We were lucky to catch up with Aleasha Bahr recently and have shared our conversation below.

Aleasha, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. One of the things we most admire about small businesses is their ability to diverge from the corporate/industry standard. Is there something that you or your brand do that differs from the industry standard? We’d love to hear about it as well as any stories you might have that illustrate how or why this difference matters.

My approach to sales differs greatly from mainstream sales.

My career started in sales and I was always a natural. When anyone asks someone who is a natural at sales “how do you sell so much?” They say “well, I don’t really sell.” – which is really unhelpful for most people.

Since getting into the sales coaching space, I have put words to the methodology of someone who “sells like a natural.”

The foundation to my philosophy is “if it’s a fit, it’s a fact and there’s no “selling” involved.”

Essentially when someone isn’t a fit for your service or offer – you tell them. You let them know “Actually you don’t need this highest tier of service, you would be covered with the middle tier.”

Or “you don’t need to spend money on advertising right now – work with someone on fulfillment first and then come back. Otherwise you will be wasting your money.”

THIS is why sales naturals say they’re “not really selling.”

And it’s a massive difference from mainstream sales.

Mainstream sales is “everyone is a yes as long as they have a working credit card.” And that is how people get burned.

Black Sheep Sales is “not everyone is a fit for my offer and that’s extremely normal. I’m fitting my solution to their challenge and if it’s a fit, then it’s very easy to transition to the sale.”

If someone is a service provider who only needs 20-25 clients a year to be financially set – then they are actually harming their company by selling the mainstream way.

That’s the difference in the core philosophy but there’s a lot more differences you can check out here: https://aleashabahr.com/blacksheep/

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I started my sales career in corporate selling digital advertising and worked with every kind of personality you can imagine. There was a wide variety of industries and contract sizes in my career. The biggest contract I sold was $1M.

As I transitioned out of corporate to owning my own marketing agency, I realized a really big issue for small business owners.

All of the sales training available was high pressure and you had to be a total douchebag for it to work. Needless to say, that didn’t work for many people.

And not being good at sales was the reason many small business owners had to shut down.

After seeing that enough times, I shifted into sales.

For the longest time, sales has been dominated by aggressive white men who are selling to aggressive white men.

In 2024, there is a wider diversity of buyers and sellers than ever.

That means a white man who is NOT aggressive will not like being sold to that way and he’ll be horrible at selling to someone else that way.

Then think of everyone else in between.

Needless to say, it’s past time for there to be a different sales approach people can follow and that is what I have created with Black Sheep Sales – “because if it’s a fit, it’s a fact and there’s no selling involved.”

A big part of what fires me up the most with Black Sheep Sales is who it is for.

It’s for service providers who are selling their own service that starts a multiple thousands of dollars and goes up from there.

They need low volume, high quality clients who they have long term relationships with – which makes an effective sales strategy even more crucial because we don’t want nightmare clients!

Beyond their demographics, the person I help is someone who has felt like the traditional ways of doing things hasn’t ever really gotten them results.

My ideal client is a Black Sheep either in their industry, family, society, gender, etc. – simply by existing or approaching things differently, they experience resistance and pressure from mainstream to conform to the “industry standard.”

They’ve typically tried the mainstream way, pretended and masked and it didn’t work. Sometimes they can still be pressured back into it though.

This is where I get passionate – because it’s so important to do what works for YOU and not give into pressure from mainstream.

When you do, it inspires other people to live the same way and all of a sudden you have a lot of Black Sheep showing up without masks and innovating.

Because the only way innovation happens is when someone has an idea or way of doing things that’s different.

That scares mainstream people but ultimately it’s necessary for progress and Black Sheep are very important in this world

So, I’m here to fan that flame.

And also, as far as my service goes, I understand someone’s offer inside and out and THEN create a custom sales framework for them that converts up to 80% of their sales conversations without acting like a douchebag.

Most sales experts won’t give service providers language to explain what they do – which is the hardest part!

My ability to deeply understand someone’s offer and audience allows me to create a sales strategy that works the FIRST time you use it.

Not hundreds of repetitions like mainstream sales preaches.

This is the difference in someone getting results in the first 30 days and someone struggling for years to master a sales philosophy.

Have you ever had to pivot?

When I first went into business for myself, I was a marketing agency. That experience greatly helped me with the sales process that I custom create for people – because sales happens long before the actual conversation.

However, it wasn’t a company I could scale or have the level of impact I wanted. So, I pivoted to sales 5 years ago – especially after identifying a desperate need for something different in the market.

During those 5 years I have called my philosophy different names and targeted different audiences as I continue to narrow down and get clearer.

The first attempt was subtle selling – because what I teach is subtle! It doesn’t FEEL like a sales conversation. However, no one understood what I meant.

Next, I became sales for introverts. Because introverts have natural skill sets that are really powerful for sales. However, a lot introverts don’t realize they’re introverts because they think it’s about being shy. Which is a confidence thing – not an introvert thing. I was missing a lot of my ideal clients so I pivoted again.

The next variation was Matchmaker Sales Method. It just doesn’t sound very sexy does it? It’s also not clear who the target market is – little old ladies?

So, in Q4 of 2024 I was talking with some clients about how I was the black sheep in my family and I was tired of it being a negative thing. I remember saying “if they told me to “fall in line” and I said “no” and that makes me a black sheep – then I’m proud of it!”

Every client that week shared with me that they were also a black sheep.

They were even a black sheep in their industry – they approached it differently and that pissed people off.

I was excited to identify my people!

In January 2024, I shifted to Black Sheep Sales and the response has been overwhelmingly positive.

It’s about taking a negative and reclaiming it as a positive. It’s about celebrating the innovators in this world, lifting them up and giving them the words that allow them to effectively communicate what they do in a way that makes people want to buy it.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

There have been so many lessons to unlearn while building a personal brand online and creating a philosophy that differs so much from mainstream sales (not to mention I’m a woman – which naturally makes me a black sheep in sales).

It’s incredibly easy to doubt yourself and quit over conspiracy theories you create in your mind.

That has made the pursuit of mastering my mindset incredibly important to my success – more than I realized before I started.

One of the biggest lessons to unlearn – and you might’ve heard this before – is to stop viewing failure as failure.

It’s data that you use to adjust and move forward for improved results.

Every successful person we’ve ever idolized failed more times than we even know about.

The only difference between them and someone who didn’t succeed is one kept going after they failed.

There are no failures – you either got the lesson or result you needed.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.aleashabahr.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aleashabahr
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aleashabahr
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aleasha-bahr