Why your American style sales tactics doesn't land well in Europe and what to do instead.

And it's not about you.

It's all about how you were taught how to sell.

Most European coaches really don't want to sound too American.

I think there's a cringe about being too American if you are selling coaching in Europe.

So in this episode, we're going into the big differences on the European market versus the American market and why your American strategies don't work in Europe.

Yeah, and what to do instead.

Yeah, and what to do instead is very important because otherwise it doesn't make any sense.

Do you remember the Disney movie Aladdin?

You must have seen that with your kids or maybe even when you were a kid.

You remember Princess Jasmine?

Yeah.

Well, yeah.

So the main character, you remember the movie?

Remember her?

Cool.

So Princess Jasmine, she gets tired of living like, kind of the princess life, so she escapes from the palace to join the street and experience what the outside world is.

And she walks down a road covered with a scarf, hiding herself, and she stumbles into a marketplace.

She gets her first kind of interaction with the outside world.

One of the people that she meets, she forces a fish into her face and yells, fresh fish.

That is a good example of how you shouldn't sell to people.

So if you're ever doing anything close to pushing stuff up people's faces and yelling what it is, then that's the first indicator that we are doing the wrong thing.

To start opening up that comfortable sales process that we are comfortable with.

But that also they get a lot of value out of that ultimately makes them buy as well.

Yeah, we had one US Business coach, but that was way, way, way fine.

So our business.

And for some months when I'm on events, I always have a lot of energy, and I don't know how many times I've been told it's just so American.

Yeah.

The way you do it.

And I think that comes with just being energetic because a lot of people can't distract the energy from hype.

Yeah.

And I think in Europe, there's this thing about European buyers.

They don't like the hype.

They don't like this overrated, hard closing from hard pitching from stage kind of thing.

I think it's the emotion of feeling I'm being too sold to.

On being pitched.

People you like to buy, but they don't want to be sold to.

It's even more than that.

We help coaches in Europe.

I'm also following the bigger brands.

And when I'm looking at the Bigger brands like Tony Robbins or Russell Branson or, you know, all of those.

The biggest problem is that I experienced that they get by because it's a cultural thing.

Yeah.

When Tony Robbins pitches in Europe, it kind of works for him because they understand he's American.

That's how they do over there.

But when I pitch and if I were to have the same kind of approach, I. I will be shot down immediately by the politically correctness kind of people.

It's not by words.

They would just feel that this is off.

I think there's something with this overly hyped thing, selling strategy or approach that I think a lot of Europeans see it as fake or inauthentic.

And the funny thing is, once you start traveling a lot, we are often in US we have a lot of friends, a lot of coaches in us as well.

We meet up with a lot of coaches.

We've been there so many times.

Americans are just more out there.

They're just more direct and more straight on.

The way they communicate.

You're the best friend first time you meet them and straight up into your face.

I think there's a charm to that.

It's also exhausting.

It is a little bit exhausting because they really aren't.

Yeah.

It's really nice to meet people, but it's also really nice to go away from people.

No, but I mean that with all sincerity, though, because we come from a different place.

Yeah, we do.

We just a little bit more not polite, but more held back.

My personality is that I recuperate with space and alone.

Yeah.

I am an introvert by nature, so I need my space in order to kind of get my head together.

And some people relaxes in the company of others.

And I would say that that is a massive cultural thing.

Yeah.

And the cultural part of sales is a very, very big influence.

Yeah.

Because we need to represent the culture we're from and we need to respect the culture that we are currently pitching to.

Yeah.

Like the culture of the people whom we pitch to.

And that is why we are very, very, very good at speaking to Scandinavian people, because we know them inside out.

Netherlands for a reason.

When we're looking at our, like, the response that we get from our content and stuff, it always booms in Netherlands, Scandinavia and places that.

Where the culture is very similar to where we are from.

Yeah.

And if we want to approach another country, we need to tweak ourselves a little bit.

The Italians and the Greeks and the.

The fre Very, very, very different.

And we have a lot of clients from all of those countries as well.

It's interesting when we start to see, okay, so what are the common Anonymous.

That makes sales work and that makes it easy to come across being Scandinavian or being Portuguese or wherever you're from and still be able to land your message in a way that attracts people and say, yeah, I'm ready to buy your stuff.

Yeah, but absolutely.

And if we look at the culture differences, because the fact is a lot of coaches in Europe today have been in coaching schools or been taught by Americans.

And when they bring it home, it just falls flat because absolutely.

The first thing about them being talking to you, you're their best friend first time they meet you.

If you do that to strangers here, they suspect that, oh, you want something from me.

There's some suspicion in between.

Scam me with.

You're trying to scam me.

Right.

So there will be this bias resistance coming up way sooner in Europe than they will in us.

Yeah.

And I think there's another thing I'm noticing because we had American employee at some point and we can see Americans are typically.

They're just not hiding.

Glittery pitching is so much sooner than you can do in European market.

Because Europeans need to trust you way more before you pitch in us.

It's normal.

Like, hey, if you're in my shop, they have a thing about they value entrepreneurs, they celebrate people who make money, they celebrate people who are being successful.

