870 Nikki Rausch: Successful Sales Secrets

Melinda Wittstock:

Coming up on Wings of Inspired Business:

Nikki Rausch:

Your job in a sales conversation isn’t to being attached to somebody giving you a yes. What you should be doing is approaching it of like, I’m just identifying. Am I talking to an ideal client? Do I have permission to put an offer in front of them? Can I lay my offer out in a way that makes really good sense for them? And then I’m going to invite them to do business and it’ll be their decision one way or the other. I’m the waiter in this moment offering you dessert, and I’m not going to be offended if you say no.”

Melinda Wittstock:

How do you sell without being or feeling “salesy”? Many entrepreneurs struggle to master sales, so today we explore the art of the sale with expert Nikki Rausch, who shatters any misconceptions you may have that may be holding you back in business. We talk about how to transform sales pitches into collaborative dialogue, when to walk away from a prospect who is not a right fit, how to handle objections, and much more.

Melinda Wittstock:

Hi, I’m Melinda Wittstock and welcome to Wings of Inspired Business, where we share the inspiring entrepreneurial journeys, epiphanies, and practical advice from successful female founders … so you have everything you need at your fingertips to build the business and life of your dreams. I’m a five-time serial entrepreneur and I’m all about paying it forward, so this podcast is all about catalyzing an ecosystem where women entrepreneurs mentor, promote, buy from, and invest in each other …Because together we’re stronger, and we all soar higher when we fly together.

Melinda Wittstock:

Today we meet an inspiring entrepreneur who helps entrepreneurs and small business owners sell successfully and authentically. Nikki Rausch is the CEO of Sales Maven, and today we explore why mastering sales is more about mindset than tactics, why “no” doesn’t have to feel like rejection, and why asking the right questions of a prospective client transforms something that feels ‘pitchy” into a collaborative dialogue. Nikki takes us through her 5-step process for mastering sales conversations, including the balance between sales and service, how to increase the lifetime value of clients, how to qualify aligned prospects, plus how to handle objections, manage follow-ups, and why securing payment upfront keeps clients invested. Nikki will be here in a moment, and first:

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Melinda Wittstock:

Are you ready to transform your sales approach and avoid common pitfalls?

Nikki Rausch is the CEO of Sales Maven and listen on to learn why curiosity is king, why qualification is queen, and why no means next.

Let’s put on our wings with the inspiring Nikki Rausch and be sure to download the podcast app Podopolo so we can keep the conversation going after the episode.

INTERVIEW

Melinda Wittstock:

Nikki. Welcome to Wings.

Nikki Rausch [00:00:08]:

Thanks for having me. I’m excited to have this conversation with you.

Melinda Wittstock:

You know, I really like talking about sales because it’s something that a lot of women and men struggle with, just like, not even being able to ask for the sale. I don’t know. There are a whole bunch of things that I want to unpack that with you today day. You serve women entrepreneurs primarily in service-based businesses. What are the biggest problems that these women business owners are having with sales?

Nikki Rausch:

Well, it’s like everybody. I don’t want to come off salesy. I don’t want people to judge me. I don’t want to feel like I’m just about the money. There’s all that kind of mindset stuff. And I think one of the misconceptions, and this is something that I work with women specifically on to change, is that the perception is that sales is something that you’re doing to another person. But I teach that sales is something you do with another person. It’s a collaboration.

Nikki Rausch:

So, when you’re doing something to somebody that feels manipulative and that feels out of alignment and integrity with a lot of people. But if you’re doing something with people, you start to understand that unless you’ve got permission from this person to put your offer in front of them, you really shouldn’t be selling to them. And once you’ve got that permission, now you’re being of service. You’re offering something that they’ve expressed interest in, and now it becomes a real conversation between you and this other person.

Melinda Wittstock:

So that’s, I think, one of the biggest struggles that makes a lot of sense. And so, let’s get into permission. How do you ask for permission? I mean, this is part of the qualification process, I guess, of course. But is there an explicit way to say, hey, would you like to know how I can help you? Is it that simple?

