You know that feeling right before it rains. You walk outside, you smell the air, and you're like, oh, yeah. It's coming. That is how I want you to feel about your revenue right now. It's December 1st and you've got revenue with your name on it, and this time of year my brain is like, it's about to rain.

Cash money. Rain, rain, rain. We're gonna make it rain. On today's podcast, I'm gonna share how to make December your biggest revenue month of the year. Not because you're hustling harder, not because you'll launch some giant complicated thing, but because you go back to where you last found gold. Oh yeah.

And you go there. On purpose today, I'm gonna walk you through a simple strategy to bring in high ticket revenue before year end. By reconnecting with people you already know. I know, I know. You hear me say this all the time. Well, maybe you'll take me up on it. I don't just say this 'cause I think it's true.

I'm just reporting the news, friends reporting the facts. This is only the thing I've seen over and over and over again come true. But there's a lot of people who just don't believe it's true. Just like there's people that believe the earth is flat. I don't know. I can't convince 'em otherwise. As many facts as I show 'em.

So no mass emails are in your future. No shouting into the void. Oh, no. Repeat after me. Scalpel, not shovel. We're going to write one reconnection message to one person. I'm gonna show you how that can turn into multiple four figure clients. Let's dig in. So welcome back Selling Your Expertise podcast. I'm Renee Hribar.

If you're a consultant, a coach, a service provider, especially selling high ticket this time of year, can feel a little cruddy, right? You're, you're looking at your calendar like, it's December, am I behind? Or. Do I need to do a big holiday promo or do I need a new offer? A new funnel, a new personality? No.

One of my clients said that to me. I was like, stop it. You're making me laugh all while also wanting to actually enjoy your holidays, whatever that means for you. I have one client who just loves baking. Another one who loves ice skating. God bless her heart, and so whatever you love to do, wouldn't it be great if that was the priority where you got to enjoy that?

I had a client for years, loved wrapping presents. Loved it, like would volunteer. She loved it so much to wrap presents for other people. at her church and her community events, I, I wished I'd lived closer to her. I'm a, here's a gift in a gift bag kind of girl. Like when gift bags became a thing, my whole life changed.

It was a good thing. Okay, so the point is I want you to enjoy your holidays, but here's the truth. I want you to sit in, you do not need to work harder right now. You don't even need new leads. You have money waiting for you in relationships you've already built. All right. Today's episode is about where to look, where, what to say, where, where to look, what to say when you reconnect, and how to do it in a way that feels kind, classy, and non cringey.

And of course, how to turn that reconnection into referrals. VIP days calls, all angered in revenue. You collect now and deliver next year. So we're going to scalpel, not shovel this precision over panic this. But before we go tactical, let's anchor this in this, the easiest people to sell to are the ones who already know you, already like you and have already paid you.

So instead of making one more piece of content on multiple platforms, about more content pillars for more strangers, we're going to go back back to the scene of the crime in a good way. Where did you last find gold? So we're gonna look at your former clients, people who had calls with you, but maybe didn't move forward all the way, or maybe they only bought your no-brainer offer.

Again, you've been hanging out with me for a while. I hope you're working in this system. So even people that have just been event buddies or podcast guests or workshop attendees, there's gold in them. NAR Hills. So those relationships are not. Dead. They just need nurturing and often a direct invitation to something special where they feel like they're getting the velvet rope pulled back and they're getting invited into VIP section.

So I don't know a single human that I work with who ends client relationships in a dumpster fire. And I know you're you're that, you're not that way either. So if I ran into one of my past. Clients or your past clients and said your name, I'm willing to bet they'd say, oh my gosh, she's amazing.

How do you know her? So we're going to start there. 'cause I know you, if you're listening to this, you have authenticity, you have a moral compass. You want to do the right thing, but you also want to make money. And that's okay. It's not like you're stealing money from people. You're giving them a service or your advice.

