Want More Sales? Simplify Your Online Marketing Strategy with Jen Casey

Courtney Elmer

Jen, welcome to the AntiFragile Entrepreneurship™ podcast. I’m so excited you’re here today, especially knowing what we’re about to dive into. I love talking about the psychology of sales, especially as it relates to online marketing strategy, and I know you do too! 

Jen Casey 

Thanks for having me. This is going to be such a powerful conversation!

Courtney Elmer  

Absolutely. Why don’t we start by having you tell our listeners what got you started coaching business owners to apply the psychology of sales to their online marketing strategies?

Jen Casey 

Yes! My name is Jen Casey, and I primarily work with digital entrepreneurs and coaches who want to build and sell online programs. I teach them how to apply the psychology of sales to their online marketing strategy so they can create transformational, world-class results for their clients. 

Back in 2011, I was working as a bartender and waitress in the midst of a musical theater career, and began to realize how much uncertainty there was in this line of work. I thought I’d get to perform and connect with people, but instead, I spent 90% of my time in audition groups. I saw a lot of my friends come back to the restaurant industry between shows to fill the gaps, and I knew I didn’t want to be a “TGI Fridays-Lifer.” 

So I signed up with a network marketing company and saw the potential of being able to create income online. I knew nothing about online marketing strategy or the psychology of sales at this point, and wasn’t afraid of hustling. But building this business was a lot harder than I thought. It was New Year's Eve 2015 when I had a huge AHA moment sitting at my computer at 9:30 at night, still trying to hit my end of the year goals. I called my fiance and he said, “What are you doing? We’re going to miss the ball drop!” I told him I needed more time, hung up, and then thought wow -- this is so stupid. 

At that moment I realized I’d been chasing goals that weren't mine. It was a huge turning point. So when I started business coaching,  I was focused solely on teaching online marketing strategy. I had a lot of fast success, but quickly realized that success in business wasn’t just about how slick your online marketing strategy was. That's when I began exploring the world of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) and looking deeper into the psychology of sales. I wanted to understand why some people struggled while others succeeded. In my group of 140 people, everyone was given the same online marketing strategy, the same program, the same coach. Some people were absolutely killing it, and others weren’t. I was frustrated with why there was such a disparity in the results and began my quest to learn more about the psychology of sales and incorporate it into my own online marketing strategy and programs, where I could teach people online marketing strategies based on their own unique learning style and personality type. 

More and more people are building businesses online and creating courses and programs, but unfortunately they’re struggling, because they’re trying to apply cookie-cutter online marketing strategies and because they don’t understand the psychology of sales, so they have a hard time making money.  

I used to think, if somebody has money objections, it's because they're not ready. But no: if somebody has money objections, there’s a good chance your messaging is not clear. In the online space there’s more competition than ever, but also a huge opportunity to set yourself apart by incorporating the psychology of sales into your online marketing strategy and messaging as well as your courses and programs. 

Courtney Elmer  

I'm sitting here nodding. The psychology of sales is fascinating, and when you begin to understand how we're wired as humans, you can tailor your online marketing strategy and messaging to help and serve your people better by meeting them where they’re at. I see this a lot working with students and clients who are frustrated that they're working as hard as they can and are doing all the things the experts are saying to do. But just because the experts say to do it, doesn’t mean it'll get you the results you want. So your mission is to help people understand the psychology of sales and apply that to their online marketing strategy, so they can come at it from a different angle and get different results, right?

Jen Casey

Exactly. And on the metaphysical, quantum-physics side of things anything that you're experiencing internally is being reflected externally. If people are giving you money objections, for example, it's usually because you probably haven't invested in yourself or you don't truly believe in the value in your course or program. It likely has nothing to do with your online marketing strategy, but with something in your vibration that is creating resistance. If you're not inwardly aligned with the external results you want, it creates an internal tug-of-war. 

