In this quick tip episode of Art of Online Business, I want to continue our series where I invite one of my Accelerator Coaching members onto the show to teach you something that can really help you in your business.

In this episode, I sat down with Kendra Perry to talk about how to ethically sell in your DMs. Kendra has found a lot of success in selling her online programs through direct messages and she’s sharing her top tips today.

Some people do this in a way that is spammy and not in alignment with most people’s values. However, the way Kendra does it is really ethically sound and within her values, and she does such a good job with it.

So in this episode, she’s sharing how she generates organic leads from the following she already has and some of the scripts that she uses when DMing people to talk to them and learn more about them.

Kendra is a former multiple 6-figure Functional Health Practitioner turned online business mentor for Wellness Coaches and Practitioners. She is on a mission to help coaches go from broke AF to having highly profitable and fulfilling virtual practices.
She is the creator of Health Coach Accelerator™ which helps coaches and practitioners making under 5K/month online to DOUBLE or TRIPLE their income in 180-days or less.

Kendra has been featured in Arianna Huffington’s Thrive Global, CEO Blog Nation and Authority Magazine for her expertise in sales.

When she isn’t getting fired up about business & marketing, you will find her indulging in her love of skiing, mountain biking and camping in the remote mountains of beautiful British Columbia, Canada.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• Why DM selling is so powerful
• The biggest mistake coaches make when engaging in DMs conversations
• The energy you need to go into the conversation with
• A script to use for new followers
• Tips for reaching out to people who like your posts
• How to reach out to people who comment on your posts
• How to move into the sales conversation
• The importance of tracking your leads and following up

Links & Resources:

• The Art of Online Business website
• DM me on Instagram
• Visit my YouTube channel
• The Art of Online Business clips on YouTube
• Full episodes of The Art of Online Business Podcast on YouTube
• The Art of Online Business Podcast website
• Check out my Accelerator coaching program

Kendra Perrry’s Links:

• Visit Kendra’s website
• Check out Kendra’s podcast
• Follow Kendra on Instagram
• Follow Kendra on YouTube
• Follow Kendra on Facebook
• Connect with Kendra on LinkedIn

*Disclosure: I only recommend products I use and love and all opinions expressed here are my own. This post may contain affiliate links that at no additional cost to you, I may earn a small commission.

Please support the podcast by giving an honest Rating/Review for the show on iTunes!

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Trust is by far the biggest determinant of whether someone will invest in you or not. And if the trust isn’t there, it really doesn’t matter that your course is well priced or it’s super valuable or it’s amazing they’re just not going to buy it, period. So this trust piece is so important. 

All right. Welcome to today’s episode of The Art of On my Business podcast, My friend Rick Moretti here. And today’s A quick Tip episode. And what I want to do on today’s Quick tip is continue our series where I invite one of my accelerator coaching members onto the podcast here and teach you something. Teach you something that can really help you in your business right now for the next 15 or 20 minutes here on the podcast and going to be sharing with you here today.

Her name is Kendra Perry, and she’s going to be talking about how to ethically sell in the DMS in the direct messages. Kendra has been really successful selling her online programs via direct message, and I think there’s a really kind of smarmy kind of way. Is that a word smarmy? There’s a crappy way to sell in the DMS where you’re just like spamming people, like cold outreach. And I just think that not in alignment with that, but the way that Kendra does it, I feel, is really, really ethically sound and she does it within her values and she does a really, really good job with it. 

And so I asked her to come on to the podcast and teach you how she ethically sells her online programs in the DMS. And she’s also included. Some of the scripts that she uses when she’s DMing people to talk to them and learn more about them. And then eventually, if it makes sense, to offer her program. Now, Kendra helps health coaches and practitioners grow their income double or triple their income and about 180 days or less. So she helps health practitioners.

Health coaches really expand their business because so many people in the health coaching space are really struggling to get their business, you know, their online business off the ground and really thriving so that they can help more people. And Kendra helps them do that. You can go to Kendra Perry, dot net, Kendra, Kendra, p, e, r, y, dot net to learn more about Kendra. If you are in that space, you want to get help from Kendra. Otherwise, she’s going to right now share with you how to ethically sell in the DMS along with the scripts that she uses really successfully. 

Hey there, I’m Kendra Perry and I am so pumped to be able to hang out with you today on this episode of The Art of Online Business podcast. I’ve actually been listening to this podcast since I first started my business in 2015, so I’m pretty pumped. I’m pretty excited to be here and we’re going to be diving into one of my very favorite topics, which is sales. And more specifically, I’m going to teach you how to leverage your direct messages to enroll more clients into your programs.