You're giving them something in exchange often. They value much more than you've actually charged for. So let's break down the logistics. I'm gonna give you a simple framework. Use it as a jumping off point. This is not a rigid script. This is also why when I first came online, although my coach was like, you should just sell scripts.

I never wanted. I never did. I never wanted to, because a script is just. An outline. It has to be contextual, right? It has to have context. So here is a jumping off point. Step one, build what I call your love list. For those of you who read my book, you know what I'm talking about. If you didn't read the book, uh, what are you waiting for?

Go to ask me coach.com. It's all there. All right. Step one, we're creating three small lists. This is not mass marketing. This is handpicked and intentional. So on list A will be your former paying clients, people you've already worked with, again, in some way, shape or form, whether it was in a group, program, corporate projects, strategy sessions, retainers, VIP days working lunches, have you delivered?

Anything like that to these people. Let's go back in time. There is no statute of limitations on relationships. I had somebody go back to, to a person she met and had worked with seven years ago and a totally different project. Reconnected new client, so. These people, they've already trusted you with money.

They are your lowest friction people. So even if it was a one-off project two years ago, oh just saying the word one-off project kills me. But even if that's what it was, 'cause we didn't know each other, then those people count. So here's list B. People who got close, like these are people who booked a discovery call, asked for a proposal, said not right now, or maybe next quarter, ghosted after promising a convo.

Again, it's just doesn't mean that they hate you, they just got busy and. I felt bad and just didn't wanna come back because they hate confrontation. I hate confrontation too. So these people were interested enough at some point to talk to you in a deeper way. Life happened. That's it. So here is list C, your warm connections and collaborators.

So think about the people that you had coffee chats with or people you met at a conference or even local events. Your podcast guests. About 50% of my clients have or have started interviewing people as a part of their content plan, but that content plan all puts them in close proximity to great potential clients.

So it's a whole nother thing. If you wanna work on that with me again, go to ask me coach.com. There's a form on there way down at the bottom where you can apply to work with me and I will. Once I see that form, I will walk you through if working with me in any capacity is your next best step or not. But that is one of my favorite ways to ha to create content, which the internet requires us to have apparently.

And even if it's not the internet, it's somewhere we have to have creating that content and then also that client opportunity. But a lot of people who are listening to this have been on summits. Right. What about the other people that were in summits or the summit leaders, or even you've been on podcasts, you've been interviewed.

What about those people or people who attended your workshops or masterclasses? I know a lot of you listening, you host those every once in a while and you've really enjoyed it. Maybe eight or 10 or 12 people came to it. Great. Talk to those people. Or people who filled out assessment forms or audit forms or quizzes, you know, they've gotten onto your email list.

Look into the people who are already paying attention to you. That's what this is about. December is not about working harder, it's about scalpel, not shovel. So you've talked to them, you've vibed with them, you had good energy with them, but you didn't necessarily circle back with intention. Hey, I've been there.

Like I say in my book, there is no statute of limitations on relationships. So I want you to hear this. You are not writing all of them at once. This is not, let me blast a bunch of people with a rate increase email. This is scalpel, not shovel. One person, one message. One next step. And so for this episode today, we're gonna pick one name and build one message.

Right on. That's the big action step. Now that's all in step number one, making our three lists. Step number two is choosing that one human and that one moment in common. So you're gonna look at your love list and pick just one person. When you think of them, think about like, how do we know each other? How did we meet?

What did we actually do together? What did we laugh about? What was that moment that stuck out? And so it doesn't necessarily have to be about business. I've. Talked about this on stages. I shared this with my clients, students in my permission to sell program, and I'm like, it's like the red shoe moment, right?

Like I remember meeting someone at Funnel Hacking Live in 2019 and she had the coolest red shoes on. Like, cool, cool, cool. Like I was like, oh my gosh, I've been watching you walk around in those red shoes and I just had to meet you. And we've been friends ever since, all because of the red shoes. So because of your reconnection message, it just needs to be from the heart, right?

