Most everyone I’ve been talking with lately has seen this trend occurring – especially in our online marketplace.

What used to work for sales is not working the same way as it was a year ago… or even a few months ago.

Put simply, buying habits are changing for a lot of folks.

On one hand, this can be a freaky thing… especially if we (or our clients) find ourselves in a cash crunch based on fewer sales than we were anticipating (ie: a launch that didn’t bring the same results as last time.) Combine that with the potential of a looming global recession that is being talked about daily in the news and it’s easy to think “yipes! maybe people aren’t buying anymore?”

People are still buying… just not in the same way.

I certainly don’t mean to sugarcoat anything here – especially if you or your clients are currently struggling. There are certainly some industries and businesses legitimately struggling right now.

But I do want to encourage you to also look at it from a different perspective:

When the marketplace changes it invites us as business owners to dig deeper, get creative and look at other strategies to bring in sales.

There are a couple of things that I’ve noticed…

Folks are taking more TIME to make buying decisions. Many of us are simply burnt out and tired – especially at this time of year – and we aren’t willing or able to make decisions in the moment. Now if we are used to or expecting the ‘quick sale’ (ie: lots of folks signing up during a launch) this can feel like a big problem.

I spoke with a woman last week who referred to this as the “slow yes”, which I thought was such a beautiful way to describe it. People may need more time to make a buying decision – so how can you work with them through the buying process to honor this, while also not letting them slip through the cracks? A mix of patience, persistence and solid follow-up strategies can work wonders for the “slow yes”.

Folks are being more DISCERNING with their purchases. I see this as a combination of two things – inflation and folks feeling burned by past investments. The cost of living is going up for many of us around the world, which naturally has us looking to be purposeful with our spending as we may not have as much money to spend as we used to. Likewise, if your prospects feel like they have spent a bunch of money before on past programs or coaches and didn’t get anything from it… they are naturally going to start questioning future purchases.

The solution to both of these things is the same – be crystal clear about the ROI that folks get from working with you. What exactly are they going to get as a result of joining your program or hiring you as a coach? Marketing hype is no longer enough to make the sale – we need to be able to back that up with results.

All of this to say – folks are still buying. I saw a post just this morning on Facebook about a live stream where people were buying $70K masterminds right on the call. I have colleagues that are having their best months ever (yes… even in December 😉

The money may not come as easy as it once did, but it is certainly still out there if we are willing to be creative and open to change. If we are willing to put in more effort than it might have taken before.