Celebration Pro Podcast
Celebration Pro Podcast
#77: A Fresh Perspective on Selling Weddings with $25 MIL Sales Strategist Maria Bayer
MEET MARIA:
Maria Bayer, the OG of sales and mindset in the wedding industry, has been guiding professionals to success for over a decade. As the creator of Irresistible Selling, she pioneered integrating sales strategy and mindset coaching. Her clients join a legacy that elevates their business and opens doors to unparalleled opportunities. Maria has built a strong community where connection and success go hand in hand, helping clients achieve dramatic sales growth and command premium fees. Drawing on her experience with major companies like Target and Best Buy, Maria provides actionable strategies that give her clients a competitive edge. As a national speaker and author, and through her Facebook Mastermind community "Learn Collaborate Flourish," she continues to enrich the wedding industry, fostering a space for professionals to expand their potential and achieve remarkable success.
IN THE CONVO:
In this episode, we explore how shifting your mindset can revolutionize your sales approach with insights from Maria Bayer, a renowned sales and mindset expert in the wedding industry. Maria shares her journey from finance to sales powerhouse, highlighting the importance of leveraging existing skills and mentorship. We redefine sales by emphasizing genuine conversations and understanding client needs, drawing parallels between sales and everyday scenarios. Maria discusses effective sales strategies and the critical role of mindset, especially with high-end clients, and the synergy between marketing and sales. This episode is packed with practical insights and inspiration for wedding professionals at any career stage.
CONNECT WITH MARIA:
📸@mariabayer1
🎁 Discover Your Celebrity Persona for Booking High-End Wedding Clients! https://members.mariabayer.com/quiz/
CONNECT WITH CARIN:
Hey CEO! Join us over at our new membership the Success Cellar 🍾 - exclusively for growth-minded wedding pros just like you!
🌟Write a review, share, and tag @celebrationpros for your first month free!
📸 - @celebrationpros
🌐 - www.carinhunt.com
Welcome back to the Celebration Pro Podcast. As always, I'm your guest, Karen Hunt, and you all know that I make lots of connections just every day, and one of the exciting things we did in Q1 was we were a part of the sales summit that Margo Freese I think that's how you say her last name that she put on, and through being a part of that I was introduced to Maria Bayer. Is that my saying that right?
Speaker 1:You are correct, oh, perfect, and she is. She is just like the queen of sales. And as soon as we connected, I was like, oh gosh, that is something that we talk about all the time. I am, I say I'm one-on-one at everything, and so I like to bring the experts in. Once we get past that, and a lot of our listeners here I'd say they're you know. I'd say you guys are probably somewhere between like two and seven years of business. Some of you are further along.
Speaker 1:There's a handful of you that are just jumping in and just being on this call with Maria today. You're going to get so many insights. She's widely recognized as the OG of sales and mindset in the wedding industry and she's widely recognized as the OG of sales and mindset in the wedding industry and she's been gilding wedding professionals to stellar success for over a decade as the creator of irresistible selling and I just love the name of that. It is the longest standing and most trusted program in the wedding industry. Maria has pioneered the integration of sales strategy and mindset coaching long before it was a thing, long before it was popular and we even really knew about it. And her clients didn't just join a program, they became a part of a legacy, and that is such a key word that elevates their business and opens doors to unparalleled opportunities. Maria, thank you so so much for joining us.
Speaker 2:Oh, Karen, thank you so much for inviting me. I'm it's such a pleasure to be here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely, and I, you know I was looking through. I always tell my speakers I'm like, do a little humble brag, let us know what you've done and you've been a part of everything. Like I see WIPA, abc, ilea, bsage, sarah does SEO. We love Sarah. Uh, refine, you know all of the places that we hope is wedding pros, that the experts that are coming in and chatting with us on the podcast or or you know um more intimately, have, uh, a wedding background. But what I think is most important is actually your sales background. That's outside. So we're looking at names, like you know Yahoo and voyage and some of these other companies where you're able to take kind of more of a business perspective and marry it with the wedding industry. So I'm really excited to dive in and and what I'm going to, we're going to kick it off with. I always do, we love a good origin story. I always say is for you to let us know kind of where did you start and how did you end up working with us in this capacity in the wedding industry.
Speaker 2:Yeah, my, my story. It's so funny it's. It's like a lot of people's you know, I can't say that. Oh I, I just came out of the womb knowing that I wanted to sell Like that was not my story.
Speaker 2:I had a very convoluted, windy path to get to where I'm at and it. It all makes perfect sense now, but it was. It was certainly not a straight path, like many people, but I went to college thinking I was going to go into finance because I love numbers, right. So I went into finance, got a job out of college and I was doing financials and books and stuff for a local company and I liked it and I was one of those employees right, I was probably one of the youngest ones there. I'd come in early, stay late and every year I would just get the same raise that everybody else got and I was like that doesn't sit well with me.
Speaker 2:And I got out like I got out my calculator and I'm like all right if I get the same raise every year. Do you know how long it'll take me just to make six figures? And I had like an epiphany that day and I said you know what I got to go?
