The EntreMD Podcast

Revenue Boost Series: Why you are ashamed of selling

• Dr. Una • Episode 442

Share episode

Send us a text

👉 Ready for the next step? Book a call: https://program.www.entremd.com/call 

Are you ashamed of selling or promoting your services?

You’re not alone. As a doctor, I used to feel the same way. It felt unprofessional and manipulative. 

But one day, I realized something that changed everything: selling isn’t about me. It’s about the people I’m here to serve. I was letting my discomfort keep me from helping those who needed me the most, and in doing so, I was actively sabotaging my business.

In this week’s podcast, I dive deep into how I shifted my mindset and went from being terrified of selling to embracing it as a key part of my mission. I’ll share the exact steps I took to overcome the shame, fear, and misgivings that held me back—and how you can too.

If the mere thought of selling makes you cringe, this episode is for you. 

Tune in! 


—

Key Takeaways: 

  • 00:00 Intro 
  • 00:41 Your ethical responsibility of selling
  • 08:02 Why are we ashamed of selling? 
  • 13:53 How to become good at selling
  • 17:42 Your service won’t sell itself
  • 21:37 Outro 

Additional Resources:


When you are ready to work with us, here are three ways:

  • EntreMD Business School Accelerator - If you are looking to make a 180 turnaround in your business in 90 days, this is the program for you.
  • EntreMD Business School Grow - This is our year-long program with a track record of producing physician entrepreneurs who are building 6, 7 and 7+ figure businesses. They do this while building their dream lives!
  • EntreMD Business School Scale - This is our high-level mastermind for physicians who have crossed the seven figure milestone and want to build their businesses to be well oiled machines that can run without them.

To get on a call with my team to determine your next best step, go here ...

Speaker 1:

One of the places I see doctors struggle the most in their businesses is with this wonderful thing called sales. They're like I don't want to sell, I don't want to promote myself. It sounds icky, it feels like I'm manipulating people and all of that. And on this episode I am going to show you how to overcome the shame, the fear, the misgivings that you have about all things sales. Hi docs, welcome to the EntreMD podcast, where it's all about helping amazing physicians just like you embrace entrepreneurship so you can have the freedom to live life and practice medicine on your terms. I'm your host, dr Una. I am a physician, like you are, and when I started off as an entrepreneur, I could not bring myself to tell people to work with me. I could not bring myself to sell anything of any kind because for me I felt I'm a professional, professionals don't do that, and I was very introverted, I was afraid and had all of these things going on. But now I have a very different relationship with selling. I want to share that with you and by the time we are done with this, you will be ready to go out and tell people about what you do. You may still have a little nerves here and there, which is normal, but you'll be in a position to go do that and you will do it until you become so comfortable with it and you see it as a gift, as opposed to you bothering people, okay. So, first of all, why would we even do this? Why would I come to talk to you on a whole podcast episode about this? Because this is everything in your business. So think about it this way Okay, boy meets girl, boy likes girl. Okay, boy likes girl and boy takes girl out on dates and they even go to Venice for a vacation and all of these things and girls know like and trust factor has grown. Girl is almost even envisioning, you know, marrying this person, aka working with this person, but boy is too shy, too insecure, too scared of rejection to ask the question what do you think girl is doing? Girl is literally like when is he going to ask.

Speaker 1:

I want you to think about people who love your work. They followed you. Maybe they've heard about you from friends, or they follow you on social media, or they listen to your podcast, follow your YouTube channel, read your book like, read your blog, whatever that is. Met you at an event, absolutely love you. I want you to think about this. There are many of them that have a problem in their lives that your business will get rid of. They have a problem that your business will make go away. They've watched you for a while. They know you, they like you, they trust you. They're literally going. Will this person ask me? They're literally wondering is this person so busy that they won't want to work with me, that they won't have the capacity to work with me? Does this person work with people like me? They are thinking it. They are waiting, they are begging, they are wishing that you will ask the question will you work with me? There are people who are wishing that you would make them an offer. They're wishing that you would sell them something. They're wishing you would invite them to work with you. They're wishing you invite them to come be a part of their private practice. There are referral sources that are wishing you would tell them you can send all your people to me. So here's the deal. There are people waiting.

