Christine Schlonski [0:02]
Hey Gorgeous. This is episode number 312 with a wonderful Elena Herdieckerhoff

Elena Herdieckerhoff [0:08]
Hi, this is Elena Herdieckerhoff, you are listening to Heart Sells! Podcast with Christine Schlonski. Enjoy.

Elena Herdieckerhoff [0:15]
I am so super excited to have Elena Herdieckerhoff on the show today. You can’t even believe how long it took us to actually schedule this interview, and I’m so pumped that it finally has worked with our calendars, and I can dive into LMS’ amazing success story. Today we will be talking about “Selling For Highly Sensitive Entrepreneurs”. Elena is a highly sensitive person herself, and an acclaimed intuitive coach and business mentor since 2014. And she empowers other highly sensitive people around the world to turn their sensitivity into their greatest asset in business and life. She is an award-winning serial entrepreneur and a successful TEDx speaker. I just have checked her TEDx talk on YouTube again, and it has now over 3.3 million views and counting. And in case you don’t know me, I’m Christine Schlonski, the host of Heart Sells! Podcast, where I interview inspirational heart-centered entrepreneurs and business leaders about how they have built a wildly successful business and overcame their own challenges in sales.

Christine Schlonski [1:30]
Some of my amazing past guests are Bob Burg, John Lee Dumas, Cindy Carter, Wendy Weiss, Ian Altman, and Anthony Iannarino to just name a few. Before we dive into today’s episode, this episode is brought to you by Heart Sells! Academy and at Heart Sells! Academy, we work with heart-centered, ambitious entrepreneurs who love what they do but feel really uncomfortable in selling their services and products. We help them to shift their mindset by redefining their sales mindset. So they can sell with ease, grace, confidence, they can ask their price and be authentic in the process and true to their values. So at the end of the day, they stop being in their own way. And they can create the successful business and lifestyle they are looking for. And at the same time, they can support others in their own impact. So if this sounds interesting to you, let’s have a chat. How we can support you, your impact, and your business growth. And you can get more information at heartsellsacademy.com. And now let’s learn from Elena and her amazing skills on highly sensitive people and TEDx talks. Let’s dive right in. Well, I am so so excited to have you on the show today. Welcome, Elena.

Elena Herdieckerhoff [2:59]
Thank you so much, Christine to be and to have and to invite me to this. And I am so glad to connect with my fellow German.

Christine Schlonski [3:07]
Yeah, we just had the chat before that. It’s funny. We are both German and we live in Germany. But our businesses totally run in English.

Elena Herdieckerhoff [3:16]
Yes.

Christine Schlonski [3:17]
Yeah. And it’s so fun. Because I just told you about the workshop. In my first workshop, I need a German, and how I had some challenges finding words in my own mother tongue.

Elena Herdieckerhoff [3:27]
I share that problem.

Christine Schlonski [3:30]
It’s really, really funny. But I guess when you decide that, you know, you just live on this planet, you’re not really bound to a country, then obviously, the language to use is English.

Elena Herdieckerhoff [3:44]
That’s so true.

Elena Herdieckerhoff [3:45]
Yeah. So how did you start out with English then?

Elena Herdieckerhoff [3:49]
Well, actually, my parents sent me to an international school growing up. So for me, English was almost more my mother tongue than German. And so it kind of started from there. And then I also studied in the UK. So for me, English has always been almost more comfortable and more natural than German. And that’s why even you and I, we speak in English to each other. I feel very natural and comfortable to do so yeah.

Elena Herdieckerhoff [4:23]
It’s very true. And I love your work. I mean, you have several facets of your work, but the one I would love to start with is the Highly Sensitive Entrepreneur. Yes, because I feel that if you’re highly sensitive, you’re probably more on the introvert spectrum. And as soon as you feel so much, the challenge in making sales or thinking about you have to make sales become a little bit bigger. So let’s tackle this topic first. What do you understand by a highly sensitive entrepreneur, like who, who would identify as this person?