And personally, I actually think this is a fairly untapped strategy, and I also think it is so powerful when you’re someone who has a smaller following like me, or maybe someone who doesn’t have a huge budget for advertising. And the core foundation of what engaging in the DMS does is it helps you build relationships and having a true and authentic relationship with someone, in my opinion, is way more powerful than any automated funnel strategy. Just my $0.02. So everything I’m going to teach you today is going to work on any social media platform that has a direct message feature. So for example, it’ll work on Instagram, Facebook or LinkedIn and maybe even Tok, because I think they have a direct message feature there as well, but I’m not sure about that. Anyways. So before we get started, I’d like to introduce myself a little bit more.

My name is Kendra Perry and I’m a business mentor for health and wellness coaches and practitioners, and I actually started my business as a health coach in 2014, built that to multiple six figures with purely organic marketing, and then I transitioned to business mentorship in 2019.

But still to this day, 95% of my sales come from organic marketing. And the DMS strategy I’m going to teach you today has really been paramount in helping me do that. And so don’t worry, I’m not going to tell you to start cold DMing and spamming your followers. That’s not my jam. But personally, I think we need to focus more on the people we already have in our world. There is so much tunnel vision on growing an audience and finding more and more and more rather than spending time on engaging with the people we already have. So I often have my students say, Well, Kendra, I only have 2000 Instagram followers, in which case I respond, That’s 2000 opportunities to start a conversation and build a relationship, right? So why is direct message selling so powerful?

So like I mentioned before, it allows you to cultivate a deep and authentic relationship with your audience. And truly, this is what people are craving. Am I right? And what I’ve learned about relationships and also marketing and sales is that when it comes down to it, all humans really want is to feel seen, heard and understood. Really, it’s that simple. And when people feel this way, they trust you, right? And trust is by far the biggest determinant of whether someone will invest in you or not. 

And if the trust isn’t there, it really doesn’t matter that your course is well priced or it’s super valuable or it’s amazing they’re just not going to buy it, period. So this trust piece is so important. So what authentic team conversations do is they build intimacy and they build connection. And this allows you to go deep with individuals. It allows you to learn about their struggles, their challenges, help them feel seen, help them feel heard, and help them feel understood, which allows you to genuinely offer your course or program as 

a solution to their problem. Now, when it comes to the DMS, a lot of coaches and course creators actually screw it up. And the biggest mistake that I see coaches making is that they misunderstand the purpose of starting a DM conversation with a follower. So they use DMS to give away free tips for information free coaching, and that’s not the point. Giving away everything for free just doesn’t lead to the sale.

The only purpose of engaging with someone in a direct message conversation is to a enroll them into your program or to get them on a sales call so that you can enroll them into your program. And I don’t mean this in a sleazy way, because I truly believe that selling is serving, and the only way to serve someone and initiate their transformation is with the transaction or to enroll them into your program. 

But this also means that we respect people when they say no. And we recognize when someone is either not the right fit or they’re not ready for a program. So remember, the purpose of DMN conversations is to sell and not to create a space for free coaching and for information, because information does not equal transformation and we are here to transform. Now when it comes to any kind of selling. So not just direct message selling, but all selling energy matters, the energy that we go into a conversation with will always be felt on the other end. In my opinion, the energy we go into the conversation with will affect the outcome. So if we go in with desperate energy because we feel like we need to make a sale like right now, this probably isn’t going to work for you. And if you go in with really determined energy, you may actually enroll someone in your program who isn’t the right fit because you’re so determined to make the sale.

This is why, in my opinion, detachment work is really important for selling. It’s important to detach from the outcome and go in with the energy of curiosity. You are just curious to learn about the individual, their challenges, and if you could support them further inside your coach, inside your course or your program. That’s it. Sometimes a really short clearing meditation can be helpful prior to DM engagement, and really you just want to remember to be curious and have fun, right? Because we’re here to have fun. 

You should enjoy it. So have a good time while you’re doing it. All right. So let’s talk about three different magic conversation starters that you can use to obviously initiate the conversation and start to build these powerful relationships. The first one I call the new follower script, kind of just like it sounds. And I believe it’s important to welcome all new followers to your account. Now, obviously this gets trickier if you have a huge following and you get boatloads of people following you each and every day, so you can either just welcome a portion of it or you could even outsource this to your team, which I’m going to talk about a little bit later in this training.

Now, I’m not a big fan of those automated messages that you can clearly tell didn’t come from a human. I think that instantly breaks trust with your audience. So, yes, this is going to take a little bit more manual work. But again, you can create templates in a notes app and simply copy and paste adding in their name. Or again, you can push this on to a team member. So when someone follows me, I like to reach out and I just say something like, Hey Lisa, I just noticed you followed me and I wanted to reach out like a human being and introduce myself. 

