seven years of digital marketing experience as a Social Media Strategist and Manager, she has helped clients at every stage of business scale their online presence.
Victoria is also a successful coach and course creator who has multiple online education opportunities under her belt, including The Selling Your DMs Playbook, Make it Marketable – Services that sell and personalized coaching. Her specialty, helping you craft a strategic messaging that speaks directly to your dream client, so you can scale your business and close sales from the comfort of your DMs without this sleazy sales tack bags. She’ll guide you on how to tie all of your marketing together, so you can generate leads, get your brand seen, make sales and have fun working on your business instead of in it. Alright, let’s get to it. Here’s my conversation with Victoria.
Jaclyn Mellone
Victoria. I’m so excited to have you here.
Victoria Boyd
I’m so excited to be here too.
Jaclyn Mellone
Yes. Okay. We have a lot to dive into. Before we do. Let’s go back in time to when you were growing up. What were you the Go-To Gal for back then?
Victoria Boyd
I went kind of all in on the arts. I was raised as a ballet dancer. I started dancing early scorings my parents at two, so I was raised on stages and dancing. And I was known as the performer and the artist. And that was what I was known as an all through school all the way up through college.
Jaclyn Mellone
Where are you still performing in any capacity? I have to ask.
Victoria Boyd
I mean, I’m a marketer.
Jaclyn Mellone
Right, which is cool. But maybe you are trying to just dancing on reels or anything, but maybe I’ll just bet on that.
Victoria Boyd
No. I had a few really bad knee injuries which every girl did. But I had to leave dancing because my knees which wasn’t fun.
Jaclyn Mellone
I know how that goes. I have several friends and relatives that had similar experiences.
Alright. Fast forward to today then. We haven’t seen you dancing on reels but tell us what do you do and who do you help?
Victoria Boyd
I help online CEOs grow and scale with actual sales and marketing strategies and I focus really heavily on making things easy to buy and selling in the DMs on Instagram. A lot of it comes down to relationships, especially when you are smaller and nimble. When I say smaller audience, I really consider anything under l5,000 followers to be like a smaller audience. And that’s relative, depending on your engagement rate, of course. But when you’re small like this, you can actually build those relationships. And that’s when you don’t turn into that girl sledding to their DMs like, “Hey, girl, I think you’d be the perfect boss, babe.” No, we’re not about that. That’s not the thing. Or, the newer ones are the PR companies coming at you like “Hey, I can get you featured in Yahoo Finance, or whatever.” No, this is all about relationship building. We’re not selling people, something that is not amazing, something that we don’t believe in.
One of my big things with my audience, with my customers is relationship first. One of the great ways to do that and slide into somebody who’s DM without feeling unwelcome, is responding to somebody’s Instagram story. Responding saying “Hey. Oh my God. You look great today. Giving them a compliment, complimenting them on their coffee mug, I don’t know, complimenting them and asking them a question and just opening up the conversation that way. I like to build this really friend-base relationship before I go in with any sort of pitch or talk business with them. I really want to be somebody as friend before we try to pitch.
Compliment and question especially if you have a female audience. They will respond to a compliment. Women loves to be complimented. Asking a question ensures that they will respond because again, if you compliment somebody, they’re going to respond. And if there’s a question, they’re definitely going to respond. And they’ll just keep that conversation open. And this sounds a little scientific and weird, but I tracked the conversation. I try to remember what we talked about, remember why I was interested in them as possible lead. And also remember important things maybe they said “Oh, I’m trying to quit my job right now.” Okay, jot that down. I can talk to them about later and just build up this rapport with them. That’s a really great way to star, so that’s my philosophy, friendship first. Yes. And as you’re saying this, I could totally people reach out to me and “Oh, I love your lashes. And they’re like” Where did you get them? “And then I’m like “Oh, here’s the little guy I’m so excited to share all my little magnetic lash tips or whatnot.” And yes. I think a lot of people want to be able to connect in that way and share in that way, so it does. It starts a conversation in a very simple, genuine way and opens it up.