Elena Herdieckerhoff [5:06]
Yeah, so typically highly sensitive people are people that would identify as being very empathic, creative, multi-passionate. But also not just necessarily introverts, you have extroverted highly sensitive people too. But it’s people that get exhausted from energy overwhelm whichever camp they fall into. So they need a very good energy management, they feel other people extremely deeply, which can sometimes throw off their inner balance. They can also feel sadness when they see something that you know, moves them or that’s distressing very deeply and easily. But they’re also equally moved by beauty, and by the gorgeousness of life and nature and art. So I would say I’m a highly sensitive person, someone who’s both emotionally sensitive and responsive, but also on a physical level.

Elena Herdieckerhoff [6:04]
So you can also be highly sensitive, physically speaking, so maybe, you know, you’re easily irritated by bright lights, or by noises in the background, like you can focus if you hear things smell things, see things that are kind of out of what you want it to be. And so you need your environment, you know, just so and actually, I would always recommend to highly sensitive people to if they can’t go the route of entrepreneurship, because there you have a modicum of control, versus when you work. Maybe in a corporate environment, you can’t choose where you work, you have maybe an open plan office, tons of noises, lights, and different smells, and everything that can be really distracting and irritating for a highly sensitive person. And entrepreneurship, you can choose your environment.

Elena Herdieckerhoff [6:55]
Yeah, I just, you know, I just had a light bulb moment listening to you realizing that I am a highly sensitive person.

Elena Herdieckerhoff [7:04]
Join the club!

Christine Schlonski [7:05]
Yeah, I would have never classified me like highly, I knew I was sensitive, but everything you’ve just described, I checked it off. And by being in the sales environment, right, like I, my career was high-ticket sales over the phone in an open office space. It’s so bothered me with all the people calling, with the noise. And I really had to learn to navigate and to protect my energy and my space to focus, to concentrate. And, you know, being an entrepreneur, the freedom, the level of, I can choose when to work, where to work, and what environment to work in. But you said beauty, nature was that checkbox, checkbox, oh my goodness, you were talking about me? Is that true? And I am quite sure because my soulmate clients also identify with these things. And we just had a little chat before, right? We’re talking about those discoveries. And so my guess now is even more that we have more people listening today than I thought could identify with being highly sensitive. This is really truly amazing.

Elena Herdieckerhoff [8:18]
I’m so happy. I’m so happy you have your own.

Elena Herdieckerhoff [8:22]
Yeah, I was like, you know, I yeah, I am an empath, but I

Elena Herdieckerhoff [8:26]
Yes.

Christine Schlonski [8:27]
I never thought about it in the way you just described it. So it really really got me. With the ocean, with loving beauty and, and really deeply connecting with people. That’s so important to me. Yes. And I feel the more we can do this, the more transformation and change we can support. Yes, absolutely. Wow. So what are the challenges Besides, you know, a noisy environment? And yeah, not being able to handle situations?

Elena Herdieckerhoff [9:03]
I would say the number one,

Unknown Speaker [9:04]
Like letting go of energy.

Elena Herdieckerhoff [9:06]
Yeah, I think the number one thing I hear over and over again, over the years of coaching highly-sensitive entrepreneurs is overwhelmed. And overwhelmed for me is a great umbrella term to share that it could be a mix of physical and emotional overwhelm. So for example, we also have a highly-excitable nervous system. So it means, for example, you’re an entrepreneur, your inner launch, you think, Okay, I got this all sorted out, and then something happens, tech lets you down something, your nerves can quickly fry. And this sense of overwhelm and highly excitable response can really be difficult to manage because it has a knock-on effect on your sleep, it has a knock-on effect on how you show up and then you fall into this overwhelm category which will be usually a mix of physical responsiveness to stress or stimuli and emotional response as well. And overwhelmed for entrepreneurs is anyway, you know, even non-HSP’s have overwhelmed all the time from wearing too many hats, doing too many things, managing people, managing clients, piling up responsibilities, you know, for any entrepreneur, already, it’s a lot.