Speaker 2:I got to go and I remember talking to I had a manager at the time and I loved him, bless his heart. He was sort of like a pseudo father to me and I remember telling him I said, you know, I really want to like venture out of doing what I've been doing for you and all the books and stuff and I really want to do something with the clients. And he's like no, that's not possible. And I'm like, okay. So I went home and I'm like, all right, I got to go. I really have to go.
Speaker 2:And I really had this light bulb moment where I said, you know, I need to go into sales because that's the only thing that that I could keep coming back to, where I could make money, not without, not with, having to go back to school and learn something new Right. But my efforts could make me a lot more money than I'm making now, Right. And so I just decided I'm going to go into sales. I had no idea what I was going to sell, I had no idea where I was going to go, nothing. So that's a longer story that we can talk about over content.
Speaker 2:But I remember and you know I started interviewing. I met this person that was interviewing for somebody that was going to be software sales and I knew nothing about software at the time Right, and he was selling financial software. So he said I can teach you how to sell because that's a learnable skill, but I need someone that understands finance because I want you to be able to talk to a CFO or a CIO or and talk numbers with them. I can't really teach you that and I had that background.
Speaker 2:So, he took me under his wing. I remember I told my original boss. I said, hey, I'm going to be leaving, I'm going to be making, working for this company selling software. I'm going to make 50% more than I'm making here. And he said, oh, maria, that I'm making here. And he said, oh, Maria, that's not possible.
Speaker 2:He's like, really they're selling you a bill of goods. And I think in retrospect he did it like out of the goodness of his heart, like he felt like that was true. He was projecting his beliefs on me and didn't realize what was possible. But the train was had already left station. I had to. I had to do this right Cause I committed to it. So I'm like, all right, well, sink or swim, I'm going. So I went and I got a lot of good training from this manager.
Speaker 2:He ended up leaving not long after that. I completely sank, ended up getting let go like a year later. Right and I'm just. I was beside myself. I was like what am I going to do? I made this huge decision to leave and I failed. My boss was right I'm not going to make 50% more. So, long story short, I get another job and this time I had a manager that was really lovely and wonderful and helped me with a lot of my limiting beliefs, and he helped me learn and understand that I don't have to be like your stereotypical salesperson to be successful. I could leverage my strengths of connecting with people, creating relationships, and I didn't have to lie, cheat and steal and do all these things that I thought in my head because I had this idea of like smarmy salespeople and I didn't want to be that person.
Speaker 2:Right, that wasn't who I was at the core. Anyway, he taught me how to sell. Within six months, I had sold the biggest contract in the office. We were a brand new office in Chicago I was living there at the time and we became like the number one selling office within months and within a year I had not made 50% more, I had tripled my income Wow, Tripled and I so wanted to send my W-2 to my boss right and say do you see what I did?
Speaker 2:Right, right, I believed in myself. But it also just validated that A I could learn how to sell. B I could do it in a way that felt very congruent for me and allowed me to sleep at night and maintain my integrity. And that was really, really important to me, cause I thought, if I can't do this in a way that feels good, I'm not going to do it, I have to find something else to do.
Speaker 1:Well and I know that those that are listening in right now they're like oh this, actually this sounds like something that they can do too, because as wedding professionals, we're very good at our craft Absolutely A lot of us didn't have I mean, I have a bit of a business background, but I didn't. I didn't graduate with a degree in business or finance or marketing or anything like that, it was with event management, but I did get the building blocks because I did go through that schooling. A lot of the people in our industry don't have that Exactly.
Speaker 1:Even that, and so to be able to have somebody like yourself, maria, be able to come on and say you don't have to be a car salesman to do this, you can do this in a way that feels really aligned with yourself and your brand. Like, okay, thank you. Like now you've given us permission, right?
Speaker 2:Exactly, exactly.
Speaker 1:That's freeing.
Speaker 2:Right, it's freeing because it's a. It's a subject that a lot of people shy away from because of the stereotype of it, and I get that because I felt it like I was the victim of it as well, and until I was able to find a way that felt good, that's when I went from literally getting fired or actually technically let go for my first sales job to booking over 25 million in sales. So if I can do it and I consider myself an introvert, I am not an extrovert. I am not somebody that is naturally good at sales. I learned how to do it and I just learned in a way that felt really good. And, long story short, I did that for a number of years and then my wedding planner called me and said I think I might want to hire you and if you talk to her today she's like I was thinking of hiring you just to create a sales pitch for me. I thought I'd spend a few hundred dollars you know and I ended up selling her on.
Speaker 2:Well, let me teach your team. I have this program for interior designers that I think would be really applicable to you, but let me just modify it to fit your. You know your business, so it was almost an experiment. I did it. I taught her team how to sell and within a few months they doubled their fees. Everybody was booking clients. She was able to cherry pick her clients and now she's one of the coaches in my program.
Speaker 1:Oh, I love it Full circle moment.
Speaker 2:Yeah, full circle. So that's how I ended up in the wedding industry, because I didn't start there, and that's part of what's different about my background is I have corporate background. I have software sales background. I just know how to modify it for people, especially women, because we sell differently. Right, we sell with our heart and it feels really good, and the best compliment I can remember getting when I first started was Maria. It doesn't feel like I'm selling at all and I said oh my God, that's perfect, that's perfect.