Now, you said you want to keep this going, you are building friendships with this. But how do we make sure that we don’t end up in the friend zone here? And maybe to people it’s okay to be in the friend zone. Because we’re just going to end up being friends with them through all of this. But is this the strategy that we’re doing in terms of “Okay, we want to be selling in the DMs.” How do we not get stuck in the friend zone? One of my favorite ways to not get stuck in the friend zone is actually to talk about business. We sometimes put off doing that, or we shy away from actually talking about business and talking about where we are or what’s next. And actually talking about business and also drawing that line of what you won’t talk about and what you will talk about. And it’s a soft spot for I think each conversation that we have. But we always need to remember our goal.
Our goal is to make money, be a business, sell, have transformations with our audience. Something else I’d really love to do is continue to just ask questions that move the conversation a little bit closer to business, like “Oh, what are you working on today? What are your goals? How is your launch going? How is your website rebrands going and just naturally moving the conversation? And I like to think about it like you’re not going from coffee shop date friends. You’re going to business bestie level, and you’re trying to just move it up to where you can give them a couple quick wins. And of course, you’re not giving away your trade secrets, but you want to give them some quick wins here in there that show. You’re an expert. And all of a sudden, they’re asking you questions that you can then pivot and pitch the conversation to “Hey! This is a really great question. I actually cover it instead of x, y and z. Would you be interested in hearing more about it?” It’s a little bit, it was a long winded answer, but you build the friendship closer to business and then you can pivot and pitch from there.
Jaclyn Mellone
I love this pivot and pitch. I almost feel like we have to back it up for a second though, because I can see where this is all progressing. How are you determining who to initiate these conversations with? And I guess the second part of that is which I can ask you separately, but it’s just where my head’s at is, how much of this is proactive you going out and seeking them versus you showing up on your own stories and attracting those people to DM you and initiate conversation?
Victoria Boyd
Where should I start? There was a lot there.
Jaclyn Mellone
Let’s start with the “How you’re attracting?” and then and then we’ll go to the other one. Who you’re picking? How are you picking, who you’re going to go after?
Victoria Boyd
Of course, there’s that strategy of commenting on people and hashtags and stuff like that. And that is still a really great place to start when it comes to DMing people, but a little bit of a secret agent hack that I like to do that actually leads me to the best conversions from tracking where people are coming from. Where I’m DMing them from that kind of thing is actually finding competitors or complimentary brands, seeing who is commenting and actively engaging with those people, watching their stories and DMing them from there. It’s a little bit like you’re finding high engagers, which of course you want in your audience. Because engagement does help the algorithm not that I’m in any way an algorithm hacker. But I do know that relationships are really important when it comes to the algorithm. You want to be DMing people. You want them to be commenting on your stuff. They’re commenting on somebody else’s stuff. They’re going to comment on your stuff. Those are your high engages that you really want in your space.
And then when I’m there, I will watch their stories, DM them. I even give them a follow. I tracked them in a spreadsheet. Super weird, but I do it. That’s how you find those people to engage with. That’s what the best way. As far as getting people to DM you Instagram stories all day, every day. And you want to do high level high quality training, so you don’t just want to be like “This is my coffee, this is my day in the life.” You want to do some sort of high quality training. It’s only up there for 24 hours. I actually believe it’s okay to give away your best stuff on Instagram stories because it’s only there for 24 hours. They’re going to DM you if they have a quick win, you can help them. And ultimately, they’re paying you for access to you. Give it away. Help people actually have a difference or make a difference in their lives. They’ll come back to you again and again. You really want to use the call to action slide into my DMs.