I’m Kendra, online business mentor for coaches and practitioners. Just out of curiosity, how did you come across my profile? So hopefully you can hear how very non aggressive that is and how very much disarming it is for your followers. First, I clearly state that I’m a coach and I tell them who I help. I don’t pretend to just be a regular person. That’s where this can feel really gross and sleazy. So I’m very transparent with who I am. And then I ask them a very simple and easy to answer question. I don’t ask them to share their deep, dark information with them. I just ask them, How did you come across my profile? So it’s easy for them to answer. Plus, if they do answer you, it gives you some really valuable information.

This is how I learn where my followers are coming from, and it helps me learn more of what’s working for me and what I should do more on. So from there, where do you go next? So you’ve introduced them and maybe they respond, Well, what’s next? So I’m actually going to be discussing that shortly. So hold tight. But I want to give you two more ways to start the conversation in direct message. Number two, I simply call the like your post script. So the next we can start a conversation is to reach out to anyone who liked your post.

And I know it doesn’t take much time to hit the like button, but still someone thought your post was good enough to give it a tap. And and that’s something in my opinion. So again, of course, maybe you’re not going to do this for everyone because maybe you’re getting dozens or hundreds of people liking your post. But again, you can always just pick out a couple or outsource this to your team. And so when this happens, I will say something very similar. Hey, Lisa, I saw that you liked my recent post on blood thyroid tests and I wanted to reach out like a human being and introduced myself.

I’m Kendra, online business mentor for coaches and practitioners. Just out of curiosity, how did you come across my profile? Again, very similar to the first script. The only difference is we are welcoming, welcoming them in on a like versus a follow. And again, simple disarming. And it’s coming from that genuine energy of curiosity. Now, the third one is simple, and this is where you reach out based on a comment. Right? And I really think you should reach out to as many people as possible who’ve commented on your post and preferably the more thoughtful comments versus the ones that just say nice post. So inspiring, right? Commenting takes time and effort, right? Way more than a like or even a follow. So in my opinion, you should engage with as many of these people as possible because they have taken time out of their day to comment on your post. 

And again, the script is similar. Hey, Lisa, I wanted to thank you for your comment on my recent post on Thyroid Labs. I wanted to reach out like a human being and introduce myself. Kendra Online business mentor for coaches and Practitioner. Just out of curiosity, did my response help or did you need further clarification? Because I’m always going to respond to their comment on my post, and especially if it’s a question I’m going to answer it. And so this just gives me an opportunity to reach out and be more helpful, serve them further and ask them do they need more support, Do they need further clarification? So these are three different ways that you can start the conversation with your followers.

And even if somebody followed you, like way back in the day, you can do the new follower script even with old followers, because maybe you haven’t really been engaging with them up until this point. It’s actually a really great way to engage an old follower and maybe someone who is less active on your account. And this is so powerful for people who don’t have a ton of followers, and this is how I help my students get to 10,000 a month without ads and with super small followings. I’ve made so many of my sales this way I don’t even have 10,000 followers on Instagram. 

So it truly works if you’re up for it and if you have the right energy going into it. So now you have started the conversation. What’s next? Now the goal from here is to learn about them, to find out where they are the most challenged and where they want to go, and then if you can help them. So after you’ve had that initial conversation, the best way to break the ice and move into that sales conversation is to use the following very simple script. So I’m going to continue to use Lisa as an example, who has thyroid issues. And I would say something like Lisa, just out of curiosity, when it comes to your thyroid issues, what have you found the most challenging? So hopefully you can see that when you’re starting a conversation with the script, just out of curiosity that doesn’t feel aggressive or pushy, it really just shows that you were genuinely curious about their experience. And here, if they’re up for the conversation, they are going to tell you about their struggles.

Right? And the goal after this point, after they’ve shared whatever it is they’re struggling with, you want to make sure that you respond with empathy, right? Because empathy helps them feel seen and it also helps them feel safe. And so you want to go deeper and learn even more. So first, you want to validate with empathy, and then you want to dig deeper so you can say something like, Well, you’re definitely not alone in that. 

That is one of the most common things that my clients struggle with. And actually, I had a similar challenge with that too. And so I’m interested. What have you tried so far to fix it? Or what other programs have you taken to try to change this? Or what have you tried to solve this so far? Something like that. And what this is going to do is it’s going to help you uncover all the things they have tried so far and establish if you think your program could fit into their journey. So they’re going to tell you about all the things they’ve tried. And 

next, the goal is to ask them about their goals or desires. And so you could say something like, Och, I can totally see why this has been such a challenge to figure out. I’m curious, what’s your goal with your thyroid or what’s your goal with your business or what’s your goal with whatever? What would you like to be experiencing instead? Because typically, up until this point they’ve told you all the things that are going wrong and that’s help you uncover. Do they have the problem that I can help with? And next to you want to see do their goals align with my program? And after this, you should have most of the information you need to determine if you can help. 

