Caitlin Cogan Doemner is the founder of Virtual Coaching Sales. She helps entrepreneurs and small business owners grow their business for greater profitability and social impact. She has helped dozens of entrepreneurs scale their revenues and operations into the multi-millions by building consistent sales processes that continuously deliver better qualified leads, more reliable year-round profit, and higher customer satisfaction with help from a salesforce admin so that they can enjoy the lifestyle that originally attracted them to start their own business.
Background
After studying philosophy from Oxford University, Caitlin thought she would not get a job with this degree and went on to complete her Master of Business Administration. After completing her MBA, she was sure of landing a job. She needed a job so she could pay off her student debt, which was around seventy thousand dollars. However, after a long job hunt, she was still unemployed and owed a large student debt. With no job opportunities and a debt to pay, Caitlin started thinking of ways to start her own business and earn money. She quickly realized that three years she spent learning business in class was very different from running your own business. The fact that she did not have a single class on sales throughout her MBA degree was unfortunate for her. To run any business, sales is a crucial part and Caitlin says she has never met a successful entrepreneur who has not mastered the art of selling. Back then, Caitlin had no idea how to become a better sales person. Over the years and with experience, she realized that as a sales person you should be able to sell your vision to people. If you can do that, you can sell your products and services as well. Mastering the art of selling becomes even more important if you are a life coach or a consultant. Always ask yourself how much can you ask someone to pay for yourself, for your time; can you get the results in time and in budget?
How did you make the transition and stepped into selling?
When Caitlin realized she lacked the essential sales skills, she hired a coach to improve her skills. She believed in her coach and did exactly what he told her to do. With his mentorship and training, Caitlin was able to sell two programs each of thousand dollars to family and friends. After this initial success, Caitlin realized she could become a good sales person and along with the help of her coach and support from her husband, she founded Virtual Coaching Sales, a virtual company that has helped small business owners grow their business for greater profit. Caitlin says sales is an act of love and service. You need to listen to people’s stories, find out what is not working for them, inspire them and suggest possible solutions.
How do you usually close a business deal?
Caitlin believes she is serving her clients in her business. She rarely thinks about the conversations with her clients from a business perspective. “I do not think about it as closing, I am serving and loving them” is what she says. She loves to help people in their problems, suggest possible solution. Caitlin thinks you will always end up doing business with clients who have been divinely appointed for you and you are meant to provide service to them. She thinks when we start understanding our client’s problems, closing a business deal become effortless.
Caitlin focuses on three areas in her work when making a conversation with a client.
- Focus on the goals and motivation of client. What the client wants and why he/she want it? For some people, their goals are making tons of money and it varies from person to person.
- Enquire about their challenges. What is stopping them from achieving their goals? In addition, what are the consequences they are facing for not being able to achieve their goals?
- Talk to them about the solution you propose to their problem and talk about your budget as well.
How do you motivate your clients to embrace their challenges and motivate them to take actions?
People who are in discomfort for long get used to it. Due to the continuity of pain, they start thinking it is normal. Caitlin thinks, as an expert it is her job to let her clients feel that their current situation is painful, undesirable and they deserve better. She believes only way to deal with these problems is talking about things that are the source of discomfort and pain. You cannot eliminate pain without activating it. We as human beings cannot look at our misery for long and tend to ignore our challenges and start living our lives with limitations. As an expert, the best gift you can give someone is help them acknowledge the pain and the suffering, what is holding them back from achieving their goals. Only after a person can acknowledge it, the problems can be fixed.
What is your mantra in life?
Caitlin recently came across the quote “I never lose, either I win or learn.” She has been meditating on this quote and she thinks this quote has helped her to explore new challenges and not set limitations for herself in her life. Caitlin believes that the perpetual fear in selling is rejection but if you take this rejection as a stepping-stone towards success, you will never fail, you will only learn.
How can we connect with you?
Her website’s URL is
http://www.virtualcoachingsales.com/home
A free version of her book ‘Sell with Heart’ is available on her website. The book is about the art of selling, principles of selling and about her story of how she came in this business.
You can also contact her through Facebook
Facebook Profile: https://www.facebook.com/Caitlin.doemner