Jaclyn Mellone
Okay. This is where I become a little bit whiny. Feel free to tell me I am being a crybaby about this. But stories, just feel so hard. Where I complain about stories is it feels like for me to remember to do something that many times a day, every day. That’s just how my brain works. I constantly forget, I’ve there’s been so many times where I post I’m like “I’m going to show my day. And then I drop off my day, because I’m way too busy to keep getting it. I even take that to another level and be like “Now I need to remember to put some stories which I’m already horrible about.” And then it needs to be really high value. Is there a hack for this? Do you match it? I am working with my team on repurposing more of our content, a video content that we’re doing right now for the podcast because we’re going to repurpose. I’m trying to get better at that. But yes, I’m sure that I’m not the only person that’s, I don’t want to do that you’ve come across. Is there a suggestion you have for people like me or do we just need to “suck-it-up-buttercup” and make it happen?
Victoria Boyd
Okay, it’s a little bit of “suck-it-up-buttercup” make it happen. But if you’re struggling with what to say, how to say it, how to keep it concise, because we want to keep it dashes number dots. If you’re looking at that top, the top of your screen where it’s dashes. You never want it there to be dots. You’ve gone way overboard. If you’re ever seeing dots up there. But sticky notes are great. If you are struggling with remembering what to say, how to keep it concise, I actually used to sit in front of a window, so you’re well lit. And I would actually line my window with sticky notes. I’d be like “Okay, 15 seconds to say this, say this, say this, say this.” And that will keep it concise. It doesn’t help you remember it, but it’s really a great way to patch it as well. You can schedule it using some of it later, which I love. You still have to manually post it, but that takes 10 seconds flat. Something else I’ll do if I’m really not in the mood to be on stories, as I’ll just take a really good selfie. And I’ll put text over the selfie, and my audience actually responds really well to that.
And I like that because that’s something that a team member could help me with too. We’ve done that in the past, or we take something that I’ve written for email or even a short training that I’ve done in a program, had it transcribed and then a team member will take that text and then lay it over graphics and the contents are already there. But they’re able to repurpose it and yes, we’re able to deliver this higher quality good way.
Victoria Boyd
A really good way to batch it, too.
Jaclyn Mellone
Yes. With something like that, then are you at the end of it giving a call-to-action if they have questions to DM you? What are they DMing about?
Victoria Boyd
I will use the call-to-action and its simplest sense. Find my DMs for more info. Find my DMs if, find in my DM something. Another thing that I love to do that actually helps me to DM them is it softly allows them to opt in to me messaging them, but I’ll use the Pulse feature. The Pulse feature is a sticker, which when you click on it, the default is “Yes” and “No”. But you can change those, so you’d have “Yes” in blue. “Yes” in red. You could do “Did you like this?” That’s one of my favorite questions is “Did you like this training?” You can say “Loved it!” and then the other option is more like this. Either way, I’m DMing both of those people because you can look at the poll results. There’s a little paper airplane next to it, which opens up a DM, so you can DM them and say “Oh my God.” I’m so glad you loved this training. What was your biggest takeaway? Or what was the game changer for you?” Obviously do it in your own brand voice and make it exciting. Even send a voice note if you want to. But I also message the people who send more like this and say “Okay, tell me what you’re struggling with, so I can create a training just for you.” These people have softly opted in. And my audience definitely knows this at this point that if they answer a poll, they’re going to get a DM from me. But they’re opting in to talking to you, so you can then DM them say “What are you struggling with? I want to create a training just for you.”
Jaclyn Mellone
I love that. And the polls feature is just so, I love how you’re using it in this way. And I think a lot of people get hung up on like “I don’t have this swipe up. But I have this swipe up.” And I love to put, use the poll feature to get people to say that they want to opt into something because I’d much rather DM them the link. Then use the swipe up. And we’ll test both and we get way better results with the polls, then the swipe ups for sure. And then you can follow up, too.
Victoria Boyd
Yes, you can follow up. “Hey, did you love that training? Hey, did you like that opt in? Did you like that e-book? How is this going for you? ” It’s amazing. To answer the poll feature is so underrated. Yes.