In Europe, we kind of look down to people.

We kind of have this suspicions, oh, there's something weird with you.

You're scamming people or you're stealing from people or it's on benefit of someone else.

It sounds too good to be true.

It's too good to do true.

So we're more hesitant.

We don't trust as easily, which is why Americans are just so fast.

As pitching doesn't work in Europe, it will do the opposite.

We'll have bias resistance coming up way sooner.

So we need to approach the market differently both when we're selling one on one, when we're doing the marketing and when we are doing selling from stage.

Yeah.

We have inherited so much of the sales culture from, I would say America.

Sure.

But I would more say from the people that are always talked about or when we're looking at the.

I remember when I was in my 20s or very early 20s.

I remember when I was 20 because I was really good at talking.

I've always been good at talking and I felt that that made me a good salesperson.

I was also very ethical.

I would never sell them something if I didn't believe it was helpful.

I remember that I had a story and that I also told my friends that, like, I could sell anything to anyone.

I could sell broken eggs to people.

That part of the culture and that first invite into what sales is.

It's out there.

It exists as a fog where we still believe that sales is something.

Where you convince someone to do something, even if they're not 100% sure that that's what they want.

Yeah, I'm really easy to sell to because I know exactly what I want.

So when I come to something, I know what I want.

If they say that this is what it is, that I'm going to buy it.

So it sounds like we're kind of dissing Americans.

We really want to show the differences.

Because on the other hand US people have for them is that they are not afraid of selling.

No.

In the way that Europeans often are.

Because we've been taught that sales is scammy.

And it's about convincing people.

So we have this.

It's a hidden agenda that's going on that I don't understand.

So I need to be on the lookout for, like, I need to take care of myself.

I need to withdraw.

And then, even worse, we have in Scandinavian countries, we call it the Yandel, the law of Django.

We have the thing that you should not believe you're better.

I see how much we work with almost 900.

I think we're turning 900 clients by the end of this year.

So if you look at all of the clients, the number one issue for the coaches, we help.

And they are 99 in Europe.

And we have a little bit in US but 99 in Europe, we have right now we just got the client in Czech Republic, which means now we are 18 different countries.

That is 17 different European countries.

Yeah.

And if there's something that is an accommodator for all of them is the imposter.

Yeah.

People do not like being seen and heard because we all grown up with, you shouldn't be seen and heard and you should not make all the noise.

I think there is a big cultural difference from Americans there.

I think Americans just feel more comfortable taking space and being seen and heard and.

And, yeah, take up space.

Just listen to how it is when they're tourists.

You can always hear them.

Yeah, absolutely.

Absolutely.

And the reason why America pops up is because they have been leading the market.

They are leading the market for so many years.

And I'm not talking about just coaching.

A general rule of thumb when we started in the coaching industry, it was looking at, okay, so what did they do in the US 10 years ago?

Because that was kind of like, it's gonna work in Europe.

It's not the same anymore, unfortunately.

Because it was super, super easy to just look at what worked way, way, way, way before and then do the same thing here.

But they are a big influence.

Yeah.

That's why it's so important when it comes to sales.

Yeah.

We need to teach ourselves to sell in a way that lands in a good way for the prospect.

And most of our coaches help people in Europe.

Yeah.

Most of the people that we talk to are European coaches.

So it's just very natural.

And I think Scandinavia is a very good kind of benchmark because if you can sell in Scandinavia then you can sell in any European country.

Why do you think that is?

Why do you say that?

Because the way that you described Scandinavians before, we are proud of taking that kind of, you know, that political stand for that.

We are the equilibrium of equality.

And we're not the worst case in the world history of displaying that we're not communists in any way, but we are in many ways socialists.

So we're looking at society and looking for how can we make stuff equal.

Yeah.

Which is a dangerous game.

But I believe that that is what creates Scandinavia as kind of the people taking that for making sales hard or something that you shouldn't be involved with.

Because that's the bad guys.

Yeah.

So what's different?

How can we adapt to the European market if we're going to look some different things?

That works in us.

You can't bring those strategies home to Europe because they don't work here.

I would say the first one is focusing on permission based selling.

Meaning that you should ask for permission way more here before just sending.

Instead of just sending to people randomly out of the blue like cold dming or just sending to them.

You want to jump on a call with me kind of thing.

Ask for permission first.

Hey, you know what?

I got this thing.

I believe it would be valuable for you.

Let me know if you want me to send it to you.

So have those more permission based questions into the conversations.

Will help you to create that connection and build trust.

You need to build trust a little bit slower in the European market.

We can't just rush forward.

Or at least more thoughtful.

Yeah.

Because I don't really want to buy into slower because we can have them buy fast.

But we need to do it with a lot more consideration.

Yeah.

And we need to be very Careful with making sure that we have established that trust factor before we take the next step.

And that goes very much hand in hand with transparency.

Because in order for people to feel comfortable, we need to be transparent.

Yeah.

So when I'm speaking on stage, I usually open up and start by saying that here's my intention, here's why I've created this event, and then I go through it and then I tell them there is going to be an offer for us to work together.