Speaker 1:

That's the first reason why we're talking about this. The second reason we're talking about this is because there are people who don't even know that you do what you do and they have a problem that your business solves and it is a problem, which means it's causing pain, maybe it's causing distress, maybe it's causing depression, maybe it's causing so much sadness, so much friction in their lives. Your business can solve that. Your business solves a problem, right? Whether you're a private practice owner, a coach, a speaker, a consultant, doesn't matter. You have a product. Your business solves a problem. This is the second reason why, if you are going to create a good service or a product, it is your ethical obligation to tell people about it, right? So you can solve this problem. And then the third is if boy doesn't ask girl, girl doesn't say yes. If girl doesn't say yes, boy doesn't have a wife.

Speaker 1:

Okay, here's the deal If you don't ask, you don't get clients, you don't get patients. If you don't get clients and you don't get patients, you are not bringing dollars in. If you do not bring dollars in, you will have to shut your business down and 80% of businesses in the first five years will go out of business. A huge reason why that happens is cashflow problems. Now am I saying that for you to say, oh my goodness, this is scary? No, a thousand times no. I'm telling you this because I don't want you to be a statistic, and it doesn't matter. You may have a business that is already doing millions in revenue. Guess what you're going to need to continue to do millions in revenue. Guess what you're going to need to grow. Guess what you're going to need for stability. Sales it is the bloodline, it is the lifeline of your business. It just is Okay. And so imagine bringing yourself to a position where you get rid of all the ickiness and yuckiness around selling and you see it as what it is. So I'll give you an example.

Speaker 1:

What I do in EntreeMD, in this specific company, is that I help doctors build profitable businesses so that they have the freedom to live life and practice medicine on their terms. These are profitable seven or multiple seven figure businesses. This is what I do. This is an amazing business. We have had it for the last six years. We have helped so many doctors absolutely transform their lives. At the time of this recording, a number of the doctors are doing their Q3 review, kind of looking back at the third quarter of the year, all the things that have happened, the number of people who said this is my highest revenue quarter ever in my business, and some of these businesses have been around for 10 years, seven years. Some of these businesses have been around for three years. Some of them, this is their first year in business, but they think this is my highest revenue grossing quarter for ever, ever in the history of my business. And I got to take three weeks off with my family and I've been exercising daily for X number of weeks, and so they're building their dream lives and they're building their dream businesses at the same time. That's what is happening within the school.

Speaker 1:

Now, on the other side, there are people who are like oh, I have, oh, I'm going to shut down my business, I can't take it anymore and all of these things. And we hate medicine and we hate this, and business has destroyed medicine, and woe is us and all of those things. My business solves that problem, right? There are doctors who are like oh, I've taken my business to 3 million in revenue, but I'm not able to make payroll for me. I'm not able to do that, I'm drowning in my business, I have no time for me. My business solves that. And so I'm in a position where I see selling, telling people about what I do, inviting them to come work with me as service. It is the highest level of serving people, because that's the point where everything changes.

Speaker 1:

There are doctors who came into the business school 90 days ago like right after EntreeMD Live. They joined the school and we had one who was like, oh my goodness, my business grew by 122% in 90 days, and so I know that them making that decision is a turning point for them. I understand that, and so I have a really great program. I have a really great product. If you will and it is my job, my ethical responsibility, to let as many people as possible know about it and invite them to work with me, right, otherwise, it's unfair, it's the same thing for your business. And so, while we're at it, if you're somebody who has decided, you know what I want to be this savvy entrepreneur. I want to know how I want to build a dominant brand. I want to create revenue in my business. I want to build a team that I will love, that I can work with, to expand what I can do and buy my time back. You know I want to build my dream business and my dream life. The EntreMD Business School is the place for you, and getting started in your process of the business school or any of our other products really is book a call, entremdcom, forward slash call. My team will be happy to talk with you and we're happy to support you on that journey.

Speaker 1:

So let's talk about why you're ashamed of selling and what we can do about it. And I'm going to give you a number of things. So, the very first thing, now that you know, okay, this is something I must do if I want my business to survive. This is something I must do if I want my business to thrive. This is something I must do if I want my business to have this huge impact and leave a legacy in the world. Leave a legacy in the world. Selling is a must. It's mandatory, all right. So the first reason why we're ashamed is because we're thinking about ourselves. We're thinking about ourselves how do I look, how do I sound? Am I getting it right? What will others think about me? There's a lot of me, me, me, me, me.