Speaker 1:That's how it should feel, right? I love this, okay. So, and I always, every time I listen I mean, if you listen to my podcast, I say this over and over again, but I always there's always a parallel Like when I listen in and I'm like, oh, I want to share everything, but we're going to keep the spotlight on you today. So money we have money mindset, a sales mindset. These things are incredibly important because, like you were saying before, if you have limiting beliefs or you have somebody else maybe projecting or enhancing those beliefs and not really blinding you essentially to what is possible, you're not going to be. If you can't see it, if you can't visualize it, you're not going to be able to get there. It's kind of like getting in a car and just hoping for the best and you run into the house next door because you're blindfolded right, like that's not going to work for us.
Speaker 1:You run into the house next door because you're blindfolded right, like that's not going to work for us. So can it? Can you work? Just speak a little bit around. What mindset shifts can help us? Maybe start moving towards selling confidently or having a better mindset about the numbers and about the way we speak to the leads that are coming to us.
Speaker 2:Sure, yeah, I think the first thing is just seeing evidence that is possible to sell in a way that feels really good and congruent with you and aligned with your brand, and see people being successful doing it. And now that I have over 10 years of clients going through my doors and watching them literally a lot of times, 10x their sales within a year it's possible and they're all doing it in a way that is very much a partnership between them and the client. I don't want to change who you are. I want to just give you structure and strategies around it so that I can enhance who you are. So, so for me, sales, to look at it differently, you are not. You're not a salesperson, like, if you really want to look at it from a a macro perspective, we're all selling, right, you're selling an idea. Whether you're, whether you have a business or not, you are all constantly selling something. You're selling your ideas, you're selling your beliefs, you're selling your convictions. You're selling. It doesn't have to be a product, right, or a service. So, from that perspective, we're all selling. And if you, if you doubt that, just take a look at any child, because they're really master salespeople, because they can tell you on. I want to stay up later, mommy, and I want to go to Disneyland, mommy, and I want I want that stay up later, mommy, and I want to go to Disneyland, mommy, and I want that ice cream, mommy, you know so they're really good at that. So, versus like just shifting what you think selling is.
Speaker 2:And to me, when I teach my clients, I say where you come from, inside matters, because how you feel inside is projected outwardly, so it's projected onto your client, so you need to feel good about selling in order for it to land well with your client. So one of the ways that I teach my clients to do that is I say if you go to a doctor, they're not going to pitch you on certain drugs or something. They're going to ask you a lot of questions. They want to play detective and figure out what's wrong with you. Why are you feeling this way? Let's try to get to the root cause, and then I'm going to prescribe something that is very similar to what we are doing with prospective clients. They're coming to us and even though in the wedding industry it seems like everybody wants the same thing, they want, you know, a beautiful wedding, but they don't. Everyone has different things that are important to them.
Speaker 2:I had different things that were important to me in my wedding. So it's important for you to uncover what that is. So asking them questions is one way not only to differentiate yourself, but it's also a way to help uncover what's important to your clients, and that makes it more of a conversation. You're not just throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks. It's more of a conversation of finding out what's important to you so that you can then mirror back to them what's important and how you can specifically help them. So I'm not about, like so many people think, I just want a spiel. I don't want to teach you a spiel, because that's what sounds salesy.
Speaker 1:I want you to have a conversation. Right, it's that, that copy paste mentality that has kind of gotten us where we're at with the, with the negative mindset around it.
Speaker 1:And I love, love, love the example of the doctor. I love, love the example of the doctor. I think that that is. That is so clutch.
Speaker 1:So if I was actually having a conversation with a bride a couple of days ago and she said she called in and said what is the price? You know, I'm just calling to find out pricing. And I could have said this is the pricing, this is, these are our three packages, these are the prices. I could have said let me the pricing, these are our three packages, these are the prices. I could have said let me have your email address, I'll send you the price sheet.
Speaker 1:But instead I kept her on the phone by asking her more and more questions about her day and then, finally, because she initially had jumped on and said I was wondering how much you charge for partial planning. So I didn't even ask her about partial planning until the very end, when we got to the package and I said what made you think partial planning as opposed to month of full planning or another type of package? And that was when she said well, I had. You know. She told me I have the vision, I have all these things. I'm like okay, well, now I know, I know everything that you're looking for for your wedding day. This is exactly what you actually need and it was something she didn't realize that she needed.
Speaker 1:Um, and it it helped out the planning company that I was, that I'm like moonlighting for, so it. It really makes a big difference when we and it made her feel seen and it made her feel seen. She even said I've called multiple other companies and they were all too high and they all just basically none of them asked them about her and her wedding. And I'm like, oh my gosh, as a bride, just as a normal person, I would like somebody to care about who I am and what my values are. But especially in a moment like that, where you're investing so much money and you are trusting this person with such a big part of your day, yeah, you have really have to dig in more.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and if everybody does the same thing and sounds alike, you force your client to make a decision on price. And that's exactly what you did, so that was yes it was and it reminds me like I remember years and years ago I had done one of those things online before I even met my husband.
Speaker 2:I needed new insurance, right, so I went online to one of those sites where it sends you a bunch of quotes you know, and I got all a slew of emails, as as expected, except for one, and the one woman said before I send you a quote, can I ask you a few questions Because you might be overpaying for insurance? And it made me take pause and I was like, oh okay, yes, you can, I would love to talk, talk with you. So she asked me the questions, I sent her the information and because she did that, she stood out. And isn't that what we all want to do right now? I've listened to your other podcasts. Standing out is a really important thing, especially now, especially with the next generation coming in, and buying.
