How to Speak with Confidence and Sell with Authenticity | 006

Welcome to the profit connections podcast. I am super excited for our episode today. We have an amazing person that we're going to talk to. I say that she's like a kindred spirit to me. Her hair is blue and purple. It looks a little purple. It's probably all blue, and I'm feeling purple. I'm getting purple vibes from it. It's giving purple off the purple shirt. Yeah, so, and she is a fellow thespian, and she is, if you don't know what that is, stay tuned. She'll tell you. And so, let me introduce you to Danielle Benson. She has devoted her life to exploring the agility and power of the voice body instrument. Did you know that your body and your voice are an instrument? I'm gonna I can't wait to hear more about this, a journey that began in classical theater and took her around the world. Now she draws on that experience to help speakers and business owners to embrace and embody their message in a way that instantly connects with the right audience. Inspired speakers transform their nerves and doubts into their greatest superpower so that every word vibrates with purpose, truth and self celebration. Welcome. Danielle, yeah. Thank you so much, Sharon. I have the virtual applause. If you're just listening. We are waving our hands like idiots

already Sharon, I'm so happy to be here.

So tell us a little about you, how you got here and why you do what you do.

Oh, my goodness, do you have 17 hours? We'll do the short version.

Half hours for you.

Fantastic. Fantastic. The short version is, I fell in love with the theater when I was four years old. I saw a production of 12th Night, and I was transported. It was adults playing pretend. What could be more fun? And I still remember the whole thing. And I fell in love with theater and with literature and with language. And from then on, I was like, I'm going to join the Royal Shakespeare Company. And I had that dream until I was about 26 and graduated with my masters in acting in the UK. And I realized that I'm not so fond of the industry. I'm a very sensitive person, and I admire like I have a lot of friends who are successful actors, and I could not be more amazed by their resilience and the way they just keep going. But I find it so hard Can

I just interject, add a little segue in here and this, this ports across and is important for business owners as well. The skill and talent that an actor has is far less important than their tenacity and their ability to overcome, and, as you say, resilience. It is when I was in school, the actors that were just, I mean, mesmerizing and melting me on stage, they were like, so amazing. Never made it. And the guy that was, you know, okay, he was pretty talented, had that tenacity and has been on Broadway.

What they don't tell you, what they don't tell you, is that it takes, you have to be super talented just to get into the audition room. Yeah, that is the lowest bar. And we're all like, oh, it's all about talent. No, everyone is talented. Well, not everyone, but everyone who gets to that point is already super talented. It's got nothing to do with getting your cast. And that's that's hard to take. When you put your heart and soul into something. It's hard as a business owner too, but it's, yeah, it's the hardest.

It's very, it's very it's a little different, because you are the product. When you were standing in front of someone auditioning for something, you are the product. And I will say that there are a lot of people who have businesses, like coaches, and they have their own products, and they feel like they are the product. So this is actually, really does. Is a relevant conversation about, like, how do you handle that part?

Let's talk about this. Let's forget everything else. Let's talk about this. This is so exciting when I started as a business, because, you know, I was coming from that at that background, and I my first sales conversations, I really did feel like I was like, here is a piece of my soul. Would you like a piece of my soul? And when they said, No, I was like, Oh, it was, I would go home and eat a tub of ice cream. You know, it was so depressing, and learning that sales is much more like dating. It's about finding the right match. It's about, you know, do you? Does your need match what I have? And when you when you stopped taking it so personally? Oh, it's so freeing. And it took me a long time to learn that, because I was so I was so in love with what I did. It had changed my life. I wanted to change everyone else's life. You know, like so many coaches and stuff out there, you come from such a good place, but it's such a personal place, and sales needs to be impersonal. I mean, you're being yourself, yes, but it needs to be impersonal in the way, like, it's not your fault if you're a bad man. Match. If you go on a date with someone and they're super organized and you're super disorganized, it's not against you that you're a bad match. It's just life, you know it's okay, and learning that that took a big load of pressure off,

yeah, and also that you may have the answer that you want, that they need, like you might be able to solve their problem, and it might not be the right time, it might not be the right fit, it might just be something else. And it's never personal. It is never 100% personal. And it, even if it feels personal, you need to understand that everything is about the other person, because they're seeing you through their lens. They're not seeing you through your lens. They're only seeing you through the lens of their experience and what's going on for them and everything that's happening on their end. So it's never, ever, ever personal, no matter how much it feels personal.