Speaker 1:

And the key to falling in love with what you do and talking about it everywhere is taking your eyes off you. You don't have the problem your business solves. Maybe you had it back in the day Like I had the problem my business solves now, but I don't have the version I solve now. Right, you're not the one with the problem. Take your eyes off of you and fix it on the people your business is called to serve, right, fix it on them and the more you do that, the more you'll be able to speak authentically, speak courageously, speak persuasively, because you are trying to help somebody who has a problem get a solution.

Speaker 1:

For instance, as an internal medicine doc not me, an example as an internal medicine doc, you know how to sell, because you sell all day. Every day you have a patient who comes in who's hypertensive, who's decided that I found this herb and I decided to stop my medication. You will sell them on taking their medication why. You see the person has a problem and you see that you have the capacity to solve it right. And what is the problem Is ignorance or deception or any of those, and you go on to solve it and you get them back on their medications. You know how to do that, right. You have the immunocompromised patient who comes in and their entire family says oh, we're not going to get the flu vaccine, we're not going to get this, we're not going to get that, we're not going to get that. You sell them on that why you want them to protect their loved one right Like you want them to do that. So you know how to do this.

Speaker 1:

In that moment, you're not thinking about you. You're not thinking about how you sound. You're not thinking about any of that. You're thinking about a problem and you solve it right. So it's the same thing. What is the problem that your business solves? Lean into that, right. What could life look like on the other side? Lean into that and focus on the person. Focus on your ideal clients, your ideal patients. Lean in and help them solve their problem. That's your job. So you're inviting them to come work with you, not because you're a greedy doctor, not because you want to manipulate them, not because of any of that. Because you have a solution for their problem. So think more about them than you think about you.

Speaker 1:

When I go out and I'm telling people about the Entree MD Business School, I'm not thinking about me. I'm thinking about the fact that they don't have the revenue they want in their business. Maybe they have the revenue, they don't have the profits. They don't have the team that they want. They don't have the time freedom. They're drowning, spending time. They're all the time in the clinical time and all the time in the running of the business time they have nothing for themselves. Their health is failing, all of that. I'm thinking about that and I'm inviting them to come work with me so they can have a different experience, they can have an alternate reality. So that's the first thing.

Speaker 1:

The second thought that comes up for people is that promotion, promotion is not professional. Promotion is not professional, right, promotion is not professional. I'm a physician, I don't do anything like that, and selling is selling. And when I started thinking about selling, I would think about people who sold used cars and the pressure tactics and I heard someone call this commission breath, right, you can see that they're just trying to make a sale so they can make that commission. So they don't care about you, they don't care about what your true needs are, they don't care about any of that, right, they just want to make a sale. They want to hustle you and make a sale. But promoting yourself can be done in an unprofessional way. So in that way you're kind of right, but there is a professional way to do it right. And so when that thought comes, just think about it. There is no business that survives without selling. Every business is selling, every business is selling, right, and so this is something you can do. And you can flip that and say I will do it in a professional way.

Speaker 1:

What makes it professional is that switch from I am doing this to make a buck in my business to I am doing this to bring transformation to this person's life. Once you make that switch which most doctors don't have to make, the switch because we're already there we're people before profits, right, people before revenue. Once you lean into that, it becomes professional. Because when you lean into that now, you're like if somebody doesn't have a problem that you solve, you don't try to sell them your stuff, right, like we've had people who've come to the business school and what they're looking for is not what we do and we tell them, like, if you're looking for this, we can do that, but what you're looking at this other person will be a better fit for you. I have no interest in getting everybody in because I have this revenue goal I want to hit and all that stuff and all that. No, my interest is making a difference in the physician community, is rewriting the narrative for physicians, is bringing the physician community to a point where building your dream life and your dream business becomes the standard. That's what we do, and so I am, after helping people, that I'm best equipped to help to get the biggest results I can help them get. Once you do that, then you switch into professional selling.