Speaker 2:So we want to stand out, and standing out is not just what you're saying, it's what you're doing as well. And asking different questions and doing that sort of pattern interrupt and not doing things the way everybody else is doing them, and so many people are so conditioned just to send pricing. And the problem is, if that's all you do, you're focusing on price, you're making price the important factor. And if you go back to the doctor example, you would never want to go to a doctor that just had a set idea of what you needed without asking you any questions. And every client that comes to us, for the most part, has no idea what they need. They might have some idea, but they don't know what you do better than you do. So it's your responsibility, in my opinion, it's your responsibility to ask them those questions to make sure that what they're asking for and what they think they want is actually what they want.
Speaker 1:Yes, and if you don't, you're doing your client a disservice, In my opinion we have a doctor down here that if you go to their office, it's like guaranteed you're going to walk out with antibiotics, and it drives me nuts and I'm like no, and I'd like. So this is like the example, right, and then you have the ones that are very good and they get down to it. Um, so I'm I'm so excited to hear that you've been hearing a lot of these conversations we've been having, because it is, you know, it's a shift in a way, but I also feel like we were doing this. We were more intentional with getting to know our clients, maybe pre COVID, maybe a little bit earlier than that even. And then the digital age came in and took, you know, made everything so easy to automate, and we focus so much on learning all of that that we forgot to be humans in a way Right.
Speaker 1:And so now it's kind of we're just bringing that element back in and the new generation really is looking for a marriage of the two. We marry a lot in this industry, but again, just really feeling heard. No, I'm loving this. So I just want to make sure I'm asking the right questions here in the right order, because I and I like to be transparent, so we we do look at questions before. Maria has questions in front of her, but I want to make sure I do this in the right way.
Speaker 1:Um, I'm going to go with my net with the next question, which is, which is I'm going to jump to a question for because we, you had mentioned how you had somebody who had taught you to maybe sell a little bit more in that copy paste car salesman. Here's a pitch. And then it shifted. And now, all of a sudden, you saw all of that success and, as you were saying that, I was like gosh, I was in network marketing and I'm like, ooh, good, that wasn't one of the questions, so I can bring it up.
Speaker 1:So, um, I'm technically still a consultant, but I do not, I do not actively sell, but during that time it was this is how I'm reaching out to my group of people. Here's copy paste add their name, add their profession, whatever it was. And I hated, I hate. And they're like, oh, have you followed up with that person? Here's what you can follow up with them with. And I'm like the only thing I'm reaching out to these poor people with are these icky, like text messages or voice memos or like and I, I love voice messaging, but it it even then it just none of it felt aligned and I wasn't, I didn't have passion behind what I was selling and it was definitely shining through or in a not positive light, and so I wasn't able to move forward in the company because of that.
Speaker 1:And I just loved hearing that story and I think it's important to hear a story like yours, maria, where you made the jump. But if you hadn't made the jump and you hadn't maybe fallen and learned from that first scenario where you were let go, you would have never. You would have never found the scenario where you had the manager that was able to groom you and get you to the next place Right.
Speaker 1:So there's a lot of hope and resilience in your story and I just think it's it's important for people to hear because if you can do it and you can teach others to do it, then the people who are listening in. It gives them again that permission slip to say I can do it too, and I can do it in a way that is myself and feels aligned. It doesn't feel copy paste and and icky. So I just wanted to bring that up first. I love that. I don't know if you have anything to say around that or around the things. Maybe that I've been taught through network marketing because I don't mind the network marketing world but I do not like the way that they teach sales.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so I'm not. I don't want to throw anybody under the bus, but my experience being on the receiving end of a lot of network marketing conversations.
Speaker 2:It doesn't leave me with a very positive impression Oftentimes. Now, I'm sure there's lots of people that do it in a way that feels really good. I just think from my experience that it doesn't align with how I want to be. It doesn't align with more of today's marketing where it's more permission marketing. Right, I'm not trying to pitch you. I want to offer you an opportunity to work together and let's have a mutual conversation and see if it's a good mutual fit. It's not where I'm trying to pressure you or do things or just feel disingenuous, Right, Right, and one of the things you know, we talk about how sales and mindset are so linked together.
Speaker 2:You can't have one without the other. I could teach you everything I know about selling, and I know a lot, because you don't book 25 million without knowing but if you don't have the right mindset. There is a quote that I love I'm going to not say her name, right, but it's Alaina Van Zandt or something like that and she said something about you can't outperform your level of self-worth. You don't believe you're worth charging more, making more, you know, building your business. You'll always hit a wall. So that's why the mindset piece is so important and just understanding how that's linked and how that either will stop you and keep you on that ceiling or you know one of my epiphanies and when I was in software sales like mindset wasn't a thing, Like it wasn't it wasn't a thing, like when I first had my my program and I was teaching mindset.
Speaker 2:Some of my clients were like, oh, this is great. Other clients were very, very vocal about how they thought it was very woo. Yes, and if you, and if you look at it now, I can look at it and say that's, that's like 1% woo compared to the woo that we see now.