Just make it real. It's not a pitch we're not aiming for. Oh my goodness, I need to buy this because we're not there yet. It will be there in a couple minutes, but we're not there yet. What you want is. Oh, that's right. I do know her. I remember. Oh, I love her. That's right. That's what you're looking for initially, you're just rekindling.

You do not have to make an offer just because you've reconnected, but if you don't reconnect, well, who you gonna make offers to? You know, the same seven people that never watch or read your posts or comment. You know those people? No. All right. Step three, use the five part reconnect strategy that I have for you today.

So here's the skeleton that you can adapt. There's two versions. One for former clients where you may mention rates going up and one for warm contacts where you're just reconnecting and opening a door. So we'll start with the former client version. So I like to give examples, but I don't want to call out my clients since they are using this strategy right now.

So for this example, we'll call her Sasha. Sasha is a tech and automations pro who sells VIP days for. Usually about two grand each. I say usually because, hey, prices may vary depending on how much of a pita you are. If you know what that means, I love you. She's gotten faster, better, more strategic over the years, which means she can deliver even more value in less time.

The important thing to remember here is that just because she can do it in less time doesn't mean she should charge less. Speed is a feature, not a discount. So last year. Heading into the end of the year, we made her lowest passed VIP day clients, people who'd inquired but didn't book a couple of strong copy chats.

We crafted a short time bound offer. You know, I'm always saying every offer needs to be time bound and specific. So this is what we said. Here's your script. Again, jumping off point, not a rigid format. Hey, grab A-V-I-T-P day for next year at this year's rates. If you book before December 19th. You have three months in the new year to use it, so all of January.

All of February. All of March. Do you want the link to grab one before I announce it publicly? That's it. That's the whole thing. Rewind. It's that easy. It's 1, 2, 3 sentences. Same service, same offer, new front door. She reached out personally to like a handful of people, not hundreds, like seven, five, I don't know.

Not a lot less than she thought she was going to as per usual. Every, you know, life got busy and a few of them said, oh my gosh, yes, I've been meaning to reach out. Hmm. The result. Cash injection before year end, several VIP days booked into Q1. No big launch, no ads, no webinars. Not even one post, not even a sales call, not even a discovery call.

Just reconnection with intention, and I want you to have that. This is what this is all about. So here's the structure we used. You can swipe this, Why you're reaching out now has gotta be the biggest part of what you're thinking about. Give your brain a real reason, right? I was reviewing my client projects from this year, and your name came up.

That's true. Right? So these are all swipeable copy. I was just going through my files from last year and I thought of you similar, but not the same. Right, or a photo from our project popped up in my camera roll and made me smile. I thought of you, right? These are all things that are very likely to happen if you are looking through your former client list with intention.

And we're trying, we're we're trying to tie it to a moment, right? It's the end of the year. It's a new quarter. I just wanna say too, I mean, if you haven't figured this out yet, it doesn't have to be December for you to do this. It could be a month. I mean, every month about the 28th and 29th, I start doing this.

I'm like, oh, okay. I, it's just my, it's in me, it's in, it's in me. After decades in this industry, I'm like, it's just in me. We need to hit our monthly revenue goals. So this is December. This is great for now, but I just wanna give you that permission to slip in case you needed it. It doesn't just have to be for December.

So you can take this and use it in January, February, March, any month you like. But it also could be your business anniversary. Another one, I wrote down national chocolate chip cookie Day. If you want, seriously pick a reason. So when I draft out what I'm gonna share with you, it's usually like 10,000 words, and then I cultivate it down to what I try to make 20 minutes of talking.

Yeah. How am I doing on that? Okay. So the next part is I want you to have a positive memory, and then I want you to remember how you felt, right? So you're thinking of a person, you're starting the conversation with them. I was thinking of you at the end of the year, and now we wanna have that positive memory.

So we wanna remind them who you are. I mean, they know. For real, like the emotion around it and why this relationship was so good. Something like when I saw your name, a big smile came across my face, or I immediately thought of that launch we pulled off in three weeks. Oh my goodness. Or, I remember that project we worked on, especially about the blah, blah, blah, whatever, right?