Elena Herdieckerhoff [10:21]
But for an HSP, it can feel even a bit more overwhelming, I would say. And also, typically, the sense of responsibility in an HSP is incredibly high, and the desire to be perfect. So I would say this level of perfectionism is really strongly pronounced, which then makes everything even harder to manage because he wanted to get it to a level that is just 110% versus 100%. And people have asked me over the years, why are HSP so perfectionist, and I think the reason for that is, or one of the reasons is that HSP’s can actually sense and see what perfection could look like because we can see energetically so many things, that we have a, like conceptual understanding that perfection is possible. So just give you an example, you walk into a room, and you notice that a painting is hanging slightly crooked on the wall, and 99% of people wouldn’t see this and you are in that room, and you cannot stop looking at this because you know, this, this slight adjustment would just make the whole difference to make the whole room more harmonious, her own understanding. So if you take that in our business, we see we like, oh, but this slight tweak could make such a difference. Oh, the slight tweak would change the look, the energy, the appeal of something. So when we know it could be possible, we often overreach in making things perfect that maybe don’t need to be.

Christine Schlonski [12:01]
Yeah, yeah, I’m cracking up on my head here. It’s so it’s so true. And just having you know, that feel for details.

Elena Herdieckerhoff [12:12]
Yes. Yes,

Christine Schlonski [12:14]
Like seeing the fly on the wall for example.

Elena Herdieckerhoff [12:16]
Yes, you see everything.

Christine Schlonski [12:18]
Yes, noticing details. And I thought I always thought that this is something that has to do with you know, the female-male perception that, you know, you come into a room and you see the details while the guys go into the room, and they don’t even know what color the couch had or something. But it has more to do with being highly sensitive. That’s so interesting.

Elena Herdieckerhoff [12:42]
Yes. And men are highly sensitive too.

Christine Schlonski [12:45]
Yeah, yeah, yeah, but you guys hiding the picture?

Elena Herdieckerhoff [12:49]
Exactly.

Christine Schlonski [12:49]
I see it, but I don’t necessarily have that urge to correct it. While for example, with my husband like, when we go to a restaurant and the table isn’t straight straightened out? You know, he has to move the table and I was like, don’t embarrass me. Sit on. It’s all you. And he’s definitely highly, highly sensitive as well. So it’s interesting. So how do people cope with them, with sales? Right? What can they do in their business, so they can make sure they protect their energy, they’re in a good space, they don’t fall into overwhelm. And they are empowered to do or be open to do more sales, generate more sales, and have those connections that might cost them some energy?

Elena Herdieckerhoff [13:40]
Yes. So I think the first thing that typically creates more lightness around the topic of sales for HSP’s, is to already not call it sales because sales is a label that most HSP’s will reject because they don’t want to be selling because that feels like they’re doing something that’s not natural to them. And so if you say to someone, well, don’t worry, you don’t have to sell, you just have to share. And that feels like much better already. Like oh, I get to share what I love, or I get to share what I’ve created. This already moves it into a realm of more lightness and freedom and joy. So in the sharing, what are HSP’s particularly good at is the connection part. And to not go in with a typical agenda of closing the sale, which again, doesn’t really work for an HSP to say, like, I’m gonna sell to this person and no if they can go in knowing they don’t have to do anything. They can just share and just build a human, a heart to heart connection.

Elena Herdieckerhoff [14:46]
This is where HSP’s shine because they can build rapport very easily because of their empathy. They can be, they come across and they usually are quite trustworthy people because they care so much and feel everything. So they can showcase the difference of their product or service by really letting that part of their personality shine. And by just allowing people to discover what they have versus forcing it, I think anything that’s forced, doesn’t work and scripting of sales also does not work for an HSP. Because as a sales script, what that usually does, it feels constricting, and then the natural flow of connection gets lost for an HSP. And I’m actually not, you know, saying that tell scripts can work in different contexts for different personality types. But I would say for an HSP, it wouldn’t be my recommendation to have that what I did find, though, that helps, is because it just peace feel, then when it comes to, you know, sharing the price or at the end, like, Okay, wonderful, I love everything I’ve heard. And then what this is when the grounds get a bit shaky because that’s where you need to actually be a bit confident and bold and say, okay, so what are the next steps basically here that I can offer you and this is what it costs, or whatever the case may be.

