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The stories from the places where people gather.
Dana Kadwell (01:28)
Hello, hello and welcome back to Gathered Here. A few weeks ago, we had the amazing opportunity to talk to the awesome Sarah Narciss from the Olio and had one of the best conversations. Last week, I talked a lot about kind of her take on authenticity and doing, you know, your business with your whole heart and your whole truth. And today we are gonna talk a little bit about this idea of
selling and what really got me thinking about it was when she was saying how she bought the property and then a week later she sold her first event and she was like, I didn't, I don't have sales experience. I never took a sales class. All I could do was share my vision and it was over the phone. Like they couldn't even get on the property yet. So can you even imagine it? Like just think about anyone who's done sales. You're trying to sell something that you can't see. She didn't have renderings for
And the person signed and booked it over the phone just based on her ability to describe her vision, her excitement, Her passion for what she did. And she said it was like immediate validation. And I don't know, it just stuck with me because I said this before, I'm a very verbose person. talk a lot. And sometimes I feel like I talk myself into circles. And so whenever I have somebody who I'm trying to explain something to, my
My initial fear is always that like I've talked around the whole thing and didn't actually explain what it is I'm trying to do or what it is what the vision actually is. And I see this a lot in parenting. I think my sister jokes that my house is like an afterschool special because we are like very big, like proponents of just talking through our problems and having good conversations. And like, we're not like super strict disciplinarians because
I have a really hard time punishing a kid for being a kid. And so a lot of it's like, let's talk about why this happened and you know, what are some things we can do in the future? Whatever. But anyways, and so sometimes I feel like I'm like being this amazing parent and I'm like, I don't say lecturing, but like talking about, you know, how, like why this was wrong or like how we could be better or like, you know, what, why it is that we're trying to, you know, guide them on this path and, and, and then it gets to the end of it and the kids eyes are just like totally glazed over and they're like, I've, you know,
I've lost the mark here. Like I've lost the plot. let's reset and try this again. And I feel like that sometimes when it comes to business and when it comes to sales that we either become so rote, like it is like constantly saying the same thing over and over and over again. I distinctly remember the first few years of the Bradford and I would be doing the tours and ⁓ it was like, I would say the same joke at the same place. I would make the same comment at the exact same
time in like the cadence of it was like even how I said it my voice inflection, it was all the same because it felt like memorization, right? And what I was just doing was, was trying to sell it from a perspective of like, oh, this worked one time with this person, therefore it must work every time with every person. And I really, and this is like a very humbling conversation because before we hired our salesperson, so we'd like open the venue.
We sold it for a little bit. We hired a salesperson, that person left and I was super burnt out in the planning business. And so I went to my partner and I was like, Hey, like I need a break. Like I can't plan another wedding right now. Like I need a little bit of a break. But so what I want to do is I want to be the salesperson at the Bradford and just kind of wrap my mind around and understand, understand the job a little bit better. And then knowing full well, we were going to be hiring within that year. Cause our intention was to hire a second person within that year. And we had already hired one person to kind of do like the events and the client management, whatever.
And I was like, you know, outline this is how it's not going to cost us a lot of money. This is like the situation, whatever. And we did it. So for that year I sold the Bradford and I remember I was so proud of my closing rate. I think it was like 37 % or something like that. And I was so proud of it. And I was like, Oh my gosh, cause it was better than the person before me. And I was like, I am so good at this until we hired the person that came after and realized that closing rate was nothing compared to
mine and theirs is more like 50%. Right. But when I can reflect on it and look back on it, I think that what I struggled with was really sharing in the vision with that client and being able to really articulate what it is that that they were looking for or what they saw. And I was just kind of selling it, just wrote memorization, selling a product that I believed in and I loved, but
I didn't believe in it and love it for them, if that makes sense. And so it really like kind of when I walked into training our next salesperson and even the salesperson after that, realizing how damaging that is. And I don't know if I had put all the pieces together until that conversation with Sarah about how much of a talent and how much of a skill it is to share.
a vision. And I say that by also saying that I think that the reason why Sarah could share her vision so well is because she was so laser focused and she was so intentional about the things that she did. Like she was on like she'd waited years, right? Years to get this perfect property and to find the to get the loan and all that stuff. And so there was just this passion. There was this
thing that just exuded from her. And I think that that is where, when I look back on like all of my education for business and stuff, one of the things that they always tell you is do sales last, give up sales last. And I remember at some point I was frustrated with like how the sales were going at the C &D event side and I was like lamenting it to my husband and like the next day he sent me this video and it was a video and I've told the story before so you've heard it before, I apologize.