Nikki Rausch:

In the most simple way, the way you said it, it is about asking questions. I think, again, a lot of times people think that when you’re selling, you’ve got to talk at somebody and you’ve got to educate them, or you’ve got to word vomit on them, frankly, and give them your spiel and tell them how awesome you are. But actually, you should be talking with somebody, and with somebody means you’re asking questions. So permission. The way that you get permission is by asking a simple question. It could be something as simple as, is this something you’d be open to having a conversation about, or is this something that you would benefit from? In your business, or is this something we could explore together? Those are all permission questions. And when you get that, like, yes, tell me more, or, yes, I’m open to having a conversation with you now. It really truly is this collaborative, back and forth conversation where your job is to understand do they have a problem, a need, or a want? Do you have a solution that meets that problem, that need, or that want? And then do you have permission to put the solution in front of them? And that takes the pressure off you, and it takes the pressure off the other person because we’re all bombarded all day long in our email, on social media and our dms of people who we don’t know, showing up, word vomiting about how awesome they are and how terrible we are and why we need to hire them.

Nikki Rausch:

Because our website is bad, our social media is bad, all of this stuff, right?

Melinda Wittstock:

It’s true. So, there’s such a temptation, I think, to talk at people rather than with them. And at the end of the day, this comes down to sort of like basic social skills. What I find interesting about sales, though, as well, is the deep, subconscious beliefs underneath what’s stopping people from selling or actually understanding that they’re providing value to somebody else that could benefit.

Nikki Rausch:

Yeah. One of the misconceptions…

Melinda Wittstock:

How do you work with people to break down all that kind of mindset stuff, right. About our own value? Do we even value our own product or service?

Nikki Rausch:

Yeah, I think it is. Digging into some of these mindset challenges. One of the things that I teach people is that in a sales conversation, there should be a balance of power. You can’t hold all the power in a conversation because that makes your client or prospect not really enjoy the experience with you. So, they’ll go work with somebody else. You can’t give them all the power because if you do in a sales conversation, they will abuse it and then it won’t feel good to you and you’ll feel like, oh, I’ve got to be a monkey and I’ve got to dance to try to earn this person’s business. So, I teach a lot around how do you balance power in a conversation so that their client is engaged, they’re willing to be open about what their needs are, and they’re open to hearing you put an offer in front of them or talk with them about ways that we could work together. And when you have power in the conversation, it boosts your confidence that you’re also deciding in that moment.

Nikki Rausch:

Am I talking to an ideal client, or am I talking to somebody who maybe just really isn’t a good fit for what I do and what I offer. So, I’m going to bless and release that person as fast as possible because my time is valuable just like theirs, and I’m not going to waste my time or theirs trying to earn somebody’s business who’s not a good fit for me.

Melinda Wittstock:

Right. So, this gets into just the qualification process and knowing what value you provide to whom and why. Talk to me a little bit about sales qualification because there’s so many entrepreneurs who get so drink their own Kool-Aid to the point where my product is for everybody. And no, it’s not. It’s really not. So, like getting really narrowly focused on where you create the most value for people and why. So, talk me through how you help your clients work, first of all, on that qualification process so you’re not wasting your time or spinning your wheels with the wrong people.

Nikki Rausch:

Well, that can come down to your branding, that can come down to your marketing, which is not my area of expertise. Where my area of expertise lies in when we can attract the ideal client and we get on a conversation or on a call, a consult with them. This is where your job is to have a set list of questions that demonstrate your value by asking the right questions. So, one of the mistakes that people often make in a consultation call is they ask a lot of questions that they really don’t need the answer to until somebody hires them. Or they ask really generic sales type questions that don’t demonstrate their expertise because they think their job is to give stuff away for free. Or their job is to have this really well-crafted pitch about how amazing they are and how amazing their results are going to be. But in actuality, you can ask really smart questions that create curiosity in the mind of the prospect that lets them go like, oh, my gosh, Melinda’s asking me such great questions that obviously….

Melinda Wittstock:

Give me an example of a question that creates that kind of curiosity.

Nikki Rausch:

So, think about something that is uniquely you, something that know special about your offer or about your solution, something that you do that sets yourself apart. I don’t know if you’re willing to play with me, Melinda, about that, but we could do it for you right now if you’re interested.

Nikki Rausch:

What we want to do is we want to create a question that is unique to who you are or something about your offer that sets itself apart. So, when you think about the things that differentiate you from anybody else in the industry offering something similar to you, what would be one thing that would come to mind?