So the next step is the invitation. And you could just say something like, Thank you for being so open about that with me. If your goal is to resolve your thyroid issues and get off your meds, that is exactly what I help my clients with inside my 90 day program, The Thyroid Reset Blueprint. I have a page that details my exact process. I’m not sure if it’s for you, but would you like me to tell you more about this? So the powerful words in this script are I’m not sure it’s for you because it shows you that you aren’t just assuming that you know what they need or want, because that’s where sales can be a bit pushy or a bit icky or where people might put their walls up.

So you’re being really clear, I’m not sure, but maybe it is. And then finally, you always ask for their permission at the end to talk about your offer. And if they say yes, then you have their permission to pitch. How exciting is that? Right? So at this point in the conversation, I like to use the voice message feature. They have that on Facebook and Instagram, not 100 per share about LinkedIn, but you can use the voice message and you can go over your program, what it is, who it’s for and what it will help them achieve, and any of the important details. So if you use a sales call, the next step would be to invite them on to a call.

Hey, Lisa, I’d love to learn more about you and your journey with low thyroid and see if I can support you in any way. Are you free on Wednesday at 3 p.m. or 4 p.m. Pacific? Right? Something like that. Or you could send them to an application with this step. Me personally, I actually sell directly from a sales page. So what I do is I send them to the sales page and then I follow up usually within a day or so to check to see what questions they have. And then we kind of go from there. So my biggest tip with conversations is to keep track of your leads. And yes, this is a bit of work, but this will help people not slip through the cracks because oftentimes people might not be ready now, but they could be ready in the future.

And sometimes conversations just need a pause or they need a bit of space, or sometimes someone will tell you that they aren’t ready now, but they will be in two months, or they just want to wait about one thing. Or maybe they need to finish this thing first. And I always make sure to set a reminder to follow up with them within that time frame just to see where they’re at. And the follow up process of sales and conversations is so important. So there is some research out there that says, on average, people need five follow ups before they’re ready to say yes. 

And most coaches probably give up after the first or second follow up. I know that I did when I was running my business. So the follow up process is really important. So even if someone says, you know, I’ve got this one thing going on for the next six months, but then I’m going to consider it, I will literally set an alarm or a notification for six months from now or five months from now, and I will follow up with that person and check in. You’ll be amazed by how surprised people are in a good way that you remember them and you kept track of them and that you care about them. Right? So I actually track this all within a soundboard.

I keep track of everything I can set myself. Notifications. You could use something like Trello, an Excel sheet, whatever works for you, but I definitely recommend that you keep track of it because you’re going to get a lot of people who are almost ready, but not quite, and you want to make sure those people don’t slip through the cracks. Now finally, you don’t need to be the one to do all of this. You can train your team members with these scripts to either help you with the DM engagement or potentially to do it all for you. Now it’s up to you. But personally I like to be really transparent. 

So when I have a team member engaging under my account, I make it super clear that that person is engaging with my team member and not me directly. They would go through the exact same process of starting the conversation with one of those conversation starter scripts and then directing the conversation towards the sale. You can also do a hybrid version of this where maybe you start the conversation, but then your team jumps in when it’s time to explain the program or even reverse that, where your team starts the conversation and you jump in at the end to pitch the program. Personally, I like to jump in at the end because I will always sell my program better than any of my team members, in my opinion. All right, my friend, I hope this helps you make more organic sales with all those beautiful followers that you already have. This was super fun and I hope you found this episode valuable. If you want to connect with me, you can check out my podcast. It’s called The Wealthy Coach, or you can connect with me on social media. My handle is at Kendra Perry Inc, that’s at Canterbury, NC on YouTube, Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook and make sure to shoot me a dash. And let’s have a conversation. Bye, everyone. And thank you so much to Rick for hosting me. This has been amazing. I hope you have a great day. 

All right. Hope you got a ton out of that lesson here from Kendra Perry. Hey, if you would like the opportunity to come on to the podcast here and potentially teach something that you are an expert in, well, you got to be in my accelerator coaching program to even be considered to do that. If you are an established online course creator, maybe you’ve got a membership or you’re a coach and you’d like my help in helping you grow and scale your online business, take things to the next level your team, your your marketing, your systems and processes, your leadership as a CEO. Then head on over to Rick Mull Radio.com for Slash Accelerator.

It’s a short application because it’s application only, and I’d love to review if we might be a good fit to work together. So thank you as always, my friend, for tuning in today and listening. Appreciate you. Until next time, be well and we’ll chat with you soon.