Speaker 2:I say that I'm very left brain, so I'm very analytical. So I like to marry what I learned in the corporate world with the things that I've experienced with mindset, to marry those two together because, whether or not we can prove it, mindset works you know, whether science has caught up to it.
Speaker 2:I can just tell you from experience it works. I've seen my clients over and over again achieve things that by all rights they shouldn't have achieved if it weren't for their mindset Right. So I just think that there are different ways to sell and there's lots of ways that can work Right. There's there's lots of bro marketing style. You know that work, but does it feel good? Probably not, not to a lot of people, not to people in my community. So I just feel like you have to find a way that works really well, because you have to understand also that your psychology and how we're made up and our bodies are designed for homeostasis. They're designed for if you believe something. Your brain will constantly look for ways to corroborate that belief and it will exclude everything else.
Speaker 2:An easy example is you're thinking about buying a red car, or you just bought a red car and now all of a sudden, all you see on the road are red cars right?
Speaker 2:It's a similar concept. So understanding how your brain works is an important part of honing your mindset and making it work for you and helping you skyrocket. And when I was in software sales in the in the beginning, when I was at that second job, I was doing well, but I was I had inconsistent results and you know I do all my best thinking in my car.
Speaker 2:So I was driving to work and literally almost like a lightning bolt from from the heavens almost like a lightning bolt from from the heavens I got this just brainstorm and I was like, oh my God, I still think selling is slimy.
Speaker 2:That's why my consistent, that's why my results are inconsistent, because your body will sabotage. It will sabotage because my body did not want to believe that I was a uh like a slimy, lying salesperson or those things that I thought in my head. So I was sabotaging my results because if I was good at sales, that would mean that I was a bad person. So that's why it's so important to understand how does your brain, like physically work, so that you can help to train it to believe something different. And once I understood and recognized that mindset connection, that's when my results skyrocketed. So that's why mindset is such an important piece of what I teach, and it always has been. And honestly, like I think some of my, like my sales strategies are really good. But my clients constantly come to me and say, oh, I love the mindset module.
Speaker 1:That was so good because I use it in every area of my life and it just, it just illuminated some beliefs that I had that were keeping me stuck you know Well, and I think, when we work on our mindset, it's these little reminders, and I will say that I could listen to the same mindset information from you, from Jay Shetty, from, you know, jamie Curlima. It could be from anybody, right, right, but somebody is going to hit certain phrases and then those are the ones that are going to stick, and you're going to think about those throughout your day.
Speaker 1:I can't remember who said it. I think it was Jay Shetty, which is why he came to mind, where he said um, oh, no, it was from maybe a, I don't know. It's one of the one of the the big boys.
Speaker 1:But we, um it was are you rowing your? Um? Is what you're doing, rowing your canoe forward? And there was like a whole story around it and it really helps me, especially with my diet, like, if I go to grab like candy or something, I'm like is this rowing my canoe forward? No, and I have like, sure, I'm in the keys, but I'm not like, I'm not like a pro canoe or anything. So I'm not on a kayak a lot of the time.
Speaker 1:So, um, but it was just some, for some reason, that one stuck in my head and I use it in work, I use it in life, um, and there's, you're gonna, for the listeners, right, when you're keep an open mind to the mindset. I, you know, with mindset plus strategy, whether it's sales or whatever it is you're working on, it's going to equal the results. So you do, you do have to have that element of it. Um, and this kind of pulls into my next question. But, uh, like you were saying, your body will, uh, will either help or hinder you in the situation, depending on your mindset and what your beliefs are.
Speaker 1:If you're, if you raise your prices and you're not ready to right, you're not mentally ready to, and you speak on the phone to somebody or speak in person to somebody about your pricing and you believe it's too high, they're going to know that Exactly. If, if you price yourself too low and you should and you know that you're worth more, it's going to come through in the way that you say it. More it's going to come through in the way that you say it. Um and so on that note, this is a conversation I've had a lot with like and and I've written here planners, particularly cause that's the true part of it. But a lot of people are looking to level up to higher paying clients. Um, they use the word luxury luxury as relative to who you are and what you think luxury prices.
Speaker 1:They essentially want to break through to a new, higher paying client, but they're they're not sure how to raise their prices. They get nervous around it, and so we have these conversations, and so I really wanted to bring that to the table today with you to see what your thoughts are on what those steps are, whether it's mindset, whether it's an action they take to start selling their higher priced packages, right?