but it's a video of a guy who invented a razor for bald men. It basically fits in the palm of your hand and it's curved and it goes through the shape of your head. And it was like this crazy, like it's so simple, but like it was something that was, that was needed or necessary for men who shaved their head pretty much daily. And so this guy made a bunch of prototypes. ⁓ and he hired people to go out and, sell this razor. Now this had to have been mid
2010s or something like that. And his idea of selling it was like selling it on the street, which when you think about it, it seems kind of crazy. But anyways, he hired a couple of dudes to go out and sell it and they come back and I like, Oh, they sold like 20 or 25. And he's like, what? Like how? Like I, it doesn't make any sense. So the next day he went out and he sold like a hundred, 150 of them. Right. And his whole platform that he was, and he was talking about, he was giving interviews, talking about it. He's like,
look, no one is going to love your business more than you. No one's going to have the passion for it than you. So the best person to sell your business is the person who owns it, who believes in it, who's created it. And I stood by that for so long, for so long, I believe that was the case. Now I was willing to hire somebody and take a step out of sales because I couldn't do it all, but I firmly believed
that I was the best one, me or my business partner, right? We were going to be the best people to sell it. Nobody is going to be able to passionately talk about this property better than us. And I was so absolutely wrong. Absolutely completely wrong in it because I think what it comes down to is, yeah, I was passionate about it. was passionate about it because I built it and I could tell you about how I planted this tree and I could tell you about laying the terrace and I could tell you about
you know, the crazy stories of late nights staying up and doing it. But I have these employees that are passionate about it because they have a vision, right? They have a vision for the client, for the event. They have a vision for what it can look like. And what has been so humbling and so neat, I guess I could say, is sitting in these meetings with my employees and the ideas that they come up with that I just never thought of, right? And especially I'm talking really specific, but this is...
specifically, sorry, about my COO who every day is pushing the bar and pushing the limit and has, we should do this and I want to do this. like just her ability to have true vision for what, not just what events could look like, but what the client experience should look like about what our company should look like. And it's one of those things where I'm like,
And I don't know if it's just being in business for so long. I don't know if it's just a season of life too, where sometimes you realize, wow, I've lost the vision. I've lost the, the ability to talk excitedly about it. So recently, I have stepped in in a very pseudo, like doing a few sales here and there because our salesperson got married and so she took a couple of weeks off as she should. We were very excited to celebrate her, but, then
during like open houses and stuff, there was kind like this backlog of tours. So was like, Hey, I can jump in and tour. And when I tell you that it has brought me so much joy, has brought me so much joy because I realized how much I have forgotten what it's like to be excited, to share in an experience with somebody.
and talk to them about ideas and talk to them about vision. Like when you are so far removed and you're just, you know, not in the day to day, you kind of forget what that's like. And it just reminded me when Sarah was talking about how she was like, you know, so excited and selling over the phone and that person booked and it was like immediate validation.
how much every time I get to stand in front of a client and talk to them and they either whether I see them on their event day and they're like, my gosh, I love it. Everything's wonderful. Or they're, I see my open house. Like this is our favorite place. We're so glad we're here or, or I'm giving a tour and they're just like, my gosh, this is so thoughtful. This is so thoughtfully laid out. And this is the, I love this tour. You guys have been so kind. Like I had a client that came to me and said, he's like, you guys have literally are the nicest people that we have had on this tour. Like he said, I felt like it would not matter what I would say.
you would make sure that everything would be perfect for me. Like you care that much. And you say, I can feel it from you. I can feel it from your employees. I can feel it, how you create this environment. And there is just this immediate validation of like, my gosh, this is exactly where I should be. This is what I was supposed to do. And I think as an entrepreneur, you don't always get that validation all the time. And definitely there are opportunities and moments when you're dealing with clients, when you're just like, it feels
the complete opposite. You're like, my gosh, why am I doing this? Like you're questioning your life choices. She's like, I just shouldn't be in this industry. Like all those things, but it's those moments when you get to be excited about what you've built, when you get to share in that excitement with somebody else, when you get to share the vision of what your intention for this place was and how, then watch and see how it's actually coming to fruition is amazing. And it is so validating. And I love that she mentioned that because I don't know if I would have really
pondered that if she hadn't, if she hadn't said it. So, I would love to hear your thoughts. Like, what do you think? what is something in your business that has genuinely validated you and validated you to the point where you're like, okay, this is exactly where I'm supposed to be. I'd love to hear it. I'll post it on Instagram this week.