Elena Herdieckerhoff [16:16]
And here, I find it does help to have just a few bullet points that you want to cover what you have there just so as an industry, you can hold on to that to give yourself that steadiness and also not back out. So what I’ve seen over and over again, is that HSP’s, kind of drop the ball before throwing it, meaning they have an amazing connection all the way through to the end. And then it comes to, you know, even an informal gentle, close, and they pull back and they dropped a commitment to themselves to ask for the sale. Because then they like No, it didn’t feel right. And if you really probe it did feel right. But they were scared of rejection. And so if you then have just like a few bullet points of what do you want to say at the end, you have something to hold on to and also to hold yourself accountable to not drop that ball, when you actually at that point of the conversation and to back yourself and say no, no, I’m going to actually finish what I started and not just be like, oh, maybe this isn’t the right person? Or maybe it’s not the right time for them or whatever, and then not even try.

Elena Herdieckerhoff [17:27]
Yeah, totally, this makes so sense. I always say, share, and invite.

Elena Herdieckerhoff [17:33]
Mm hmm. Beautiful.

Christine Schlonski [17:34]
Because when you forget that part at the end, you don’t get to support that person, right? You don’t get to help them transform whatever they wanted to transform. And at the end of the day, it hurts your business as well. So I just love how you outlined that. And it’s so so important, especially when you transition over, the conversation is kind of finished, you know, you’re talking to your soulmate client, you have to invite so it’s so helpful with a bullet point, so you don’t get lost?

Elena Herdieckerhoff [17:36]
Yeah.

Christine Schlonski [18:06]
So let’s talk about the rejection because you already mentioned that people would shy back from making the invitation.

Elena Herdieckerhoff [18:14]
Yes.

Christine Schlonski [18:14]
In the offer asking for the sale, however, you want to name it. Because of fear of rejection. Why is it may be different for a highly sensitive person? How do they feel when they feel so deeply? What does it do to them when they get rejected? And how can they navigate around it?

Christine Schlonski [18:35]
I think having been an HSP entrepreneur for almost two decades, myself, I know this feeling intimately because rejection for an HSP often feels like it’s personal. And it plays right into the very unhelpful storyline of you’re not good enough. And highly sensitive people, most of them if you ask them have a track record of being told that they are somehow faulty for being so sensitive that something is wrong with them for being this way. So then the fear of having some of the press on that very wound spot, and again, kind of say, oh, I don’t want you or something from you. And that kind of plays into this bigger storyline of people that don’t accept me. People don’t think I’m good enough. People don’t think I’m worthy. And of course, a foundational piece of that is then actually that story, we somewhere believe in that we are indeed not worthy or good enough.

Elena Herdieckerhoff [19:40]
So to deal with the fear of rejection. I don’t think we can do that with the client, that’s an inner journey. That’s an inner work journey, where we allow ourselves to maybe processing the trauma and pain of rejection, abandonment, separation that we’ve experienced in our life, and this is true for non-HSP’s too right? But for HSP’s in particular, this is important to really process those emotions and maybe even that grief that comes from the storyline. And then slowly rebuild trust with oneself so that you don’t experience a no as a, it’s about you that you can actually see a no as a neutral answer to your offer that it has nothing to do with your worthiness with your being with your personality. It has nothing to do with that. And I think that can feel really good once you transcend that story. Like today, if somebody tells me no, it has no impact on me. But if you ask me that same question when I started out 20 years ago, and no would feel devastating to me. So it’s really that inner journey that can strengthen it. And I think any form of self-love, exercises, meditations, therapy, anything that can be done in that realm, I would highly advise that.

Elena Herdieckerhoff [21:05]
Yeah, yeah, that’s, that’s so cool. I remember my first no’s and learning that process that it’s not about me personally. It just means it’s not now the product might not be a fit, the timing might not be a fit, it might not be a fit, whatever it is, really learning that and protecting you and your thoughts about your value and self-worth, and giving you the self-love, as you just said, that’s so beautiful, and so necessary to really get into the position to have a thriving business, because you will make a lot of invitations.

Elena Herdieckerhoff [21:41]
Yes, that’s right. And rejection. I think if you’re not rejected, in your sales offerings, you’re not putting out enough of them.