Jaclyn Mellone
Yes. I love how you’re using that. Giving them play around with different types of call-to -actions and poll, but then you can also just directly say, “Slide into my DMs for x.”
Victoria Boyd
Yes. And you’ll have people that do that too. I find more often I have a better result when I do the polls. And I initiate the conversation just because I’m already in a position of guiding it that way.
Jaclyn Mellone
Now, do you have a certain system where and I guess this goes from one extreme to the other. It’s like “How do we get people to DM us? And then now I have 20 people that are DMing me and that feels like a lot to manage.” How do you manage that? Because sometimes I think we either don’t do things or we’re not open to receiving certain things because it’s like “That’s going to feel so overwhelming when I have all of the DMs. In theory, we want them but then an actuality, maybe we don’t want them, so how do you manage that?
Victoria Boyd
Batch your times. I like to do maybe 15 minutes in the morning, 15 minutes in the afternoon or the evening just responding getting down to inbox zero and your DMs by the end of the day. Just close in the morning when I wake up to a whole lot more. Yes, it can be a little bit overwhelming, but don’t forget, you can use things like voice memos to really speed up your responding process. And people love to hear from you from your voice.
Jaclyn Mellone
I was going to say it’s probably no surprise, but I love using voice memos. And I’ve gotten a really good response from people to where they just they’re like “Oh, it’s so fun to hear your voice.” It’s probably because it’s a podcast, or they’re used to listening to me.
Victoria Boyd
It’s welcome.
Jaclyn Mellone
Yes, exactly. And then is it so much easier for me to talk than to think about crafting the perfect message.
Victoria Boyd
Yes, it’s the same thing with video. You can send people videos and DMs, too. People can really see your intention when they hear your voice, when they see you on camera, and you’re less likely to ever come across as spammy or unwelcomed. It’s just naturally a little bit more warm when you’re using your voice or video.
Jaclyn Mellone
I feel like we’re talking about dating here, which is off of the dating scene for a very long time. My husband and like December of 2005, we’re going away back now. But it feels like that of other different signs are cues that maybe someone isn’t really interested in continuing conversation versus maybe they stop answering. But maybe they were just busy that day or maybe there’s different. I don’t know. How do you feel out the signs, if you will? Have you noticed anything there or are there any warning signs to look if this is like “Don’t keep badgering them.” Because they’ll think you’re a spammer?
Victoria Boyd
For sure. If they’re just double tapping and giving your heart maybe stop responding or stop knocking at that door. Oftentimes people will say “Not right now.” Or I think, especially if you’ve built up that rapport, that friendship with the person, they’ll have no problem to be like ” Now’s not the right time.” There’s a little bit of that, but I can’t really say there’s any other signs necessarily. Have you noticed anything?
Jaclyn Mellone
It’s interesting. I don’t typically, I don’t sell a lot in the DMs. Well, I shouldn’t say that. I probably do sell a lot in the DMs. But if at a different stage of the process, so it’s typically I’m not much of an emailer. When it gets to a certain point where someone maybe applied for a program, or they’re going through with this recent launch with Selena Sue that I did with impacting millions, we were sending people links to the opt-in through DM. But I also went and it was a little bit interesting, because it’s an affiliate launch. It was not all of the people that opted in or on my right. And we went through that list and tried to find as many of those people as possible on Instagram, and then I would send them a DM on Instagram and ask how it was going.
And then if I didn’t hear back, I think I checked in at some point again. But for a lot of people, they would say “Oh, I haven’t gone through yet or I did.” But this and that started us to having a conversation back and forth and often led to me leaving voice notes or things like that. For that launch, I really did utilize DMs a lot in past launches. I think it was more of maybe at that point where some people maybe would even email a question. And just because I would much rather not be an email, I would respond with the email. Because that’s just more my comfort zone. And I literally have a team member to manage my inbox for me. And I like that we can use voice notes, and it just feels a little bit more casual and more intimate. And it’s really the benefit.