Speaker 2:It's such a great question because you'd think that it would just be an easy fix, just raise your prices and go with it. But it's not. People struggle with it and that struggle is real and some of it is. I don't want to leave my clients behind. I don't want to leave my partners behind that I've worked so hard to create relationships with. And again it goes back to psychology. It goes back to mindset, so mindset of you need to believe that you're worth it, right. So to your point exactly If you don't believe you're worth it, it's not going to come through and it's going to be really hard. I can give you the strategies, but if you don to believe that you're worth it, right. So to your point exactly If you don't believe you're worth it, you're not, it's not going to come through and it's going to be really hard. I can give you the strategies, but if you don't believe it and embody it, it's going to come through and you're going to project that onto your client. So you're not going to get the results that you're looking for. But part of it also is and this is what I help my clients with is and this is what I help my clients with is understanding that you are not your client, especially when you're continuing to level up. Sometimes you're selling to a clientele that has a lot more money than you do, right, you do not think and act and buy the same way they do. It's important for you to understand how to change your mindset, how to change how you sell to accommodate that Right. So that's why changing that mindset of you know, can I spend, can I charge more money? Some of it is just understanding, okay, you're not your client, they think differently and what's expensive to you is there every day. Right, right, exactly, yes. So sometimes it's just shifting and helping them understand, like reframing it in a different way so that they get it Right. So to your point. Before, sometimes you can hear similar things, but someone just says it in a way that lands on you differently and the light bulb goes off, right. So that's part of it. The other part of it is also understanding that. And if you're in circles where they're at that level that you aspire to be, then that's where you're going to get the real talk.
Speaker 2:And we had a really enlightening conversation a while back in our group and one of the photographers had asked. She said you know, for the planners in this group that are selling at like this level, you know, am I priced right? Like I'd love to work with more of you? What can I do? And one of the planners reached back out on you know in our group and said you know, I'll be honest, your work is beautiful but I can't recommend you. And she's like why? And she said because you're priced too low.
Speaker 2:If I put you in front of my clients, they're going to wonder what's wrong with you, because their perception of value is different and what they value is different. Their biggest thing is not the price tag, but the price tag is an indicator of the value, right or wrong. We equate value with price, right or wrong. If you see two dresses or two outfits at Nordstrom, for example, and they're both on sale for a hundred dollars, but one's original price was a thousand dollars and the other original price was 150, but one's original price was $1,000 and the other original price was 150, which one are you going to think is more value?
Speaker 2:The one that was originally priced at $1,000? Because we equate value with price. So part of it's just it's a lot of things together it's the psychology, it's believing that you're worth more, it's having the strategies so that you can both attract those clients but also cater to them and have an elevated process. That you can both attract those clients but also cater to them and have an elevated process, that you take them through because they're expecting a higher level of service and they're not expecting you to throw your price list at them because they're going to be thinking. Price is not the issue here. The issue is can you serve me? Can you do what I want you to do? Can you give me the wedding of my dreams? So it's a different conversation. So helping people understand what people at that budget level value helps them sort of have that light bulb moment, like oh now I see that this is way too low.
Speaker 2:I need to start charging 15, $20,000 if I really want to start getting into the luxury space.
Speaker 1:Yes, oh, I mean all of that, all of that, and again it's just more and more stories come up in my head that are similar, like um. I remember I made the mistake of mentioning budget one too many times during a and using the word budget, which is not a luxury word on a tour at a venue I worked at I wasn't on my game that day, that's okay, they still booked, but the, the dad, said I don't like all this talk about money. Just tell us, you know, just stick to what we get. And I was like, okay, no problem, but it was for some reason I couldn't stop saying the darn word. But they, they did book and they had a beautiful wedding.
Speaker 2:But what an important lesson for you, right.
Speaker 1:That was.
Speaker 2:That was brilliant. Um, one thing that I'll, I'll, I'll tell your your community is one good way to remember it is, instead of thinking of it as pricing yourself out of your market, think of pricing yourself into the next level market. Yes, so you really, and I've really never met anybody that charges too much. Most people I've met are undercharging because they're not making. If they net out how many hours they're working, they're making pennies per hour. So you cannot charge too much. I've got clients. I have one client that just booked a $75,000 client. That was her fee. I have another client that sells stationery who booked I think he booked 120 something thousand dollars just for birthday invitations and save the dates not even wedding. So the other thing that helps if you want to up-level is being in a circle of people that are at that level because, that helps you rise so much faster.
Speaker 2:If you're the smartest person in the room, you know how they say you're in the wrong room. Not only will it help you rise so much faster If you're the smartest person in the room, you know how they say you're in the wrong room.
Speaker 2:Not only will it help you rise, but there's a thing with luxury and money that makes a lot of people uncomfortable that if you've not lived around it, if you didn't grow up in it, so if you're in a community of people that you like and trust, you know that kind of think.
Speaker 2:The same way in terms of, like, how do we take care of our clients and how do we sell? You know they all sort of believe in that same way. It that becomes that higher level becomes your normal. If you see them doing things that you think, oh my God, would anybody ever spend that much? If you see that as your every day, it helps to normalize it that much faster for you, right? It's a similar concept to I don't know let's just throw out an example like going and walking around the four seasons every day and just like making that your normal right. That that's that luxury is normal to you. It doesn't seem foreign to you. So that's just another way of sort of hacking your way to getting your mindset shifted quickly and moving up really fast.
Speaker 1:I also liked that you mentioned that whatever you're selling, you have to make sure that you have the client experience to back it up and if you raise your prices and the value doesn't match, it's going to come through in reviews and your reputation and all of that Right. So that was just an important nugget I wanted to pull up from there and then I think, in the end, here what we're we're really looking at and you can expand or or um comment on this is that, a, we need to work on, of course, our mindset, and then B, we need to look at the product that we are, that we are serving or that we are offering, and make sure that everything is in alignment so that when we are selling that we it, it feels good, and that's kind of the recipe that I'm getting here, Absolutely.
