How to Sell Your Services Entirely Virtually - With Kim Orlesky
Jan 03, 2022Tom Bailey, founder of Succeed Through Speaking, interviews Kim Orlesky.
Kim is the President of KO Advantage Group. She’s listed as LinkedIn’s top sales influencers and continuously names as one of the top sales leaders to follow. She’s Startup Canada’s Woman Entrepreneur and Success Magazine’s most inspirational bloggers. She speaks internationally including at North America’s largest entrepreneurial event, Inbound
2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 & 2021.
Resources / Links
https://www.linkedin.com/in/kimorlesky
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Transcript
Tom Bailey 00:07
Hello and welcome to succeed through speaking the place for experts and entrepreneurs who want high value ideas to boost business results. Hello, I'm Tom Bailey. And in today's episode, I'll be getting to know Kim Orlesky, who is an author and the CEO of Keio Advantage Group and is listed as one of the LinkedIn top sales influences and continuously named as one of the top sales leaders to follow. So Kim, hello, and a very warm welcome to today's episode.
Kim Orlesky 00:44
Thank you so much, Tom. I'm excited to be here.
Tom Bailey 00:48
I'm really excited. And I appreciate you being here as well. So just out of interest whereabouts are you in the world right now?
Kim Orlesky 00:54
I'm in Calgary, Canada. And we were just talking that there's no snow here at this time of year. So it's really odd.
Tom Bailey 01:01
I think there's been like a 20 degree flip in terms of use of it minus 10 degrees.
Kim Orlesky 01:08
I'm not complaining. I love the
Tom Bailey 01:10
Exactly. I'm not sure what's happening there. But it's keeping you nice and warm. So that's good news. And I just wanted to just share a little bit more about you before we did get started. So Kim is startup Canada's woman entrepreneur and success magazine's most inspirational blogger, and has been selected to speak at HubSpot inbound every year since 2017. And her third book sell more faster is now available. It was well. Yes, yes. Yeah, no, definitely, definitely get to talk about that in a little bit more detail. And the title for today's episode is how to sell your services entirely virtually. And Kim is going to show us how to do that in just seven minutes. So no pressure at all question of what are your ideal clients?
Kim Orlesky 01:54
Yes, so I love working with clients, specifically in more traditional type of industries where face to face was part of their normal selling capacity. Today, we're seeing more companies, especially in those consulting, roles, engineering, marketing, even industrial and manufacturing, move themselves to connecting with their clients entirely virtual. I am an expert in the b2b selling space and those that are trying to sell premium services at a premium price.
Tom Bailey 02:28
Alright, I guess this this global scale is shifted virtual was happening anyway. But I think the pandemic just sped that up. So it's really created a lot of opportunities for you to work in this space.
Kim Orlesky 02:38
It really has. And we've been working on it since 2017. We've been showing companies how to connect with their prospects online, how to navigate their meetings, online, deliver proposals and ultimately close and service their clients online in that capacity. It was one of those things that I think a lot of companies dreamed of, especially back in like the early 2000s, the thought of as digital nomad taking over, but how could you actually do that in a reasonable space, and especially if you're servicing business clients, digital transformation in 2020 and beyond has accelerated that. But we're still seeing a lot of companies that aren't capitalizing and maximizing the opportunities that are out there.
Tom Bailey 03:20
Absolutely awesome. And when you think of your ideal clients, what would you say is typically the one biggest challenge that they typically face?
Kim Orlesky 03:28
I think they're struggling with how do I navigate these high value transactions, and still allow us to connect on virtual means video communications, in condensed periods of time, oftentimes, we see that there should be a translation between the size of the value of the deal should equal to the amount of time that we're spending with the clients and the medium in which we're spending that in this case, face to face. And what the market is shifting and where the trends have already shown us is that now we're seeing companies that are willing to buy more entirely without meeting a client without meeting a salesperson, whether that's remotely or self service, where 50,000 100,000, even $500,000 in transaction sizes are not uncommon for somebody to now go ahead and invest without ever meeting someone face to face,
Tom Bailey 04:22
and sometimes in the comfort of their own home and wearing the lounge clothes as well, I'm sure. Yeah.
Kim Orlesky 04:27
Or at least from the bottom below, right. We all know how we're all living the news anchor lifestyle, right? It's all sweat sweat pants below.
Tom Bailey 04:38
Yeah, absolutely. So I guess if someone's listening to this, and they're thinking about how, how can they make this transition from face to face sales to virtual? What's that one piece of valuable advice that you might give them to really help them move forward and solve this problem?