100% and one of the things that they don't tell you about sales, and one of the things that don't tell you about speaking is it is as much, in fact, sales, it's more about listening than speaking. And speaking is more about listening, amazingly enough, because you got to listen to your audience, you got to you got to make sure they're with you. And sales even more. So it's about, it's just discovering. It's just who is this person? Do they have a need that I can fill? And if they if they have a need and I have something that can help that need excellent. If not, can I help them in another way? Can I refer them? I've gotten fantastic clients from referrals, from clients that I didn't end up working with because I was like, I actually don't do what you need. But here's someone else who does, and they were so grateful that I was just being me and not trying to throw, you know, sales down their throat. The thing, um, they brought me some of my favorite clients. So, you know, you never know.

I think that's another powerful thing for business owners to understand, is they think, and I say they because this is not my philosophy. They think that they're in competition with other people who do what they do. Yes, my philosophy is I am competing with no one. I am a collaborator. I know people who do exactly the same thing that I do, and if it's not the right time or the right fit for me, I'm not going to turn myself into a pretzel and make myself miserable trying to meet the needs of someone just for that dollar, right? It's so much more freeing, and you actually build better and stronger businesses by saying, hey, you know what? I can help you with that. But Danielle, she as an expert at this. She specializes in this, I'm going to send you to her and let her serve you, and then that just makes everybody feel better. And yes, it wasn't about those dollars, but those dollars that you referred to somebody else, they're going to come back to you.

They're going to come around. And it's also sometimes a personality fit, you know, I know people who do exactly what I do, but in a slightly different way. And sometimes I think, you know, I could help you, but I think you'll learn better with this other person or, you know, and it's that's something else that's wonderful about acting training. You never have just one acting teacher. Oh, my God. Can you imagine having just one acting teacher? You'd go crazy, especially in a conservatory setting when you get really serious about acting. You have at least minimum four acting teachers, and they're all teaching you a different style, a different approach. And you need a team always, because everyone's teaching you something slightly different, different skill sets, different tool sets, and you as an individual. You want to be well rounded. You don't want to be a copy of someone else. You want to be yourself. So it's important to work with multiple people. And I encourage my clients like, you know, go shop around. I mean, I'd love for you to work with me, but I want you to be well rounded. I want you to be yourself. I don't want you to be a copy of me. Why would why would you want to do that? I already do that. You know, it's, it's so important to have a full team at your back, I think.

And it's actually more powerful than you think that it is, and because it it creates that community. You know, we're like my podcast is profit connections. It's about the connections. It's about the community. It's about we're all part of the same thing. So, yes, I'd love that. What else can you tell us about? Well, I teach you the angle just a little bit talking about your instrument, because I tease that. I want people to know what that means about being your instrument and how you can use that to actually create the the life and the business that you want.

Yeah, so it's funny, you know, I had an acting coach in London. I worked with Stuart Pierce at his famous and every class that he started, he would start by saying, your voice is halfway between your head and your heart, for a reason, because when we work on The Voice, everything that you're thinking about yourself, and everything that's going on up here comes through in your. Voice, and everything that you're feeling emotionally, physically, what's going on in your musculature, comes through in your voice. So by working on just the voice, we're working on the entire system, the entire human being. And you know, people think, Oh, this is my voice box. You're in a system. Everything affects everything. And so when we work on the voice and we work on communication, it's not just that. It's about how you feel, about being heard, about how you you know, there's the emotionality of being seen and being heard and feeling exposed. There's the physicality of your breath and how your if your knees are locked, you're going to speak differently, and you're not going to breathe as deeply as if your knees are relaxed. You know, most people don't think about the relationship between their ankles and their breath, you know, but it's all related, and where you keep tension in your body and how you're holding yourself. And so there's so much going on on a physical level, on an emotional level, on an intellectual level, and your body is your instrument. You need to know how to look after it. You need to know you know how to not make it break down, so you don't lose your voice. Need to take care of it. It's a it's a living thing. It needs maintenance. But also you need to know how the instrument works so that you can play your own music, because everyone has different music, and your expression is going to be different from everybody else's expression. But if you don't know how to connect to yourself and play the instrument. You're never going to be able to fully express yourself. And so I kind of provide an orientation of the instrument, so people understand the physicality of how it works, and then we learn how to play your music, which is the fun part.

