We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Alyssa Moorhead a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Alyssa, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today How did you come up with the idea for your business?
First thing you’ve gotta know- I’m a massive people person. So of course, I now run a “Human-First Sales Agency” for bold, innovative, people-first businesses of all kinds. Never heard the term “human-first sales agency” before? I made it up ;). It means I spend my days building real relationships with real humans (in the DM’s, emails, AND in-person!) to close sales by helping solve their business & sales struggles.
But of course, like most entrepreneurs, I didn’t start out where I am now. I started out impassioned to help people, AND also with a massive amount of overwhelm and mental health struggles, crazy NYU debt, and pretty much no clue what I was really doing. (Let’s be real, right?)
In 2016, 9 years ago, I left my Marketing Manager job at a real estate firm in NYC, and started my own business, Nerve Client Studio, as a freelancer in the OG Instagram boom. Pretty darn quick, I started signing clients…for whatever marketing-ish things they’d pay me for. VERY quickly, I realized a few things; First, most clients who say they want marketing support and expect it to lead to sales…but they need marketing AND lead gen to make ethical sales. Second, most businesses truly don’t do lead gen or do it consistently. Third, businesses don’t do lead gen because they don’t know what to do, they don’t have time to do it, and they don’t want to do it. Enter the first idea ;)
In 2020, I switched gears from done-for-you marketing services to sales coaching. Within a few weeks, I signed 10 clients (too many!). About a month or two later, these business owners’ income and profits soared. They’d gone from $2K per month to $20K per month, from $3K to $10K months, from $20K to $40K months. I knew we had something, BUT…
The sales strategy I made with these clients worked TOO well. Yes, they were taking clients hand over foot, but they didn’t want to keep selling for themselves. And now, they could afford not to. Enter the golden idea- I’d do their sales for them AND consult with them along the way. The rest is her-story!
Alyssa, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
Ok, so you know that me, Alyssa, is a people person. But let me paint a picture for you. As a kid growing up in Louisville, Kentucky, my parents took us to Disney World, World of Coca-Cola, spring breaks in Destin, Florida, etc. Kids are plenty to handle…but I was quite special. If my mom turned my back on me for a split second, I’d be over gabbing with some stranger, that was soon to become a friend. I’d go sit with other people at restaurants if they had a big crowd and looked like fun. I was a wild child.
Ok, so my parents could lose me in a split second. The flip side is that they knew I loved meeting new people, and building relationships with them, and knew I’d do something with it for work later on. They were right- parents often are.
I left Louisville, KY (for a bit) 2010 to attend NYU in New York City, and studied Marketing and Creative Writing. Nothing on NYU, because I loved my college experience and got to study abroad for 6 months in Madrid, Spain, but my college degree truly hasn’t helped me with my chosen profession as a sales-focused business owner, at all. My people skills did and do though.
I moseyed my way through my business for 9 years to really figure out how I wanted to use my people skills to help people that run businesses. Now, I offer sales consulting and DFY human-first sales content and lead gen services to online businesses, brick-and-mortar businesses, and businesses that throw in-person events. Our incoming clients say, “This human-first sales approach is what I’ve always been looking for. I wish I’d found you years ago, but I’m so glad I found you now, at last!”
There are 63,000 times I wanted to give up in my business. And every single time, the people I help and can help are my reason, and they keep me coming back. If you meet me, you’re going to feel how much I love people, knowing them and helping them, and I can’t wait to get to know you! I’m always just a DM, email, or coffee chat away!
Any fun sales or marketing stories?
Picking a favorite sales story, for me, is what I imagine it would be like to pick your favorite child (I don’t have any little ones, yet!). What I can tell you is that nearly every sales story of mine has one thing in common: Don’t vomit, but it’s Instagram stories. It’s my storytelling superpower to share on Instagram stories videos who I am, provide specific, innovative, and achievable steps to make sales, and let people know that they can make sales too, and I’m there to help.
Let me give a couple examples. The first example is of Client C, who I direct messaged back from my stories, and it became a $14,000 ongoing client. So each day, I check my Instagram stories viewers, identify any new or returning potential clients (leads) that have viewed them, and reach back out to connect via the DM’s. Last summer, I found an awesome lead, Client C, in my stories, who ran a boutique PR agency. I reached out to her and said I was so glad she’d found me via my IG stories, I loved her branding, unique bespoke PR approach, and her mission with PR. She replied and told me that she’d been referred to me and was about to reach out, but I got to her first. We DM’ed back and forth, had a sales call together, and she became a $14K client.
Another example is Client J, whom I direct messaged on IG after attending one of her digital conferences on VIP days, and became a $2500 client the same day I pitched to her, and will likely become a $30,000+ client. I saw on her Instagram that she was throwing an annual in-person conference for digital entrepreneurs, so I DM’ed her directly from her stories and made her an ethical DM pitch- I said that I loved that she was bringing people together offline, I loved the speakers and topics, and I’d crafted sales content and sales for similar IRL conferences and retreats and would love to do the same for her. The same day, we signed a $2500 lead gen VIP week package, and are now planning to work together for the next 6+ months for about a $5000 package = a $30K+ client.
What do these examples of $14K to $30K+ ongoing clients have in common? We connected online via my or their video content, I reached out in the DM’s, built a relationship (sometimes very quickly), offered my help or even made an ethical pitch, and they gladly accepted (AKA I made a sale).
What’s been the best source of new clients for you?
The best end-point lead source of new clients for my business has always been Instagram, specifically Instagram video content re Instagram stories, not really reels. I’ve made about 99% of my income, up to $25K months, from Instagram stories. Instagram is NOT the only source of income for us- I also do lots of networking, coworkings, in-person coffee chats, business networking events and conferences in-person, email marketing, referrals, and other socials- but Instagram is the top driver of the majority of these sources that actually is the final piece that gets them to convert or gets them to a sales call and then they convert.
To break it down though, it’s not only new clients I connect with on Instagram. At Nerve, my human-first sales agency, we do find lots of new clients from Instagram stories, but we also connect with referral partners, business partnerships and whitelabel partners, collaborators who we may do a podcast, interview feature, or stories takeover with, as well as past clients and current ones I reconnect with that either upsell or come back from what I discuss in my IG stories.
I’m more than happy for you to steal my super easy IG stories strategy:
– Make daily stories content each weekday
– Ask people to DM me and share a DM GIF as a call to action
– ALSO reach out to my stories viewers that ideal clients and continue conversations or start conversations via the DM’s
I’ve got a whole easily-customizable formula for IG stories content that I’m happy to share, and we’ve got a whole sales membership for $97/month where we go further into this topic, as well as 1:1 consulting and dfy services. Just DM me and I’m happy to discuss!
Contact Info:
- Website: www.nerveclientstudio,com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nerveclientstudio/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AlyssaNerveClientStudio/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alyssa-moorhead/
- Other: Tik Tok – https://www.tiktok.com/@nerveclientstudio?_t=8ki6zQQv5cB&_r=1
Image Credits
Joelle and Lyndon Bradfield