Speaker 1:

Okay, you know, selling is not this blanket bad thing. It can be done in a bad way, right. There's bad selling and there's good selling. Bad selling is bad and good selling is good, right, okay. So that's the second thing. Now you want to erase that from your mind. Professional sell too, okay. Professional sell too. Erase that from your mind. Professionals sell too, okay. Professionals sell too, okay. Steve Jobs sold too. He sold too, and he's a professional, so, okay.

Speaker 1:

The third thing that makes people ashamed of selling or stops people from selling is they're like, oh, but I suck at it. I suck at it, okay. I did a post recently about being an entrepreneurship is being like being, you know, a kid in kindergarten. It's the same thing, is the exact same thing, because you will come in sucking at everything and you have to do it long enough to become good at it. Right, and if we could just treat in our businesses, if we could just show up as people who have that mentality of I'm here to get better, you'll enjoy it so much more. If you don't do things because you suck at them, you will never get good at them. In fact, the way to mastery is sucking at something long enough right Now in between, you're going to have evaluation and upgrading but you suck at it long enough to get great at it. There is no other way. And so you don't want to stop selling because you suck at it. You're like, okay, I'm not really good at this thing.

Speaker 1:

The question then becomes how many times do I need to do it to get good right? For instance, if I decide you know, one of my objectives over the next 12 months is I want to be a really great speaker and I want to be somebody who would be paid 50 grand per keynote, right? Well, one of the things I will not do is then say oh, you know, I can't speak. I can't speak at that level. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah and then stop. That makes no sense, because I'm never going to get there.

Speaker 1:

The other thing I could say is you know what I'm going to do. I am going to do a talk every weekday for 12 months, so on some days it may be, I'm doing a Facebook live on my own platform. Some of the days is I'm speaking on somebody's stage, I'm a guest on somebody else's podcast, all of those things, and I can decide. I am going to speak every single day and the objective is every time I speak, I'm working at getting better. So I give it my best shot. Come back, evaluate, make some tweaks, give it my best shot again and do it.

Speaker 1:

What do you think will happen to me at the end of the 12 months? I will be an extraordinary speaker, and the other thing I would have to practice is making offers, like making offers to speak in different places, practice raising my prices, and all of that. If I will do that for a year, chances are that I'll be a much better speaker. I would have been on a ton of different stages that have opened the doors for other stages. I would have raised my prices multiple times. I would have either hit $50,000 or, if I didn't, I would be so much further than where I was when I started at 12 months. And so, when you think about it that way, that is somebody who sucked at something that decided I'm going to put the reps in until I become great at it.

Speaker 1:

So feeling you suck at selling shouldn't make you steer away from selling. It should make you look for all the opportunities you can find to sell so you can become great at it. Okay, so it's a mindset trick. It's a mindset trap actually, to stop doing something because you suck at it. That's when you lean in, not when you lean out. So suck at it, no problem. Now you set yourself up. How can I then sell every day? How can I sell every workday? How can I sell? How can I do that? Put it on your calendar, find the different platforms where you do it and start going at it. Some will be one-on-one, some will be at events, some will be when you're networking, some will be on social media, some will be your email list, some will be your podcast ad. You're just like I just want to become this machine and I want to practice doing it authentically. I want to practice doing it skillfully. I want to practice doing it in a way that it converts. I want to practice it and at the end of the year, guess what will happen? You'll be great at it, you'll be comfortable with it and you would have created so much revenue in your business and so many changes in the lives of so many people. So if you feel like you suck, that's fine. That's like the person being kindergarten that says I don't know how to write full sentences, there's no problem. That's the whole reason we're here for a whole year. Okay, all right, so that's that.

Speaker 1:

The fourth reason people are ashamed of selling is because they think if my product is so good, I shouldn't have to do that. I shouldn't have to do that. If my product is good, my service is good, it will sell itself. Now I will tell you this. I have had the privilege of being in many very powerful rooms with people running businesses as much as 500 million in valuation. In those rooms nobody talks about oh, my service is so good, it just sells itself. That's not the conversation that's happening there. They talk about how they are so committed to their goal, whether that goal is the impact they want to have, the disruption they want to create in this space, the revenue they want to create, the kind of life they want to create for themselves and their family. They are so committed to it that they are willing to go out and market and sell and market, and sell, and market and sell till they hit that result. They are the people who are saying I want to have this kind of launch and they go out and they market and sell until they hit it. They're the people who would have no sales for a long time. But they haven't stopped. They're still going out and tweaking, getting better at it, pushing. They're pushing to make it happen.