I love that. And can you talk a little bit about whenever people are getting ready to make the offer, or they're in the transaction, and they're in the sale, and their body, like what's for a lot of people, they're they're actually putting a barrier, because what's going on their body, their stomach is in knots, their palms are sweating, they're nervous, or they're They're stressed about it, or they really need this sale, or whatever. Can you? Can you address a little bit about that physicality in those moments?

Yeah, I mean, I could talk about that for three days, so let's do that some other time. One thing, complex thing, but just a couple of, a couple of highlights. A one is that there shouldn't be a transition between your conversation the sale. If there's a transition, something's going on like, you're not you're not seeding it. You're not kind of listening to the person enough, because you really want them to sell themselves by the time you get to would you like to work with me? They should know what it's like. They should know if they want to. So that conversation needs to actually happen earlier, before the offer, so that there isn't this, like gear change. I used to do it. I get it. It's tough. You put a lot of pressure on yourself. And the other thing that I find very useful is stay in a place of service, usually in the initial conversation, in a place of service, and then you kind of flip to a place of sales. Don't do that. Stay in a place of service. Connect to your passion. Remember why you love what you do. And think of it like that. Think of it like this. Is so exciting. Would you like to join me? And it becomes more of an invitation, and you can allow yourself to be nervous. It's okay to be nervous. Rather be nervous and insincere. Much rather, if you're a little bit nervous, but you're connected to your passion, it's going to come out like passion. It's not going to come out like nerves, you know. So connect to your deep why, like, why you're doing this. Stay present with serving them. Let your excitement drive the show. Let that that passion and excitement drive the show. And if you are nervous, it'll just come out like excitement and passion, which is fine. That's totally acceptable. You can be, oh my god, I'm so excited to work with you, that's fine. And so now we get to the sale part. You know, that is real, heart real. So rather lean into being yourself. And if you're a little bit nervous, you know, let yourself be nervous and charming and wonderful. They're gonna see how vulnerable you are, and that's gonna charm them. That's, you know, let yourself if it feels, if it still feels like I did at the beginning, like you're putting your soul on a platter and being like, here have my soul. Let yourself lean into that, and they will see that. They'll be like, Wow, she really cares about me, and she really wants me to succeed, instead of this kind of sleazy car salesman, yeah, like we can see, which is just like, Oh, don't pretend. Never pretend. Do not lie, especially in the sales part, yeah, don't lie.

And I've heard that, you know, whenever people stand in front of an audience, when they get to go on stage, that kind of stuff, that the anxiety and the the nerves, your brain doesn't know the difference between being that state and excitement. So if you can reframe that like, Oh, my palms are sweaty that I'm really excited to share this solution with Danielle, Oh, my stomach is a. Said, Oh, it's excitement, it's not fear, it's not anxiety, it's not stage fright. It's, you know, your brain doesn't know the difference

yeah, and this is actually my speciality. And every now and again, like twice a year, I run a three day event on this, like three day event, just on stage fright. So depending on when you're listening to this, there might be one coming up, but it's so exciting because you're 100% right. And I think it was Hamlet who said, Nothing is good or bad, but thinking makes it so,

because whether you're right or whether you think you're right, or whether you think you're wrong, you're right, yeah,