Speaker 2:I prefer. If you are, um, if you're going to raise your price, you have to have your sales process elevated as well but also how you serve your clients, how you actually serve them. So, while that's not the focus of what I teach cause I can't teach you how to be a better planner or a better photographer but my experience is, more often than not, my clients have spent a lot of money perfecting their craft and learning how to be better at what they do, because, like we started talking about in the beginning, like most people just love what they do and they've made a business out of it.
Speaker 2:So we're here to help guide them and help them have a very strong business, so that it's not just a hobby right and that they can actually make money. So my experience has been, at least with my clientele they've been very talented and very good. But also again, there's always ways that you can keep up leveling and being again in that circle. You will naturally talk to people, you will naturally partner with people. We do that a lot in our group.
Speaker 1:You'll pick up the language and all of that.
Speaker 2:Yes, pick up the language, but you also have conversations about how you're serving them and you pick up like, oh, I should be doing this, I should be doing this, I should be doing that. And one of the things that I love about my clients are and I think it's pretty true across the industry, at least from what I've seen is they always want to improve, they always want to learn more and they always want to get better and I love that about them.
Speaker 2:I just want to teach them you know how to price appropriately about them.
Speaker 2:I just want to teach them how to price appropriately how you can.
Speaker 2:At the end of the day, what I really want to do for someone is I want to empower you to charge whatever you want, and to me, that is the best empowerment I can give you, because if you can sell yourself, you will make money for the rest of your life.
Speaker 2:And that is the fun part about what I do is because I'm teaching you things I learned years and years and years ago that I will continue to use to the end of time, and that's what made me a millionaire very young and it's what made a lot of my clients millionaires what we teach and what you learn of if you learn selling in a way that's not pitchy, that's not sort of old school and it's more aligned with just connecting with people and how to make people feel seen and heard and how to talk to them about what you do in a way that specifically targets what they're looking for. That doesn't have a shelf life. That's just how to get along with people and how to speak to people for that doesn't ever have, that doesn't have a shelf life right.
Speaker 2:That's just how to get along with people and how to speak to people Right. That's why I love what I do, because if you use it, it will make you money forever, and that's that's amazing to me.
Speaker 1:When I think the reason why you're able to use those strategies that you learned so far back again comes to it it all boils down to the relationships you make and the way you make people feel yes, yes.
Speaker 2:Because, at the end of the day, that's who I am, at my core. If I'm not trying to just make money off of you, I want to help your life.
Speaker 1:You want to make an impact? Right, I want to make an impact.
Speaker 2:And that's one of the reasons why I left software because I felt like I wasn't making an impact and I was helping somebody else build their business instead of building my own. You know my own legacy, so that's important to me. That's really, really important to me, and it's it's something that's going to make you feel better about what you do and enhance what you do.
Speaker 2:And and I honestly I think it's one of the reasons why so many businesses fail is because they don't know how to sell themselves. Right, because you could have all the best marketing in the world, but if you don't know how to book those clients coming to you, right, yep.
Speaker 1:Wasted those dollars, and that is the difference between marketing and sales. Everybody.
Speaker 2:Yes, but they go together like peanut butter and jelly, like you can't have one without the other. So I love talking marketing and sales and how they're.
Speaker 1:So you know they're so intertwined. I just, I love this conversation because it's so different from, I think, what everybody expects and everybody, everybody expects the well, if you say it in this way, or if you say, and it's like say it in your way, because if I talk to somebody, okay, so like Maria's here talking about sales, because that's what she loves, that's what she knows, and she can talk about sales all day and we're all over here Like we'd like to be millionaires too, thank you, we're all going to drop in your DMS. And then, if you talk to me, I'm going to talk about word of mouth marketing and I'm going to talk to you about wedding planning, because those are the things that light me up. That's, that's my craft, that is what drives me. And when you talk about what you love, that gets people, you know. First, get to know your person and then, once they see your passion behind what you do, when you start sharing that, you become magnetic.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. That's how we hired our videographer.
Speaker 2:We met with him at his studio I don't know like I didn't ask him a million questions, but by his enthusiasm and the fact that he had like 40 screens in this room and he was so meticulous I thought there is nothing I could possibly ask him that would give me any more information than what I already have, which is he's going to make sure that it is perfect, like he's so meticulous about it, and that enthusiasm is what sold us. So that's the other fun part about selling is you do not have to have 40,029 steps in this order for it to work. One thing can get them. So you had me at hello like that. The movie. Sometimes it's just that, and for for us with that videographer, it was his enthusiasm and the fact that he just he loved it more than he had a higher standard for himself than I could ever have for him, and that was enough for me.
Speaker 1:And that made me. What a good little uh like real-time story there. I love that. I love that. Well, I have a few bonus questions for you and um, and so we'll get into this part here. I used to call them um, what is it like? Quick Q and a and I'm like it's not, like it's any faster, we're just, we're just still going through the motions. Um, okay, faster, we're just, we're just still going through the motions, okay. So I like asking this question because it's given us a lot of ideas our listeners myself on ways that we can improve business with actual, tangible things. So what is the last thing that you bought for your business?