Victoria Boyd
There’s not the pressure in DMs. It’s so casual. Guys sign a lot of contracts in my DMs for one on one work. And I love that there’s not the pressure of a sales call for my audience, which is the same as email. There’s not like the professionalism, I guess, so to speak, that an email has It’s so much more welcoming, warm, casual. I feel like they can also say “No” easily or easier in the DMs and they can when they’re on a sales call or looking at their email for some reason.
Jaclyn Mellone
Definitely. And sometimes it’s easier to read, too, where maybe they’re not interested in this one thing. But that doesn’t mean that they don’t want to be connected with you or learn from you. You have more of an opportunity to find out why or what they would want support with next and keep that relationship going. Because most of us we’re in this for the long game. We’re building these relationships, because you really care about people. Being able to establish that and then keep it going, I think it’s so much easier to do that over DM than an email.
Victoria Boyd
Yes. That actually comes down to nurturing, which is a little bit of hard. But if you have multiple offers in your business, which a lot of us do, you can talk to the person if they say ” This isn’t a good fit for me.” Why and what is? If for example right now, I’m launching a group coaching program all about launching a service – based business. If somebody says actually ask me this morning say “I can’t afford it, not in my price range this quarter, or whatever. ” I was like “Okay. We can do an extended payment plan.” I was able to nurture her that way. She still said “No” and I said “Okay, I have this course that might actually be a better fit for you, low cost course.” And I was able to nurture her to what made the most sense for her, because clearly she wanted into the program. It just wasn’t there for her now, and I’m still able to get her that transformation just a little bit slower, because she’s not being coached and my hands aren’t on her work with her. But I was still able to serve her in a way that makes total sense for her. In the DMs, you can also pick up on those conversations. And if something’s not right now, again, with the long haul game, like Jaclyn just said, you’re able to navigate the conversation and push them in a way to still get them the results and still hit their goals.
Jaclyn Mellone
Absolutely. And you just never know. I mean, it could be someone refers you to someone else, or there’s so many different things that can happen that I think whenever we find ourselves white-knuckling the situation like “Oh. You got to close the sales. “That’s just not the energy that actually brings in sales. I think people feel that. They can tell if you’re just like “Oh, you’re not interested. Peace out.” And then you might lose someone who was a genuine follower. I think really staying present to that is important and nurturing those relationships and keeping them year after year for those of us here and for the for the long haul. Yes. Well, I love that you have keeping in mind different offers. And also a lot of times I’m not, I don’t have offers for everything. I don’t want to have offers for everything. If someone needs help with something that’s outside of what I do, I would love to refer them. And sometimes I have affiliate relationships with Selina’s situation, but oftentimes I don’t, and it’s just like “Hey, I know this client, or this friend of mine who does that thing.” Keeping that in mind too. Earlier, you mentioned pivoting to the pitch. I love this conversation.
Let’s go back to that because it was, that’s so good. But I wanted to back it up to how are we even getting to that point. But now I think we can all see how do we get to that point, and we’re having a conversation, but at some point, we should be asking for the sale. What does that look like?
Victoria Boyd
Alright. Let’s back up a little bit. Part of my framework has this whole portion called “Nurture and Note”, so we’ve talked a lot about that so far. But there are five different buyers that you’re going to find in your DMs. I’m not going to go through all of them, but three of them are the buyer that needs validation information and the buyer that needs permission. Those are three of the most common ones we see. The person that needs validation, they’re often asking “Should they invest in this or should they invest in that?” They may be asking if you as the expert and whatever it is you do to as the Go-To Gal, whatever it you do, feel they can do the thing. This person, you are really needing to validate their thoughts, validate their ideas, give them encouragement and really empower them. We also have the buyer who needs permission. They’re actually looking for somebody to say “Go all in. Do the thing.” Maybe they don’t have anybody in their corner. Maybe they’ve made a bad investment in the past. Maybe they don’t trust themselves.