I would give you the offer now if I thought that that was the only thing.

What I'm really investing in here is for us to get to know each other.

I want you to get to know me and ultimately I want to get to know you so that I know that we're a good fit.

And if we like each other, then we can high five and we can have a conversation about if it would be cool to do something further.

Which means it's result first marketing.

We showing them more results in advanced marketing.

Results in advanced marketing.

So we show a case a little bit more before we do the pitching so we know people are comfortable with what will happen.

So we use an invit language instead of using directives like what to do or direct.

Yeah.

Direction language we do on stage.

We do more results in advanced marketing.

Yeah.

Works better here.

And then there's another thing, and that's about building resonance rather than fake urgency.

I want to emphasize the fake urgency because urgency is really, really important.

Very, very helpful.

Absolutely.

But when we are making it sound like, yeah, there now is the only moment, then we're starting to sound like 1970s car salesman.

The mustache and.

And big belly that, ah, this car will take you from blah blah, blah to blah blah blah, and it's only blah, blah blah, but if you don't buy, you know, and that gets no one going.

Yeah.

So it's really important that we are acknowledging the.

The principles that allows us to build that no like and trust factor.

One thing that is super important is, is to embed everything that is going to come during the sales process in the marketing.

Yeah.

Because the moment we realize that we can start to sell by teach and we can start to give value and we can give results in our marketing.

And when we can elaborate with like, what kind of cool stuff could I create for the people who might be interested, then our marketing does the heavy lifting.

And then when we meet people at calls or on events, they're already psyched about being there because they're excited about what we're going to get always get good stuff when we're meeting these people.

Yeah.

So that is a very, very big part of making sales easy and also not just for you, but for them.

Yeah.

It's results in advanced marketing.

Yeah.

Building in the embed, all the sales parts in the marketing.

Let your marketing do the heavy lifting.

Yeah.

So if we're speaking to the challenges they're standing with and we take out the fake urgency because fake urgency also speak into fear based pain like oh, fear of losing out and all of this.

So instead of pressing on that coming with confidence in what you're coming with instead.

Yeah.

So you come in with a clear confidence in what you do.

So people don't want to lose out.

So instead of pushing people to you with fear to make a decision now, rather come in with confidence so they feel like, oh, I want to get that thing now, I need this thing now.

So it's more attracting instead of pushing them to from a place of fear, rather come from a place of confidence.

Yeah, that works better as well.

100%.

When we do testimonials, I also believe proof content is a big part of selling is showing proof what others doing.

I think there's a nuance here to not stand out as a brag of due to all the things we just been talking about.

We don't want to stand up being a bragger when the way we show our testimonials and telling the stories and I think this is actually interesting because it's typical for all the startup coaches when they're just starting to do content.

We tell them you need to do proof content.

You need to help people to understand that what you do actually works.

This is actually the hardest part of content for a lot of people because they feel like.

But I don't want to brag but how we can do it in a style that doesn't come out as braggy is keeping it a low, low key story where you are giving a point, a lesson, a training to the one who's listening.

But using your client testimonial or result, that's an example of that.

Instead of just saying look at this person got this, this one got this, this one got this.

Instead we can tell about, hey, let me share your story about this person who came to me having this problem and what I did was I did this and this and this and now this person is just gotten this amazing result and I'm so proud of them.

For you, this is what you can do.

You always need to do this, this and this.

Now it's the same thing.

I'm building trust, but I build it in a way where it's easier for me to be in and it's easier for our audience to receive it and not look at you as someone who's just bragging.

It's just the way we give it away.

Coming from more storytelling, more value delivery than from a piece of see how good I am.

I just did this, this and this.

Yeah, I think that's a hard part for a lot of people.

And something that is very, very easy to do when you're creating proof, content, testimonials and case studies and stuff like that is to highlight, embed into your story acknowledgment for the person who did that.

Because people and this, us, Australia, Europe, doesn't matter because ultimately what people love is to see people who are displaying their hero journey, how they overcame something, because it's inspirational.

So if we highlight that and say, hey, I just want to send some, some acknowledgment to this person.

And if it's a person who is in your program of some sort, you could use their initials or whatever.

You don't need to make it completely public.

Yeah.

But then you can highlight this person and then you could tell the story about how this person managed to do this.

And that makes you look good as a coach and it makes that person look good.

That person is going to love to read about themselves, the way that you acknowledge them and speak about them.

But also the people who read it is going to feel like this is really, really cool.

Yeah.

So that's an easy approach of how should I angle this in order to tell this story?

So to wrap it up in Europe, we want to focus on connection rather than conversion.

Conversion happens through the connection, always connection first, always.

Don't push too fast, connect first.

Then instead of hype, look more into honesty, be honest.

And then the third thing was understand the ideal client.

They prefer confidence and calm.

If you can come in with confidence, you don't need to be as loud.

If you're just coming in really confident with what you do and you can explain it very clearly.

So I hope you like this episode.

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Yes, guys, it's been a pleasure.

Take care of yourselves and talk soon.

See you next week.