Speaker 1:

That language of it shouldn't take all that. That is not the language of champions. Okay, simone Biles does not go and do all her flips and say shouldn't take all that. After I've gotten gold medals before and all that, I should be able to just cruise. She doesn't say that. Michael Phelps did not say that. The NBA players don't say that. No, champions don't say that.

Speaker 1:

Champions do what is required and they know that there's work required, right, and so the more you resist the need for selling, which is a need in your business, the more difficult, frustrating and painful the journey of entrepreneurship is. You're better off putting in the reps doing what is required, doing what is required until you get the results you want, okay. And when you get the results you want, every price you paid to pull it off. You won't feel the pain of it anymore, you won't feel it's just, that's the thing I had to do to get here. But, oh, my goodness, here I am, dream business and dream life, right. So I want to challenge you today.

Speaker 1:

Okay, stop thinking it's all about you. Your business is not about you. Your business exists to solve a problem in a profitable way. Your business exists to solve a problem and get a thank you note called money. It is not about you, and so we can extrapolate. Selling is not about you. It's not about you at all. It's about your people. So that's the first thing Get you off your mind, put your people on your mind.

Speaker 1:

The second thing is stop thinking that promotion, that selling, is not professional. Okay, there's unprofessional selling and there's professional selling. So you are a professional and you can sell professionally. You can sell authentically. You can sell in a not sleazy, not slimy way. You can, okay. Third thing if you suck at it, this is not a problem. Sucking at something is not a permanent state. You can reverse the state and you reverse that state by putting in the reps Okay, putting in the reps, putting in the reps, putting in the reps and putting in the reps, evaluating, and then doing it better. Put another rep, evaluate, do it better. Put another rep evaluate, do it better. If you will do that, you'll become great at it. In fact, you become so great at it. I will interview on this podcast so you can tell the people of the EntreeMD community how to sell like a professional.

Speaker 1:

And then the fourth thing is don't be afraid of paying the price for what you want. So thinking that, oh, it shouldn't take all that, it is entrepreneurship, it takes all that. Entrepreneurship is simple. So in all the books that we write, the events that we host this podcast, I'm constantly aiming to make it as simple as it can be, but I've never said that it's easy. It's not easy, but it's doable. It's not easy, but it's worth it. It does take all that.

Speaker 1:

You will have to sell if you want to have a business that has a lot of impact, touches a lot of lives and creates a lot of revenue. There is no way around it. There is no way around it, okay, okay. So I want you to make these shifts and I want to invite you to put in the reps, put in the reps, put in the reps, put in the reps. I was thinking about what I want to do for 2025. And one of the things that I want to do is I want to help a hundred doctors cross a hundred thousand dollars in revenue, 75 doctors cross half a million in revenue, 50 doctors cross a million in revenue and 25 doctors add an extra million to their seven figure business. And that's what I want to do. That's what I want to help the community to do. So this is the deal.

Speaker 1:

Because of that, I am going to do challenges all through the year, called the revenue boost challenge, and I want you to go save your seat, because we're going to talk about the selling. We're going to talk about the mindset drama that comes up, talk about the framework that creates revenue in your business. We're going to do things in real time. You watch your business grow in real time as we do this five-day challenge, okay. So I want you to go get on the wait list or register for the one that's coming up next. Okay, it is revenueboostchallengecom. Revenueboostchallengecom. Go save your seat, share it with all the doctors in your world, tell them.

Speaker 1:

Apparently, dr Una has this big agenda. Let's get into it, whichever one you want six figures, half a million, seven figures, multiple seven figures and let's just roll with it. Okay, because this is the deal. Things have been changing and things are about to change a whole lot faster, a whole lot bigger, a whole lot better. Okay, every physician can have their dream business and their dream life, and we want to support you, we want to help you to get there. So go, practice these things, start putting in the reps, come into the challenge. We're going to create some magic together. Share this episode with another doctor in your world and I'll see you on the next episode of the On-Trending Podcast.