That font that that guy wanted. Oh no, we could not have that. Something like that. So like you're just tying it to a moment. No one is mad that you're happy to see their name in their inbox. Do you know what I'm saying? Like or their name in your inbox. No one is gonna be like, oh my gosh. Why is she like happy that she saw my name?

No. So get that mean girl. Valley girl, talk at your head. All right. Next we're gonna share the context, right? Help them remember how great it was. So think of it like this, like you're giving their brain a folder to put you in. So you're saying something like, you know, we work together on your CRM and automation, uh, build last spring, and I just wanted more of it.

Or, we partnered on that advisor training program you rolled out last winter and it, it has helped me create so many more programs just like that. What a great inspiration. Or, you know, we met at the X, Y, Z conference. We were both searching high and low for oat milk. So this is for you reaching out a little further in your scope of network.

But either way. You've put all of these pieces together and whether it's work related or not, it's okay to bring in every, you know, something human, right? It doesn't have to be just like, hello, my rates are going up, and I wanted to know if you would like to know more information. No. So you've personalized it, you've humanized it.

I was think so. You can say something like, I was thinking about how we bonded over both having toddlers and giant dogs, right? It's like, it could be as simple as that. So you're simply saying, here's how we know each other. Here's the moment I was doing this. Your name popped up. Smile came across my face.

It reminded me of, and I re, and I remembered this. So you're just building on a natural given conversation. Then you're gonna give like a positive update about you and what's coming. So you kind of shifting a little bit toward why you're so excited or why you're reaching out. So you can say something like you're, again, like you're softly transitioning into business.

So some examples might be, business has been booming and I'm really excited about what I'm rolling out for next year. Why wouldn't you be excited? Or another sentence you could share. Be like, I've refined my VIP days even more and I'm raising my rates on December 20th. Okay. A little more direct. Right? Or another sentence could be, I've got a couple of new ways to support clients next year that I'm really excited about.

Right? So you can decide based on who it is, how you're going to approach this, and you're signaling I'm in demand. I'm evolving. I'm not stuck, and, and this is just as much of a message to yourself as it is to anyone else, and I think that it's just so important for us to remember as many negative things as we could possibly point out about our business or our booty, our body in the mirror.

You know, there's just as many really amazing and awesome things, so. Okay, there's your that minute. The last thing we're gonna do is make it a time bound invitation with a simple question, you know, I was just editing a client's messaging today and it. One of the things she said was like, you know, read it over and get back to me when you can.

I was like, breaks. It's not that they can't read it over or get back to you when they can, it's just that if you say that there is absolutely no reason for them to do anything and we are all human and we've got 75 things happening right now. Right now this instant. And so why should I prioritize? This is the question I want you to help them answer and so.

That's where we land the plane, right? Like we need two options. So, hey, for close or former clients or for this Sasha, in my story here, I'm gonna give you some more examples because it needs to be time bound. So I'll be raising my VIP day rate on December 20th. Before I do, I wanted to give a few past clients the chance to grab a VIP day at my current rate.

You'd have all the way through March to use it. Want me to hold a spot for you? Or would you rather gift the spot to someone in your network, right? So you're even giving them a chance to give it away. So especially in this case with my quote unquote client, Sasha, who I will not say her real name. Don't worry.

I got you. She's not just talking to somebody who is, you know, is just a solopreneur. This person she's talking to is an agency owner, so she also has clients that have clients. So in this case, it's very contextually sound. It makes sense. It rings true. It locks in, I mean like it works.

And so. You can use a lot of different variables and, and varieties of this, but you want to, you wanna be able to make it clear time bound and specific. So if you do want to set up a time to talk, I'm always a always gonna tell you, offer them two times. So you could say something like this if you wanna chat it through, I've got a couple 20 minute spots open next week, Tuesday at 2:00 PM Eastern, or Thursday at 11:00 AM Do either of those work for you?