Courtney Elmer

Yes. Stress doesn't come from the things that are happening in your external world. Stress shows up externally because of the things happening in your internal world. So when you can acknowledge that truth and start questioning: what in my internal world is causing me to feel this stress and overwhelm, that’s when things start to shift and real change can happen. You mentioned something called limiting beliefs. That term gets thrown around a lot, but not many entrepreneurs fully grasp what it means and how it’s such an integral (and under-utilized) part of the psychology of sales. Will you break that down for us? How do limiting beliefs play into the psychology of sales and impact the effectiveness of your online marketing strategy?

Jen Casey

Totally. This is a critical component of the psychology of sales but one that's not often talked about. My perspective is that all beliefs are limiting in some capacity. So the “belief” or the “block” that’s preventing you from achieving what you want is a thought that’s not in alignment with your highest desire. 

Let's use money objections as an example: if somebody has the thought, “I have $10,000 in my bank account,” we can agree that's a neutral thought. However, each individual person creates context around that thought. For one person, $10,000 in the bank could be a huge win for them. For another, maybe they had a multi-million dollar business and now all they have is $10,000 in their bank account. For this person, it could be a sign of financial ruin. The reality of the $10,000 hasn’t changed. But the context and the interpretation around it has changed. You can have a lot of fun when you begin to look at your own layers and interpretations of your thoughts, which in and of themselves are neutral.

Courtney Elmer 

So what you're saying is that before you change your online marketing strategy, you should change your beliefs. What were some of the biggest beliefs you shifted along your journey to break through to the next level?

Jen Casey 

There are a couple that jump out! The first was around confidence. I remember listening to an audio program that suggested that confidence was a habit. I’d always thought it was something you were born with or weren’t. That was a huge shift in thought for me. Another one was around money. When I was struggling to make money in my business and still bartending, I sold my first $3,000 coaching package. It felt unreal because it was something that I'd thought about and visualized for so long. I went for a walk and noticed a thought of “I have to figure out how to make money” and stopped and thought, “Wait, where’d that come from? No I don’t. I’m good right now. I have it figured out.” But surprisingly, it wasn't because I'd mastered the psychology of sales or had some secret online marketing strategy I was using, but because I'd been working on my own beliefs.

Many people think if they have limiting beliefs, they won’t have success. Not true. All success is state-dependent. Through the lens of NLP, which is largely what I base my psychology of sales coaching on, is that you’re given information through your five senses. You filter that information through your beliefs, your values, your identity, and the thoughts you create your interpretations about. From there, you enter into an emotional state that you create from each thought or belief. All success is state-dependent, so the most successful people are masters of managing their states. Think about it when you're depressed, powerless, or angry. Everything seems like a problem. You can't solve problems in a negative emotional state. The people who we see struggling the most are the ones that have not yet figured out how to manage their inward state. The successful ones look at problems and say, “ok, how do we solve this?” The struggling ones say, “omg, why is this happening?”

Courtney Elmer  

This is powerful. You listening to this write that down: All Success is State-Dependent. I love how you talk about the non-traditional side of the psychology of sales. Not about people’s buying habits, but about the behavior that drives those buying habits. The interpretations they’re creating and the lens through which they’re seeing the world, which drives their actions and determines their results. This is something we’re not taught in school: how to manage your emotional state. So instead of throwing your online marketing strategy out the window thinking it doesn’t work, you can look at how you’re interpreting your results and approach it from a responsive -- rather than reactive -- place. You can learn how to tune in and recognize your emotions as guideposts to point you in a direction. Would you say the psychology of sales is less about predicting the other persons' behaviors, but more about becoming a master of your own behaviors?

Jen Casey

Yes! As an entrepreneur, you're often doing things you’ve never done before. Your brain is wired for survival, so it is always working to protect you from the unknown and make sense of things contextually. But when you know this is how you’re naturally wired, you can choose to operate outside of your natural wiring, which is where you’ll find real success. It all starts with awareness. 