Speaker 2:I bought. There's a couple of things. I bought my new peepers because I'm reading so much Like I my eyeballs are, you know, obviously readers are leaders, so that's great, Exactly so. I use that a lot now, especially when I'm sharing. People are sharing screens, Um cause we're not getting any younger and our balls are, you know are you reading worthy, have you thought about?
Speaker 1:I have not read that yet, but it's on my list, it's on my nightstand and I've gotten through. Like I'm the worst at reading a tangible book, but that one I really wanted to like.
Speaker 2:Yeah, go through the pages Um so far it's fantastic, and I'm only like one or two chapters in, so, yeah, I do audio books because as soon as I open up a book, as much as I love it, I fall asleep.
Speaker 1:So I me too.
Speaker 2:I listen to audio books on repeat, so there's always books in my rotation for Audible.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think there was one more thing you wanted to mention.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, so not that I purchased this, but I was looking for to expand my team and instead of hiring one person, I hired three.
Speaker 1:Oh, how funny. You purchased two more people. I love it. I love it. Um, what is the last movie you watched and do you have a favorite movie snack to go along with that?
Speaker 2:So I'm not don't hate me I'm not a huge movie person, because I'll sit there and look for movies and then an hour will go by and I won't find the right movie, so I'm really big on series instead. So, like I finished the Bear, which I love because it's in my hometown of Chicago and he's Italian I'm Italian, so there's a lot of connections there. Many had a beef stand and I had an uncle that had a beef stand, so it just oh, how much fun.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love it. I love that show but honestly, like I just I'm still watching it but I discovered I'm a little bit late to the game. But I discovered how to Get Away with Murder and oh my God, it's like just the best series. I'm on season five, I think, now and I just can't stop watching it. It's so good. The acting is unbelievable in the show, so absolutely love it.
Speaker 1:I love that. And and again, do you have a favorite snack that you? Oh, yeah, I like I asked this because we just went to the movies with my son and mine is Reese's pieces and I'm not a big candy person, so it's only if we go to the movie theater I get Reese's pieces and he ate too many of them and wouldn't sit still. So that's where this this is where the question is derived from.
Speaker 2:I will tell you this, though, so I don't make it at home, but if I'm in a movie theater I have to get popcorn. Like the smell of it just immediately sends me like I got to have it Right, but it's nostalgic. Yeah, yeah, it's, there's something about it, cause I spent so much time in the movie theater growing up. But no, I like a nice glass of wine, you know, or, depending on the time of year, maybe my husband will make me an old fashioned. He's my bartender. Um, so I just like to have a little glass to sip on and watch, watch the show.
Speaker 1:Perfect snack, let me tell you, all right. And then, if, in one year, we're sitting across the table from each other popping a bottle of champagne in your honor, what would we be celebrating?
Speaker 2:Oh, that's such a fun question. So I'm real, I've had this idea for my business for a really long time and, um, I would like to be celebrating the successful launch of that idea, and I'm not quite ready to reveal what it is, but you know, when there's something that's been in your mind for a really long time and you don't know how it got there or why it got there, but it's just there, I'm going to take action on it and we'll see where it goes. And hopefully it was there for a good reason. So hopefully we'll be celebrating the successful launch of that new idea.
Speaker 1:Well, just knowing your ambition, I have no doubt. I have no doubt, and where can our guests find you? And if you do have anything coming up that you can share, feel free.
Speaker 2:Awesome, Awesome, yeah, so they can find me a bunch of places so you can go to Instagram and connect with me there. I'm at Maria Bayer one. I have some free tools that I'm sure you can link in the show notes. I've got a free challenge that's called book a client challengecom. It's how to book a client in five days and it's designed to give you some like low hanging fruit and some immediate revenue in the door. So if, if you know, the inquiries have been slow, that's a really good place to start.
Speaker 2:And I've got a few other things. I've got a new quiz that I just released and it's called what's your celebrity persona for booking high-end clients. So I'll get. I'll share the link with you in the show notes as well. So those are some fun things, and the quiz was really designed to be something fun, but also to give you very targeted strategies for what you need to focus on to get to that next level and to to book those next level clients, because there's no shortage of things to do in our businesses and sometimes the challenge is just like what do I focus on next? So this helps uncover exactly like what piece needs to be worked on so that you can get to that next level quickly.
Speaker 1:Fun and productive. Yes, the best way to be. Yeah, absolutely, I love it. Well, maria, thank you so much. Um I I'm very excited because Maria is going to be coming into the success seller to expand more on this conversation. Dig in, you know this is very surface level.
Speaker 1:I feel right and so we're going to, we're going to deep dive when we go um, when we get together in person in the membership. So if anyone's interested in joining us, you can always reach out, Check out the show notes. Everything that Maria has mentioned is linked there so that you can connect with her. And when it comes to this subject, I'm like I'm the marketing side right, and so when we pair marketing and sales, I just feel like again, that's where the magic happens and then we can dig into what that experience looks like for the customer. So, Maria, thank you so much for being with us and for sharing all of this, so many good little nuggets here. I appreciate you. Thank you, Karen. I thank you.
Speaker 2:Thank you, karen. I thank you so much for inviting me. This has been so much fun and I can't wait to meet all of your new members and and dive into sales and and mindset. Yes, we are looking forward to it.
Speaker 1:Awesome.