Or do you want one? So, I mean, it's just always give the two times. I always say day, date, and time. So it's like Tuesday, December 2nd at 2:00 PM or Thursday, December 4th at 11:00 AM Eastern. I mean, that wouldn't be next week. It'd be this week, but whatever. You know what I'm talking about? Day date time and time zone.

I had somebody that I was talking to and she's like, well, I know what time zone they're in and they know what time zone I'm in. I'm like, I get it. Just make it a practice. It's a muscle. It's a muscle. Build it up. So here's another option for like, you know, warm cookies, as I call it. But with your context, even if it's corporate or just even if it's people that aren't that close to you, sometimes a direct rate's going up does not fit the context.

So that's where story number two comes in. So in this case, this next story, we'll call her Laura. It's my sister's name, and there's lots of Lauras out there. So Laura is a corporate marketing and messaging consultant. Not her real name. She was brought into a financial advisory firm a while back and working with their leadership team, helped them position and launch two new offers, trained the advisors, co-created a beautiful client facing brochure.

They had follow up calls scheduled and then calendars, shuffled a catch catch-up, got rescheduled and rescheduled, and then just fizzled out. Months went by. Now here's what could have happened. Laura could have told herself this story. They must not have liked it. If they wanted me, they'd reach out. It's been too long.

It would be weird to email them Now. Instead, we applied this same method and here's what we did. So the whole, are you still using this email? Catch up. Its favorite. So number one, why am I reach, why I'm reaching out right now? I was preparing for a workshop for another client and stumbled on your file, right?

No drama, just I was doing work and there you were. Second part positive memory and feeling. So here you might say, it reminded me how much I loved working with your team, especially how committed you all were to making the messaging truly client friendly. Oh, okay. Number three. We're doing a little context in case your inbox is like mine.

We worked together last year on the repositioning of your whatever the offer was, and rolled out that new brochure and advisory talking points. Oh, you're anchoring their memory. You'll often hear me say, take pictures. Right? And one place you can use them again is in an email like this. Oh, you could take a picture or grab the picture from your camera roll that you saved from that particular client and upload it.

Oh yeah. Picture's worth a thousand words. They're gonna be like, oh my gosh. That's right. So maybe it was a picture you took of the brochure, or maybe it was a picture you took of the you teaching or the selfie from stage or whatever it was. This is another perfect place to use that picture. So you also wanna give a simple positive update in this case with Laura's scenario, you could say something like, it's been a year or, or, it's been a big year over here.

it's been a year and it's been a big year. I've run similar programs for a few other firms and have been seeing some really interesting results and trends pop up. So. What she's saying here in this example is, Hey, I've been doing this similar work for similar companies and I've been seeing some interesting things happening.

So she's making him curious, right? Like, oh, well what, what trends. Finally we wanna ask an easy question. This is not a pitch, this is not a proposal, it's just a like this. So I'd say something like, I'm so curious. Are you still using that brochure and position we created? Hit reply and let me know. I genuinely love to hear it.

So all of that comes like, so in this case, all of that comes once you can, once you send the email of, are you still using this email? So if you're ever wondering if the shuffling and reshuffling and scheduling and rescheduling has happened and they're not even in that business anymore, or they're not even at that company anymore, you can send them a one-liner, which is, are you still using this email and just your own footer?

And again, maybe a picture of. The event you were at or something that you had from when you worked together. That's it. Keep it super simple. So it's short, it's specific, it's human, it's easy to answer. Like could that eventually lead to, we should book a time to get, updated. Or we need a new brochure, or we need, we have a new initiative, or we're planning an internal conference.

Are you available to speak? Absolutely. That's what this is. This leads to that, but we're not proposing it on the first. Text back. We're just opening the door, right? So like tiny tweaks, big differences. The question at the end is a big. If you take nothing away from this, I want you to remember the last sentence of every correspondence needs to be a question.

So one of my clients, a bookkeeper, had someone on her, I know there's money in here, list or love list. She had emailed them four times over, many, many months. Friendly, helpful, zero response. On the fifth try, she changed one thing. She changed the last sentence of her email to a different, very easy to answer question.