Hamlet's better than Henry Ford, but yeah, and it is just, it's just the way that you think about it. Nerves are very physical, a very physical experience, and the way you think about it changes everything. So there's a couple things you can do. You can work with your body to bring your sense of gravity, get down and ground those nerves. But also, it's not the nerves that are the problem. It's pretending you're not nervous. That's the problem. It's when we try and squish it down, when we try and suppress when we lie about how we're feeling. It's not a real lie. We're just trying to we're trying to pretend we're more confident that we're not right. But it comes through our bodies behavior really as a lie. And so your audience is like, Oh, she's lying to me now that she's selling to me. This is a problem. You're not lying. You're just trying to pretend you're more confident than you are, but your body doesn't know the difference between a mismatch and a lie, and so you have to be very careful. Let yourself be nervous. It's not the end of the world. You will gain confidence. Confidence comes after action. You gotta act first. The confidence will come and, you know, talk to me because stage fright is my speciality. I have generalized anxiety disorder. I have had every type of stage fright there is to have. I'm an expert at it. Total expert. I could help so, you know, talk to me about it. But also remember that it's, it's not the nerves that are the enemy. It's when you're trying to pretend you're something you're not. Oh, this is stay real.

This is gold. This is gold in everything that you're doing, be you and in and honor, every state that you're in. So if you're nervous, it's okay to be nervous, yes, and don't yeah. This is Yeah. I had not heard it stated this way. And I think it's beautiful that you know, don't create a lie by trying to be something that you're not, because that will come across. And I've heard it in many other different ways, and not as clearly and plainly as that. So I appreciate that a lot.

Oh, thanks. I work on it a lot. It's front and foremost, I get nervous every time I speak like I get it, but those nerves can be your friend. They can be your superpower, if you let them.

I love that. That is really, really great. Well, Danielle, I heard a rumor Ophelia came over and whispered in my ear that you have a gift for our audience. Can you tell us about that

I do, and it's perfect that you're talking about stage fight, because this gift is it's multifaceted. This is my favorite exercise ever, and if you only ever do one voice exercise in your life, this is the one to do, because it helps you connect to your body and your breath. So it helps you line everything up so that you're telling the truth, and it unlocks the power of your voice. If you have a squeaky voice or, you know, we've got a lot of behavioral things that I didn't get into today, but there's a lot of bad habits in your voice. It can just be. They will just disappear if you can really connect to your voice. So there's that, but also part of this exercise, because it's a combo exercise. Part of it I learned for anxiety attacks, because I get, you know, I have generalized anxiety disorder, so I would, I would be very anxious backstage. And this exercise, it helps you physically. You know, when you see it coming, when you see the nerves coming, it helps you ground them so that attack doesn't happen, so that you can actually kind of circumvent it. You can bring the body down. You can calm the body down. It helps you connect to yourself. So if you're nervous, this is a fantastic exercise for you, and it actually comes so I have a video of the exercise, and then it actually comes with 15 minutes with me, because it is a little bit tricky. You can't always it's not always it's not always easy to understand from a video. So you get a 15 minute call with me to go over the exercise, make sure you're doing it properly, ask any questions you want to ask, and it's at theinspiredspeaker.com/gift

Amazing. So profit connectors, you know that what we're going to do with her gift is we're going to put it in our profit connectors portal. It's called profit connectors dot club, C, l, u, B, and it will have her gift and all of her information, so that you can reach out and connect with her. And I highly, highly, highly recommend that you go and get this gift, because just. This piece alone, I mean, this will help you overcome so many things that are coming up in your sales conversations while you're making transactions in those parts where you feel maybe not as confident and a little bit nervous. Turn that into your superpower. Oh my gosh, yes. Sign me up. We need this. You need this. Everybody needs to get this. Thank you so much, Danielle, for that amazing gift. I love it so much. And do you have any last words that you'd like to share?

Yes, breathe in. We focus so much on the out breath. We're like all results oriented. Doo, doo, doo Brava. You cannot breathe out, what you don't breathe in and the in breath will revitalize you. It'll nourish you, it'll relax you. It'll bring energy into your body. Focus on your in breath. It will change your life. Please breathe in.

Love it. Love it. Thank you so much, Danielle, for being here. Thank you for this amazing conversation. I appreciate your candidness and your ability to just go wherever with me, and thank you for for just being here and sharing you with us and remember everyone breathe in.

Mm, hmm. This has been such a joy. Sharon, this has been amazing. Thank you so much.

Thank you.