Melinda Wittstock:

Well, of course, with Podopolo, our AI, and the fact that the app itself can transcribe, tag, analyze hundreds of millions of episodes instantaneously to power a recommendation engine or contextual advertising and such. And so, we’re really ahead of the game in AI.

Nikki Rausch:

Perfect. So now we want to create a question that starts to plant the seed around that. So, for you, it would be important in that conversation to say, are you using AI right now in order to maximize your ability to capture the show notes or your ability to do what you said, like create content…

Melinda Wittstock:

Make money from podcasting, I don’t know. There are a whole bunch of different things that derive from that technological innovation.

Nikki Rausch:

Yeah. So, we want to create questions around that that lets the other person go, yeah, I’m not really using AI. I didn’t really even know that was an option for me. And now they’re leaning in. Now they want to know what kind of solution you offer, because you have planted seeds around something that chances are if they are doing those things, they’re not going to hire you anyway. But they’re not doing those things, or they probably wouldn’t be on that call with you. So, you want to ask these questions instead of spending a bunch of time talking about what the solution offers. Like, we’re not there in the conversation yet.

Nikki Rausch:

We got to plant some seeds, first and foremost to create that curiosity that gets them going. Like, ooh, so what does that mean for me? Or how could I use that in my business?

Melinda Wittstock:

Right, exactly. So, getting the curiosity, understanding, kind of the other aspect of this, too. Sorry. The other aspect of this, too, is understanding where they’re at versus where they want to be. That gap is, so how do you go about really understanding and honing in on what their real problem is? Because maybe your company could solve, your service, could solve ten different problems, but which one is the most pernicious for this particular customer? So how do you go about questioning to elicit that?

Nikki Rausch:

Well, one of the questions that you should be asking pretty much any client that you’re talking to is what’s important to you in regards to you insert your context here. And then you’re going to ask, once you get the answer to that question and they’re starting to talk about what’s important to them, then you go, okay, so where are you in relation to reaching that goal or having achieved what it is that they’re saying that’s important to them, now you’re starting to see the disconnect, right? Like how far are they away? So, for instance, if I ask somebody what’s important to you about working with a sales coach, and they say, well, I’m just not closing my, I’m struggling to close on my console calls. And I say, well, what is your average close rate? And they say, I don’t know, 20% to 30%. Then I know when I’m delivering back a solution for them, like they’re an ideal client right away because I expect my clients to close 50% to 70% of their consult calls and I can work with them to help them achieve that. So, I’m already seeing a disconnect right there. So that’s helping me understand what is going to make a difference. And most people, if you say to them, if I could show you a way that we could increase your close rate to 50% to 70% so that you are achieving what you said you want here, which is closing more of those calls, is that something you’d be open to, talking about a way we might work together to do that?

Melinda Wittstock:

Right. And then it’s going to be like, yes.

Nikki Rausch:

Yeah. Why would the answer be no? Otherwise, why would they be on the call with you? So, the idea here is to ask smart questions. And once you’ve got the answers to the question that help you identify, yes, I am talking to somebody that is an ideal client for me, and I do have a solution that is going to get them the results that they want or help them achieve those results. Now I’m going to ask permission to put that offer in front of them.

Melinda Wittstock:

Right, okay. And then what about when it comes down to pricing, for instance? Say you’ve established the need. What about the value? Like the before and after, when it comes to pricing.

Nikki Rausch:

Bless you.

Melinda Wittstock:

When it comes to pricing your services.

Nikki Rausch:

So, when it comes to pricing your services and putting pricing in front of somebody, the thing that I often will say to my clients is your job is to recommend what the person needs, not what you think they can afford. You either need to have a specific question where you ask about what they’re looking to invest in part of your questions, or if you’re like, my price is my price, and I have one solution, then you still want to make sure that you’re recommending with integrity a solution that’s going to meet their needs. So just to give an example from a qualifying standpoint, one of the things people are often afraid to ask somebody, what are you looking to invest? Or what’s your budget for x, y, and z? But realistically, if you don’t know the answer to that question, it’s hard to offer a really good solution that’s going to meet their needs. So, you should be asking that. But sometimes you need to qualify the question by letting them know. Typically, when a client works with me one on one, they’re somewhere in the x to Y dollar range. Where do you fall in that range as far as what you’re looking to invest in order to achieve the results you’re saying you want? And then you be quiet, and you wait and you see what they say next.

