How to Sell Effectively in your Live Videos

What You’ll Learn

• How to overcome imposter syndrome
• Chris’s first ever live experience
• More about the ‘old’ way of selling
• How to get the best return on the time and energy you put into your lives
• The biggest challenge live streamers face today
• Why we find selling so hard
• Some tips for becoming confident with selling
• How to sell naturally
• How to deal with a situation where nobody’s buying when you’re selling

About Chris

Chris is a serial entrepreneur and author of the bestselling books Virtual Freedom, and more recently, Rise of the Youpreneur.

Based in Cambridge, England, he owns and operates several businesses that, combined, house over 350 full-time employees around the world.

He’s also a trusted business coach, keynote speaker, podcaster and the founder of Youpreneur.com, an education company that coaches entrepreneurs from all walks of life to build a profitable, future-proof business around their experience and expertise.

Chris hosts the annual Youpreneur Summit, which is held in London each November and is the self-proclaimed ‘Proudest Brit’ doing business online!

The Danger of Imposter Syndrome

Imposter syndrome is something that we’ve talked about before on the show but it’s such an important thing to talk about as so many of us struggle with it.

In fact, it’s imposter syndrome that’s held me back from asking some of the big names, like Chris, onto this very show until now!

Chris works with many of his coaching clients on overcoming imposter syndrome.

“We’re pretty disconnected from reality a lot of the time. It’s easy to look at social media and think, ‘Why can’t I do that? Why can’t I be speaking on that stage? Why don’t I have that?’ The fact of the matter is you should never compare someone’s 8th step with your 2nd step. We’re all at different stages.”

Chris’s First-Ever Live Experience

Chris clearly remembers the first live he watched and his first broadcast, both on the Periscope app.

Periscope came out around March 2015 and Chris was in Vegas doing a presentation at an event there. The first live he watched was someone literally holding their phone showing a green ceramic elephant and all sorts of eclectic ornaments in their room.

“It was very bizarre. I watched that stream way too long expecting something great to happen and it didn’t! But it got me thinking how I could use this to show up for my people.”

That very evening, Chris had been invited by one of the event sponsors on a helicopter ride over Las Vegas and he decided to stream the experience. He remembers seeing all the colourful hearts popping up on the screen and he was hooked!

Throughout the course of 2015, he built up a strong following on Periscope and was getting upwards of 500 people showing up on each broadcast. He even launched his Youpreneur membership academy on Periscope and most of his initial membership base had found out about Chris and his membership on the app.

The ‘Old’ Way of Selling

Chris remembers a big launch for a company in 2011.

“It was very much a, ‘This is my mansion. This is my Ferrari’ type of approach and this just doesn’t work any more.

Online consumer behaviour in the business education space particularly, has changed. People have started to wise up to statements like, ‘I have a 7 figure business’ and don’t take them at face value. You might make 7 figures in revenue but if you’re spending £700,000 in Facebook ads to bring in a million in sales, so how much money are you actually left with at the end of the day after all your expenses?”

How Can We Get the Best Return on the Time and Energy We Put Into Our Live Video?

Just like any other type of medium, you have to be as strategic as possible to have short and long term returns.

“Live video isn’t going anywhere but that will bring a certain amount of junk along with it. Those who do prepare for their shows, research their guests and are strategic will be the ones who’ll be the most successful.

Preparation and strategising will become even more important for those who want to see results with their live videos.”

Chris advises thinking about how you can get the most mileage out of your live streams as well.

“Plan to go live for ten minutes and commit to not saying, ‘For those of you watching live’ or ‘If you’re watching’ the replay’, so then you can take this live and repurpose it for other platforms.”

The Biggest Challenge Live Streamers Face Today

For Chris, it’s purely and simply… fear.

“One tiny little word that spoils so much for so many people. People use the technology as an excuse because you can go live fairly simply nowadays on any platform.

People are scared of stumbling over their words, of looking ‘funny’ on camera and of asking people to take action in their lives but if you’re good at what you do, if you have expertise and stories to share you should be going live.”

The most important thing is to ask for the sale, ask for the action, but if you don’t ask for it, you’ll fail every time. There will always be 20% of your audience that want to go further with you. And of that 20% there’ll always be another 5% who want to go even further with you.”

Why Do We Find Selling So Hard?

Chris believes that rejection is the big one.

“I know it’s easy for me to sit here and give out that advice to someone because I’ve been selling since I was 17. I’m a very confident guy and I know that if I have something of value that will answer questions and solve problems for people in my community, I know I’m going to sell it because I know my community.”

Chris urges us to listen to our prospects/listeners/subscribers/readers. They will tell you what they need help with, what challenges they have and it’s up to you to help them with that. He believes if you do that well, you’ll make a sale and it really is as simple as that.

Top Tips to Becoming Confident With Selling

A lot depends on whether you’re going on your live specifically and only to sell or whether you’re going live to give some value and then sell at the end.

Chris is a big believer of letting people know what’s coming their way. Like on a webinar where traditionally you tell people that you’re going to offer something at the end.

“Don’t be afraid of being upfront. If you’re upfront, those people who become genuinely interested in what you’re talking about, they’ll be waiting for the special offer. You’ve hooked them and their buying decision has been made easier to make.

At the same time, if people know something’s coming and they know they’re not interested, they’re going to disappear anyway. So it makes your conversion rates so much better if only the people who stick around to the very end are the ones who are genuinely interested.”

How to Sell Naturally?

You should always sell in a way that feels natural to you and in a way that fits with your personality.

“We want people to buy from us because they trust and like us. The aim is to become someone’s favourite so they want to buy from you rather than all the other people who are perhaps offering the same thing.”

Chris encourages us to lean into our uniqueness, we all show up and sell in a unique way and that’s a good thing. You’ll repel the people who you’re not supposed to work with and attract the ones you are.

Always remember why you’re selling,.  Of course, to make money, and we shouldn’t be apologetic about that, but it’s also to help people!

What to Do When You’re Selling… but Nobody’s Buying

Chris’s advice is simple.

“Dust yourself off and get back to work.”

He also suggests asking your audience why they didn’t buy. Get in touch and see if they can offer any reasons and make it clear that you’ll be grateful for their feedback. It could be something as simple as the headline or button colour on your landing page!

Don’t be clouded by everyone’s success online too because there are plenty of failures there too.

In 2012 Chris launched Your Web PA which, in his own words, was a complete bomb, Chris lost £60,000 and five months of his life on that deal but he hadn’t dusted himself off and got back to work, he wouldn’t have launched Youpreneur and had the success he’s had with that.