Christine Schlonski [21:57]
Caught on. That’s true, that would be a good system to not get a rejection, just don’t make offers.

Elena Herdieckerhoff [22:04]
Don’t make offers or just you know, do it every couple of weeks. And then it’s

Elena Herdieckerhoff [22:10]
Yeah, yeah, totally. I just love it because you brought us a free mini-course, “Step Into Your Sensitive Power” with 4 transformational video training for highly-sensitive people and empaths. And people can learn so much about that, from this, about this, too. So what are they learning when they sign up for it?

Christine Schlonski [22:32]
Basically, what I did is I took key areas that I know HSP’s need to address in terms of understanding their trade, accepting their traits, how they deal with other people, how they can relate to themselves. So it’s really a course I designed as a foundational course to thrive with your sensitive gifts and to kind of step out of the shadow sides that can come with sensitivity and step into the bright and light sides. And that’s why I also wanted to offer that as a free gift. Because I feel everybody needs that kind of initial starting point to really deepen their own self-understanding, and then heighten also their self-worth and their joy and who they are and how they show up in the world.

Elena Herdieckerhoff [23:21]
Yeah, awesome. Thank you so so much. And I’m so excited because we do have another conversation. And what you teach people also is how to be on a TEDx stage, how to prepare for it. And especially because you have that background with the highly-sensitive people, but obviously also with other entrepreneurs who really want to be on that stage. Because with that stage, you get enormous visibility. You get really like the proven expert.

Elena Herdieckerhoff [23:49]
Yes, Yeah.

Christine Schlonski [23:52]
Right, because you have a TEDx talk. And we will be covering in our next conversation, we will be covering points of where people can get started, how you know what to look out for, what’s important. And I’m so super excited we get that opportunity to talk about that. So thank you so, so much, and enough for having been on today and sharing, and people will find your free mini-course in the show notes with all the links that connect to you. And I can’t wait for our next interview.

Elena Herdieckerhoff [24:21]
Same here, Christine, it’s just been a delight to talk all things. HSP’s with you.

Elena Herdieckerhoff [24:28]
Thank you so much. And yeah, for my lightbulb moment as well. I can even wait to see what it would be like for an HSP or any other person to be on a TEDx stage? And to yeah, master and handle that next level of expertise?

Elena Herdieckerhoff [24:47]
Yes. I’m excited to share all things TEDx with you in take 2.

Christine Schlonski [24:52]
Awesome, thank you so much, and I’m looking forward to it. Bye for now.

Elena Herdieckerhoff [24:55]
Thank you. Me too. Bye for now.

Elena Herdieckerhoff [24:57]
Well, I just love this episode, especially the revenue I had that I am a highly-sensitive person, which I never guess that I qualify for. I hope you had some aha moments as well. And I hope you really could take something away of how to maybe turn the overwhelm into a gift, into an asset in your business and life. Make sure you hop on over to christineschlonski.com and you find the podcast tab. And there you have the show notes, the resources, and all the links that connect to Elena, everything is just one click away. In the resource section, you find Elena’s wonderful free gifts, as well as the Heart-Centered Lead Generation Summit Experience that I will put in there for you. So you can fill your pipeline with clients and never have to wonder again, where is the next client coming from.

Christine Schlonski [25:49]
Also, we are so excited to celebrate this week, the 2nd Birthday of Heart Sells! Podcast with over 300 episodes. Also, we are so excited to celebrate Heart Sells! 2nd Birthday this week on November 29. And we have celebrations going on for the whole week. So when you’re over at the resource section, you also want to check out our amazing giveaway, as well as the opportunity of how you can get your voice on Heart Sells! Podcast, hop on over to christineschlonski.com find the podcast tab and there you will find all the information in the resource section. Thank you so so much for having been here. I’m really looking forward to the next conversation with Elena, on the topic “How To Get On A TEDx Stage”. She’s gonna share her amazing knowledge and with over 3.3 million views on YouTube. I am really looking forward to this conversation. Have a wonderful day wherever you are in this beautiful world and I’m saying bye for now.