He responded within two hours. Sometimes it's not that you, that they don't like you, it's that the question you're asking is either too big or too vague, or just too ignorable, right? So instead of, feel free to reach out, oh, oh, please, if you wanna kill me. Tell me you can. I should feel free to do something 'cause I will not Feel free.

They never feel free. That is so corporate. Speak for like, don't ever call me back. Do not feel free. So try instead, are you still using X or did you ever implement Y? Right. Or would a quick 20 minute chat be helpful for you heading into Q1? Right. Okay, so let's connect this to your actual sales process.

Remember, my philosophy, short specific, free initial call leads to a paid discovery session, which I call my no-brainer offer. Then if a fit move on to a simple phase one or retainer offer. Your connected message doesn't have to sell the big thing. It just needs to reestablish a relationship, reorient them to who you are and invite them to the next step.

That makes sense, right? So you're connecting with them over this message. So it's a connected message. Gotta love it, right? So you might use something like this. Inside or after a reconnection thread, right? So, okay, here's a little script. Okay. Hey Bob, you mentioned back when we worked together, that specific goal or problem if it's still on your radar.

I've opened up a few short problem solving calls, 20 minutes for very specific result related to the problem. He said he had. I've got this day, date, and time, or this day, date and time. Would either of those work for you or would you prefer to give one of these special calls to a colleague? Hmm. So here's some names I've used.

Uh, a 20 minute like funnel check, uh, a 20 minute ga four data checkup, a 20 minute. Offer positioning, tune up. I mean, this is just, you know, type it into your favorite AI and have a conversation, you know, like have fun with it. But more importantly, like look at the person you're talking to and make it relevant to them.

That's it. Make it relevant to them. So specific time bound, outcome focused, and, and then you can just simply walk right into whatever offer is available. So we've talked about how to make December your best month yet by looking at three different segments of your. Network, what some scripts might be. Two very specific examples from Sasha and Laura and I have a little challenge for you.

I mean, it's December 1st, let's make things happen. So let's turn this into a little action step. Make your list, write down at least five names, right? Maybe two former clients, two warm contacts, and then almost, and stick them on a post-it note. And I literally have names on my wall of post-it notes.

They're all over the place. My family always laughs me like, why do you put people's names on your wall like that? It's an old sales thing. I swear. We used to have a wall, a wall of, of our leads, a leads wall. Anyways, stick it there. I do have a digital home for them as well, but it's this, it's, it's kind of a mental.

I don't know, trigger for me in the best way possible where I'm like, I really wanna talk to this person. And I write, hand, write their name on a sticker and I a sticky note and I put it on the wall next to my desk until I do something about it. And I want you to do the same. It it does, it makes it a mental note.

Bigger than that. And, and just pick one of them. The one that feels least intimidating or the most fun, or the one you've been meaning to email forever and just draft your message. We've just gone over it. You can re-listen to this podcast. It's free. You're welcome. Have a blast and send it. Yes, actually send it.

Emails greater. We're honestly, we ever, you last connected with them. Right back to the beginning of the podcast. Where did you dig for gold? Last And find it. And then let me know. It's a big perspective shift. That's what's happening today. I don't think I taught you anything specific to do. I mean, I don't think anything I shared today was like, oh my goodness, I've never heard of that.

No, it's more, it's more of your perspective of what's possible in December and what you need to do to hit your revenue goals and how it can and absolutely should and will be your best revenue month yet. No big announcement, no pressure. Just thoughtful human outreach. Right on. All right. You got your marching orders.

Time to make things happen. Ring a ding, ding. Go to ask me coach.com for all the freshest, awesomest, coolest stuff that I've got for you this week. Go there, check it out. Peruse. Peruse. That's a word I like to use in sentences as often as I possibly can. Have an amazing December. Fresh month, December 1st on a Monday.

I mean, like seriously. Does it get any better than that? I don't think so. I don't think so. I love it. All right. I'll talk to you soon. See you next week. I.