Kim Orlesky 04:53
Yeah, you have to start with where your client is comfortable and where it makes sense. So one of the things I think As your first interactions with your clients should be virtual, we shouldn't see that our first meetings are in person, it's oftentimes a lot of commitment for somebody to agree to drive, or commute 45 minutes an hour to a location, we end up spending as much time at that location as we did on the commute, it doesn't make sense for us to spend 20 minutes in a boardroom, if we spent 45 minutes to getting to that boardroom. Whereas if you're struggling to get clients, or at least prospects to meet with you, for the first time, encourage them to do a 15 minute or a 20 minute meeting virtually, you can still gather a ton of information, you can move sales cycles forward, and we're seeing more and more companies, especially those that have to compete, whether that's your request for proposals, or very high competitive spaces, they're finding it is a way easier transition than they had thought. And it's just only through the power of suggestion. Can we meet virtually? Would you would you like to do a 15 minute online video call versus in person call? A lot of priors are ultimately agreeing to that. And so I suggest first and then default in person if it doesn't work, as opposed to saying that will never work for my clients.
Tom Bailey 06:20
Yeah, I love that. And like I say, because ultimately, it's like a funnel, isn't it, you've got a lot of prospects at the top, and then they'll funnel down into those buyers. So by almost filtering a lot of those prospects out with a virtual meeting, it's saving you that resources while of traveling for yourself as a salesperson,
Kim Orlesky 06:36
it's it absolutely is I consider it to you know, dating for the very first time. I mean, you're not going to commit to a first date or you know, dinner a movie and drinks afterwards. If you don't even know you're going to like the person. Yeah, you booked you booked the first date, as you know, a coffee meeting right in the middle of your workday. Yes, you have to be in and you have to be out and you're not gonna commit to more than that. And so the same thing with with a lot of our client meetings, be in be out, be brief, be bold, be gone. It will allow you to spend the time with the clients that are going to move forward and not dedicate a ton of time with clients that have no intention of moving forward
Tom Bailey 07:13
with you could almost be a bit of a decoy disqualification process as well, to do absolutely,
Kim Orlesky 07:17
it's been a massive mind shift for a lot of people that are trying to sell their services. Because the moment we get to say, is this person, right? For me, it allows us to put the control and the power back in ourselves and allow it to move ourselves to I can now picture myself as that premium service provider, I can charge more because I don't take on everybody.
Tom Bailey 07:40
Yeah, I love it. And for anyone listening that's thinking about making the shift. And they might need a little bit of help. What's that one resource that you can share with people to help them move forward?
Kim Orlesky 07:50
Yeah, so I mean, getting really clear on your sales process, one of the things that we're seeing with companies that are moving to an entirely virtual sales cycle, is that they had to get the process really clear. My books sell more faster is a great opportunity to be able to use that it's a process that you're going to use, whether you're in person, whether you're virtual, and it will help you navigate what are the right questions, we need to ask at every stage in that sales cycle, so that we're getting the information to move them faster and unclear what the client
Tom Bailey 08:25
love it. So and I've got the link for that here as well. So if you go to bit.li, forward slash, sell more faster book, and I'll put that link in the show notes as well. But that'd be a great way for you to get hold of that book and get started on this journey. And for more general information, just go to Cato advantage.com. And I'll also put that into the show notes as well. So, question for you, Kim, obviously, you know you've been on a journey, what would you say is one of your greatest mistakes or failures or learnings that you've made either in life or in business? And what did you learn from it?
Kim Orlesky 08:57
i The the biggest thing was that I especially when I was starting my business, I didn't appreciate my worth. I thought because I was starting out I had to discount my value, I had to discount that my prices on thinking that if I go in cheap at first, I can gather enough referrals and testimonials to eventually promote myself, the moment I shifted that and said I'm actually worth a worth of premium, I actually quadrupled the service fee that I was charging. It was way easier for me to sell clients and it took a lot more stress off of myself. So know your worth and get there as quickly as you possible and be okay with charging a premium.
Tom Bailey 09:37
Yeah, I love that. And you end up working with more committed clients as well in and more aligned clients that are not those ones that are seeking a discount because, yeah, it's a great place to
Kim Orlesky 09:48
- Oh, absolutely. I would hands down take take a $40,000 client over a $5,000 client anyway. But the other thing I find is it takes about the same amount of time. It takes about the same amount of time to to work with that $40,000 client as it does the 5000. So why not go for the higher value?
Tom Bailey 10:10
Absolutely. And also to find them, you know, so and but not necessarily like this, this high 40,000. So for those coaches just starting out, and rather than trying to find 10 People charging them 400 each, and to get 4000, you can just find that one 4000 It's the same amount of effort to find one either way. And so to that point, absolutely, try and look at how you can increase your value, increase your prices, as well. Absolutely. And the last question for me today is what is the one question that I should have asked you that will also bring some great value to our audience today?
Kim Orlesky 10:42
Yeah, if if you could do anything in your lifetime, what would you do? And the answer would be go traveled, spend more time visiting the rest of the world, right? It's I mean, you're entrepreneurs, your small business owners for a reason, build the life that you wanted to have first and then the business will surround it. As opposed to hoping that one day you will have the business the freedom to have that life build that life first. build a business around that life.
Tom Bailey 11:07
Absolutely love the thought of you know, not a holiday being something you have to look forward to once a year but and travel whilst working fit your life around that and that's yeah, that's such an exciting place to get to. Fantastic and great note to end on. Really appreciate that, Kim and thanks again for your time today and for sharing such great value with that