This person, you really have to literally give permission to. Again, you’re saying “Do the thing. Give it a shot. What do you have to lose? Maybe you’re leveling with them with a story about a bad investment you made. I know, we’ve all been there. That’s a really great story I’d like to share. “And then we have the buyer who needs information. This person, we actually have to work with them to uncover whatever their core fear is, and making the investment. They’re really easily identified, because they’ll be like “How long are the modules? How many coaching calls are there? How do I access you?” They’re really caught up in odd minute details, and you need to help show them ” Hey! Whatever it is you’re selling has been divinely created to get you results. ” You’ve put it together to get the person transformation. You need to help them to understand everything included, will help them to get results. If they do the work, you also need to uncover their core fear, which is maybe “What if I can’t do it?”
Those are three of the buyers that you’re going to see. And from there, when you’ve nurtured through that process, whatever that is, you’re ready to pitch once you’ve really identified where they’re at, again, by their language. But what they seem to be responding best to, is how you do that. You can begin to pivot into the pitch. One of my favorite ways to do this is actually if they are, I’m “B2B”, “Business to Business”. It’s easy for me.
But they’ll post a story talking about their launch or a new product or a client project or something like that. And I’ll be able to say “Oh, my God. How’s it going?” They can respond. “I’m so excited about this. So aligned.” Whatever they respond normally is high energy. Not always, but normally, it’s really high energy in there and they’re excited about it. “Oh, my God, that’s so great. What is your goal for this launch?” I pivot immediately to a question. Get some information from them. I then ask some more qualifying questions, make sure that I’m fully understanding their struggle, fully understanding whatever is bugging them right now. Whatever they’re not achieving, wherever they want to go, I’m making sure I fully qualified this buyer, fully qualified this lead. Then I’ll say “That’s so great.” Maybe they’ve shared they’re struggling with getting DMs and Instagram stories. I’ll share that game-changing tip about using polls, and then DMing people proactively. They’ll be like “Oh, my God. That is such an amazing tip. Thank you so much.”
This is where I pivot. I’ve given them a quick win. I’ve qualified them or well, I’ve qualified them. Then I’ve given them the quick win. Now I’m saying “Hey, I’m so glad this tip excited you. I talked a lot more about this inside of blank-blank-blank, would you be interested in hearing more about it?” I’m asking permission before I pitch. Yes, it’s already a soft pitch. But I’m asking permission before I tell them all of the features, all of the details, given their product tagline or the coaching tagline or whatever and converting them they then more times than not say “Heck. Yes. I’m super interested.”
Boom. Close. That is how you do it.
Jaclyn Mellone
I love how you broke that down. With the part where you qualified them, what does it look like for them to not be qualified in that phase?
Victoria Boyd
Yes. I Obviously back off, I wouldn’t do a big pivot. I wouldn’t give them some game-changing advice. I still might, but I wouldn’t.
Jaclyn Mellone
What are they like? What are they saying? Are they like “Oh, everything’s great.” Or they’re not giving you anything that they’re struggling with? What does it look like on there? And for them to not be qualified?
Victoria Boyd
I’d say it’s rare I get to this point. Because usually, I’ve already felt these people out. But they could say I’m not struggling with anything. I’ve already well over doubled my goals or whatever. I mean, they could just be coming in with everything’s working perfectly. And then it would just make sense for me to congratulate them, check them off my list, and move on.
Jaclyn Mellone
Simple enough. Then you qualify them, you go through, you asked for permission to give them that more information, they say “Yes.” Does anybody say “No”, at that point? Or they’ll be like “No, not right now.” Let me just get through this launch or something like that.
Victoria Boyd
Yes. I’ve had a couple people who are like “Hey! Not right now, I have so much on my plate.” Great. I asked them when I can follow up. Again, putting the ball back in their court, but still holding a little bit control over the conversation where it’s like “When can I touch-base with you again?”
