Social involvement is anchored in my DNA.

I’m primarily a sociologue with a passion for connecting people. Social involvement is anchored in my DNA. I don’t see a workshop around Socially Responsible Sales as a one time action. It must go further, and become a part of the identity of the entrepreneur.  It’s my goal to strenghten professionals in the creative and cultural sector in their salespitch, and this in a socially responsible way. Through practical salesadvice you will learn to negotiate even better about your contract or offer, to create real win-win situations for yourself and your customer this way. We will review on how to seek for potential customers until the closing of a deal. I’ve been acting as a salesperson for more than 10 years and I’d like to share my experience in that field.

I’ve seen innumerable cases in which I learned a lot. I’ve experienced multiple times how clients tried to exploit my kindness as a professional creative. Trying to make me sell under the marketvalue, or even work for free! Self protection as a contractor is essential: in the end the idea is that you would be able to continue doing what you love to do, that you stay clear of overhead costs with your investments and that you can make a profit. In short, it is vital to attract serious customers who take you seriously and to stand your ground during a negotiation.
There are two workshops that run over the course of about 2 hours. The workshops are given one-on-one or can be held in groups of maximum 4 people who work in the same niche.

How does it work?

Personnally I’ve been involved in the cultural and creative industry for more than 10 years. From experience I know that as an entrepreneur or creative professional one often has to sell personnally to be able to make a profit. There is a lot that can be easily sold online, but for most of us there will still be a heap of personal interaction needed. The good news is that selling can be learned as it is actually a way of communication.

Workbook

You will be given a workbook that we can fill in together, in that way you will be making your own personalized story. This workbook will be usefull throughout the rest of your career as a guide during your negotiations and salespitches.

Nederlandstalige versie

De workshop kan ook in het Nederlands gegeven worden. De info vind je hier.

Workshop 1: Socially Responsible Sales

The workshop Socially Responsible Sales consists of the following parts:

1. Socially Responsible Entrepreneurship

We will examine the pillars of the socially responsible entrepreneurship and we will look into how to create real win-win situations.

2. Communicationtraining
In this part we take a closer look at the way to communicate with the customer, what the importance of storytelling is and how to find your story.

3. Marketing
We will do some market research together, enlighten the importance of market segmentation and will go in search of the profile of your ideal customer. Subsequently we will dig deeper into the offer that you will be tuning in to your ideal customers.

4. The Saleswheel
We will go over the sales process from prospection until follow up and we’ll find out how you will be optimizing the way you attract customers, while keeping in mind your time management.

Workshop 2: How to conduct social responsible sales conversations

Human interaction can only be rationalized up to a certain point, so the measure in which these scripts and conversations will be applicable will be different from person to person. This is why we will organise a workshop where we will search together for your possible answers.

We will start from the most frequent argumentations, such as: you are too expensive, I know someone who works cheaper, you don’t have any experience, and another whole set of examples in search of the answer that fits you as a person, in a particular industry and which are in line with social responsible entrepreneurship.

By learning how you can look for your customers pain points and needs you will be striving towards real win-win situations.

1. Practical sales

We will go over the full sales process from prospection to follow up in detail and be looking for a workable sales process.
If you followed a workshop Socially Responsible Sales we will go deeper into the prospection part: where and how to attract your new customers?

2. Pitching

What are you going to sell, and what does your pitch look like? You will learn to explain in 2 minutes what it is that you do exactly, so you can quickly come to the essence of your product or service.

3. Sales techniques

We will take an review of different sales techniques and we will learn to recognize manipulative, dishonest techniques, to be able to protect ourselves better and negotiate better contracts with our customer.

5. Cases and Scripts

We will go over different cases and scripts and we will apply these scripts to your product, service or enterprise.

What do you do when:
– The customer asks you to work for free
– The customer wants to know your price immediately
– The customer thinks you are too expensive
– You cannot prove any previous experience
– You raise prices with an existing customer
– The scope of work changes during the project
– You need to charge a rush fee
– The customer wants unlimited revisions
– The customer knows someone who works cheaper
– The customer wants a discount
– You wish to get a payed
– You want to get a contract or an offer signed
– The customer tells you he wants to think about it…

“Eline is an indispensable factor when it comes to communication and sales advice. She can place herself effortlessly in an artist’s situation and empathize with his goals. As a result she is able to create an effective customized plan.”  

— Jielt Gregoire, Freelance designer

“My experience? Incredibly positive! As a starting artist who wants to sell her work, but has a lot of questions, I wasn’t only able to ask for information from Eline, I felt I was immediately supported and inspired. I recommend!”

— Vicky Darko, schilderes

 “As a young entrepreneur I still have a lot to learn, and where to get better information than from someone with lots of experience and knowledge. The workshop was a perfect fit. Eline takes into account what kind of enterprise you have , which makes it even more interesting. I have learned a lot, not only about entrepreneurship, but also for my day to day life. She knew how to captivate me and how to keep my attention during the whole workshop. Someone with so much experience is a fantastic teacher.

I’m very happy to have participated in this workshop and I will be able to grow a lot more in the right direction with the knowledge I acquired. A highly recommended experience for everyone who is engaged in business!

Extra plus is the great chat afterwards.”

“The Ethical Sales workshop ministered by Eline has helped me grounding among a race of creative thoughts by providing me with guidelines to understand the creative business, sustainability and ethics. The will of doing it in a respectful way was already in me, but my artistic education lacked commercial skills, such as communication in sales and understanding your customer’s profile. Eline has used not only practical examples of negotiation in the art field but also personalized ones, bringing the workshop participants and myself closer to the presented concepts and teaching us how to use the commercial skills on our own products. I totally recommend it and I am very happy to have a better notion on where to invest my time and energy now.”

— Hemanuella Serra, Experimental artist

We will reach you as soon as we can!