Brandon Builds - Biz Building Updates and Book Publishing!

[Upstart]

This is sick, dude! Very nice. I saw the vid with Andy.
I also want to get more involved on fetlife when I get a free moment.

 

[AskTheDom]

Writing the book with you has been amazing experience brother.

I was jsut now reading the 3d were I started... and woah... hard to beleive but we made it.

PS: thank you everyone who purchased it!

 

[Manganiello]

That's interesting dude. Coaching a girl on dating. Honestly I would find the experience illuminating, when I was a career counsellor, men and women were totally totally different. Could not approach sessions the same way.

 

[Bman]

Just had another sales call with a couple. They had found my website, bought the book, and then after getting to chapter 4, decided to sign up for a call.

This shit feels exactly like the beginning of dating, where I can see where I stumbled and and can be more skillful. Which both sucks and makes you hungry for the next one. The difficulty with this call was that they were both on the call and I had to evoke and understand the problem from both sides, WITHOUT having them subtlety attack each other. I'm trying to evoke the pain of having the problem, but not negative emotions towards each other. It was quite the dance. Felt like I could have really helped them, but alas, I got the "We'll have to talk about it" at the end. And to be honest, I half heartedly started to ask what concerns he may have had in order to objection handle.

On the flipside, this exposure to different sales calls is great. I know with reps I'll be getting better. Also obviously educating myself and finished up the New Model of Selling by Jeremy Lee Miner and had implemented some of his material on this call

Don't know if anyone's done sales to couples here, but would love to hear how you've navigated two people on the call like that. Think I just needed a place to journal for a moment, so thought I'd share.

 

[Manganiello]

Ya that's a tricky one. But probably not too common to worry a lot about.

When dealing with 2 buyers, deal with the one who initiated the reach (or had the original idea) a bit more.

But tbh, I've never had that. What I do know, is that sometimes you psych yourself out. I once had a famous songwriter on a coaching call, and tbh, I didn't follow my sales process that works because I thought I had to do something different... I didn't.

 

[Bman]

Ya that's a tricky one. But probably not too common to worry a lot about.

Actually I forsee it becoming a common occurrence consider of the previous paying clients I've had and applications the breakdown is as follows:

• Woman 5
• Man 5

Status:

• Married 3
• Engaged 2
• Relationship 4
• Single 1

Two of the married applicants were applying with their spouse but never made it to the call. I'm guessing that one of them was gungho about it, the other not so much.

All of them except one have been in a relationship of some sorts. My content is much more relationship focused, building a dynamic between dom and sub, even if that's casual relationships. My overly reductionistic story arc is from married nice guy to dominant, so by no surprise many of the problems the couples face our him needing to learn to be more dominant. When the women apply its been they need direction in learning more about themselves and how to be better partner and submissive. And the thread line being that all of them want this in D/s dynamics.

When dealing with 2 buyers, deal with the one who initiated the reach (or had the original idea) a bit more.

This is certainly true though. I could have focused more on him since he initiated everything. However, I wasn't getting a lot of information from him because I was having a difficult time getting him to open up. Which I did learn a lot about his previous marriages, and can see where he lacks assertion, so having his fiance on the sales call with him probably hindered that. I tried to balance talking with both, and encouraged and invited both to speak when I asked questions. But at the end of the day, he was the decision maker.

 

[Zug]

Just had another sales call with a couple. They had found my website, bought the book, and then after getting to chapter 4, decided to sign up for a call.

This shit feels exactly like the beginning of dating, where I can see where I stumbled and and can be more skillful. Which both sucks and makes you hungry for the next one. The difficulty with this call was that they were both on the call and I had to evoke and understand the problem from both sides, WITHOUT having them subtlety attack each other. I'm trying to evoke the pain of having the problem, but not negative emotions towards each other. It was quite the dance. Felt like I could have really helped them, but alas, I got the "We'll have to talk about it" at the end. And to be honest, I half heartedly started to ask what concerns he may have had in order to objection handle.

On the flipside, this exposure to different sales calls is great. I know with reps I'll be getting better. Also obviously educating myself and finished up the New Model of Selling by Jeremy Lee Miner and had implemented some of his material on this call

Don't know if anyone's done sales to couples here, but would love to hear how you've navigated two people on the call like that. Think I just needed a place to journal for a moment, so thought I'd share.

Just my 2c, but my therapist is pretty good, and was gung-ho about never doing couples counseling again. It was his opinion that it was a waste of his time. There is too much room for people to offload responsibility while simultaneously demanding you mediate their different brands of bullshit. At least with 1 on 1 counseling (which is what you're basically doing), the client implicitly takes responsibility and ownership for their problems simply by signing up for the service.

If I sign up with you as a couple, I can mentally tell myself I'm paying you to fix my shitty partner's problems. That option is removed when the conversation is 1 on 1 with you only. I believe from the sales POV, your pitch is to the person pulling out the credit card, whether thats man, woman, dom, or sub. However, in terms of being able to enact change in them, I'd be wary of engaging in group calls for the reason my therapist gave.

I've only given this a little thought, but my gut feeling is that I'd only use group sessions as a way to have them practice ritual or specific protocols with you in a guided way. I wouldn't let them air their dirty laundry in a group setting for any reason. Also, if you get a vibe that's what they want, I'd really ask myself if this is a good use of anyone's time or money. You're not going to build your business with couple destined for failure.

 

[Bman]

@Zug these are really good points and thanks for dropping your therapists experience. My plan was actually coach them each one on one, then having some sessions with them together to practice skills, similar to what you're saying.

In this specific case, the guy was actually taking responsibility for his side (which if he made it that far in my book, by that point we've driven home taking 100% responsibility for his life), she didn't necessarily see what her roles was in it, but I would have addressed that with her individually.

Regardless, this was the first couples call. All the other people who've applied and shown up or been a client have been 1-1. I'm still going to take couples calls to see if this is the case, but I will absolutely be weary of your warning here. Thanks.