Jaclyn Mellone
Okay, that makes a lot of sense. Otherwise, they’re like ” Yes. Tell me more.” And then you’re telling them more, but what is that? Are you telling them or write in the DM, are you sending them a link? What does that part look like?
Victoria Boyd
I don’t want to send people a really long sales page. I think we’re better off treating them with the human they are and saying “Hey. This is the name of the thing. This is the promise. This is what’s included.” For example, I have a $27 playbook thing, and I’ll say 20-page template, swipe-copy training “blah, blah, blah, blah, blah”. Give them that and I say “Do you want the link?” That simple. I’m just giving them the skinny, it’s literally the skinny and then sending them directly to a checkout link. I’m oftentimes bypassing the sales page completely. You have a sales page, but you’re skipping that and just going right to “Okay, that’s really interesting.” Because if I’ve nurtured them appropriately, and if I’ve talked to them enough, and if I’ve answered all questions, which oftentimes we go back and forth a few times in DMs, we’ll have questions. I’ll just send them straight to the checkout page. They don’t need to have some endlessly scrolling mobile sales page. They just don’t need it. They have a lot more information or say “Hey, I’ll get to this later.” Then I’ll send them the sales page, the actual sales page. But I create pretty good checkout pages, too, so oftentimes, there’s enough information there. I consider my checkout pages, my mobile sales pages, and then I have with a longer one that is obviously for ads and for emails and all of that. But I really try to go directly to the checkout link.
Jaclyn Mellone
So smart. This is a $27 product, which I love having something that is just so easily scoop up a ball. And it makes me immediately think of my Plug-N-Pitch system for what you can get in my podcast, like “Oh, okay. That’s interesting.” Although that feels like a lot of effort to go through for $27. Although our average cart value for that with warm has been $58.But still, it’s a lot every for $58. I think that’s where it comes into “Are you selling them something else down the road?” But for you, for those someone listening who’s like “Okay. Well, yes.” Of course. You just send them this checkout page for this $27 product. Maybe they do a done-for-you service that’s hundreds or thousands of dollars a month or VIP days or coaching that’s five figures or something like that. I know you have many offers yourself. Is this the same process, even if it is a higher price point?
Victoria Boyd
Exact same process. I have social media management services, which start averaging about $1,000 a month going up to 2,000 plus dollars a month. And I’ve signed these contracts in my DMs with less than I think I maybe have 1,200 followers. I signed a $30,000 contract in my DMs. Same process, same exact thing. But instead of sending a checkout link, you’re sending a contract and an invoice. Same process. Just believe in yourself and understand that it’s totally possible. Just nurture your people. Listen to their pain points. Circle back to their struggles and how exactly your product or service addresses those things. And it all comes down to the transformation.
Jaclyn Mellone
So good. All right. This has been amazing. Thank you so much for opening up the DMs for us and how and how to do this. Anything else you want to add to that before we wrap up?
Victoria Boyd
Don’t be afraid to actually do that pivot and pitch part. That’s where a lot of people drop off. They build amazing rapport great friendships with their people, but they never actually bring it to business. They never actually belly up to the table.
Jaclyn
Yes, belly up to the table. Okay, Victoria, how can we stay in touch with you?
Victoria Boyd
You can find me on Instagram @victoriahboyd and at my website, victoriahboyd.com.
Jaclyn Mellone
Go DM her. All right. Thank you so much for this.
Victoria Boyd
Thank you.
Jaclyn Mellone
Can I just say thank you so much for listening? I don’t think I can say it enough. But I love that you are here. If you enjoyed today’s episode, or if you’ve been getting value from this podcast, do me a quick favor, head on over to iTunes and leave a rating and review. When you leave a rating and review if basically tells iTunes that they need to spread the word and tell more people about this podcast and I am on a mission to get the word out. I’m so grateful for your support. We want to make sure to shout you out too. If you do leave a rating review Keep your eyes and ears open. We will be either shouting out the podcast or an Instagram stories.
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