One tool I’d love to share here is the Emotional Guidance Scale from Abraham Hicks (you can Google this to see the visual image). Using this scale, you can use your emotions as your guide to get you out of situations where you feel frustrated, or stuck, or discouraged, say because your online marketing strategy doesn’t seem to be working for example. Using the Emotional Guidance scale, you can identify your state in any given moment and move beyond it. You can use this tool to check in and feel where you are on a daily basis, and begin to notice your emotional setpoint. When you realize that you can change your emotional setpoint, that it’s not locked into place, you’re free. So, success doesn't ride on having a killer online marketing strategy or knowing all the ins and outs of the psychology of sales. It's about mastering these traits of an entrepreneur you need to succeed -- becoming a master of your internal state.

Every emotion you experience is for a reason. Emotions aren’t bad because they’re ‘negative’ or good because they’re ‘positive.’ They’re just information. When you see them as such, you're in power because you can explore and ask why am I feeling this way? The Emotional Guidance scale is exactly what it says, a guide to point you away from what you don’t want and toward the direction you want to go. Too often people avoid feeling. Give yourself the permission to let it be a little messy. Let it be a little ugly. This is a beautiful moment in time for us all to step deeper into healing.

Courtney Elmer 

YES. To simply ask “Why? Why is this coming up for me? Why is this even a thing for me?” What you learn about yourself will be so insightful… but you have to give yourself permission to be aware, to notice what might come up, and to seek solutions that bring about ultimate healing. 

Jen Casey

When you don’t take the time to learn this stuff and master the psychology of sales inwardly, then you'll have a hard time applying the psychology of sales outwardly. You'll risk making the mistake of looking at the external reasons for why you're not getting the results you want, rather than the internal reasons. You might think it's because you don't have a big enough audience, or your online marketing strategy isn't working, but hopefully listening to this you're beginning to realize that mastering the psychology of sales first starts with breaking your own subconscious habits of thought. This inner work of processing, extracting, and learning the lessons is the foundation on which this next level expansion is being built. You can't skip this process.

Courtney Elmer

Yes, that's where the real work is: the inner work. It's the only work that matters. I tell my clients: stop wasting time perfecting your Instagram captions and tinkering with your online marketing strategy. You can always find things to keep you busy, but that's not what moves the needle because busy-ness is merely a coping mechanism to avoid pain. I hope you listening to us right now are understanding and appreciating the depth and power of what we're talking about here. It's the psychology of sales from a personal perspective, because it starts with you. Success isn’t just about figuring out more efficient ways to do things or finding more time on your calendar. It’s not about having the perfect offer or a huge audience and following. It's not about knowing the best online marketing strategy or every aspect of the psychology of sales. It’s about how willing you are to master the way you think about business so you can unlock your full potential. Jen, one of the cool resources you have is “12 of the Most Common Limiting Beliefs” and since we touched on this, will you share more about this as a starting point for our listeners so they can start to identify what some of these common beliefs are? 

Jen Casey 

Yes! So when I talk about brain-based coaching techniques and the psychology of sales, this is a helpful tool. You can use this for yourself, in your online marketing strategy, in your emails and social media captions, and with your coaching clients and customers. For example, maybe you’re a coach and have a client who says, “I feel confused about XYZ.” When you hear this, you can challenge that belief to open them up to a different perspective. Inside this resource I’ll show you what the most common beliefs are, and the exact thing to say to see new possibilities.

Courtney Elmer

This is all so powerful Jen. We’ll definitely have to get you back on the show because when it comes to the psychology of sales and knowing how to apply it to your online marketing strategy, this is the foundation. You can't get to the practical, how-to execution steps until you take the time to understand this first. I hope you listening have had some big takeaways already, and next time we can go even deeper into the online marketing strategy side. Before we wrap up, I want to ask: Jen, what’s your definition of success? 

Jen Casey

My definition of success is moving towards or having the things that I desire most from a place of alignment. To me, success is fulfillment and alignment -- that’s everything. 

Courtney Elmer 

Awesome Jen. Where can our listeners find you online?

Jen Casey 

I’m on Instagram and Facebook @HeyJenCasey I also have a show called the Inner Boss Podcast.

Courtney Elmer

This was an awesome and valuable conversation, Jen. I appreciate you sharing your wisdom with us on the AntiFragile Entrepreneurship™ podcast!