Melinda Wittstock:

Right. Okay. So that’s interesting that you provide that range for other people we work with. It’s usually this to this. These are sort of the results we tend to get. Where are you in that range in terms of what? Your budget? Because if you say, what’s your budget? They might say, I don’t know, $100 or something. Right. When actually ten grand.

Nikki Rausch:

Right.

Melinda Wittstock:

So, you want to, I guess, contextualize that, right? To share a little bit of information with them. But I can see how this is very collaborative. Right. Because you’re having a conversation, all these questions and all the examples that you’ve given are very collaborative. You’re in a conversation. You’re not telling. You’re using questions to elicit, but it’s collaborative.

Nikki Rausch:

Yes, exactly. You nailed it 100%. The idea here is that it truly is a conversation. And we’re just through the conversations starting to decide whether or not we’re the right fit for each other. And again, if the answer is no, it’s okay to bless and release people and say, I get a sense that what I’m offering is not the right solution for you, but I want to thank you so much for your time, and I want to wish you well in your endeavors. And then you move on and you move on to the next thing. There’s no reason that you should try to. What is the saying? You shouldn’t try to put a square peg in a round hole.

Nikki Rausch:

There’s no reason to beat your head against the wall here with somebody who’s not a right fit for you. And also, back to the kind of question that we started with, which was about price range. If you’re talking to somebody who’s looking to invest $100 and your packages are 10,000 plus, that’s just not a good fit. And it doesn’t mean they’re a bad person or that you’re doing something wrong.

Melinda Wittstock:

Well, the interesting thing about this is, because sometimes this is interesting because we were talking about the mindset of sales, but there’s also the mindset of the person purchasing, which, who may not really understand the value and the transformational value of what you’re offering. Because, say, for instance, someone has a price point of ten grand and their close rate is 20%, and you can get them up to 50%. Well, that’s a huge impact on their business. And so, what percentage of that should you really be getting for providing that solution? So, if they don’t really see the value, it’s hard to see to justify the price. You see what I’m saying?

Nikki Rausch:

Yes.

Melinda Wittstock:

Especially if they’re coming from a kind of scarcity mindset or that kind of like, I’m trying to get a good deal for my business. I’m trying to get the lowest price I can if they’re in that kind of mode.

Nikki Rausch:

Yeah. The one thing you want to be careful about is trying to go into what I call convinced mode, because if you’re in convinced mode of trying to change somebody’s mind, if they’re in scarcity mindset and they’re not seeing the value, and they’re not willing to make an investment in order to increase their close rate from 20% at a $10,000 package to 50% or more, and they’re selling multiple $10,000 packages as a result of it, and they’re not willing to invest, let’s just say $10,000 to increase there, then if you go into convinced mode of trying to go, yeah, but you’re not seeing the numbers, then you’re not doing this, then you need to do this, and you should do that, then people are going to. It’s like, especially in our day and age now, people draw a line in the sand and they’re like, I’m not going to change my mind no matter what you say to me, because they don’t want to be convinced. They have to actually convince themselves. So again, by asking questions instead of making statements, you’re helping them understand. So, you might need to say, like, what would you be willing to invest to increase your sales from $100,000 a year to $250,000 a year? Would you be willing to spend $10,000 to do that? If their answer is no, you’re not talking to the right client.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah, exactly. So, this being able to walk away and not convince, I think that part of the mindset issue here, right, is the fear of a no. Is that the thing that makes people go into convincing mode? Because it’s almost like an ego or it’s embarrassing, like, oh, I’m not succeeding. Oh, my God, I’ve got to get this sale. Right?

Nikki Rausch:

Well, I think a lot of times we have this misconception that no means rejection. And realistically, I mean, I don’t know about you, Melinda, but I don’t want to be rejected. So, if you’re thinking about a no as rejection, that can feel really scary. As a matter of fact, years ago, I had a friend of mine, she wanted some advice about applying for a sales position. And she was asking me, like, what kind of questions should I be asking this interview? Blah, blah, blah. And I was giving her advice, and then she said, you know what, Nikki? There’s one thing in particular that makes you really good at sales. So, I love a compliment. And I was like, totally leaning in, like, what? Tell me, what do you think makes me really good at sales? She’s like, you’re so good at rejection.

Nikki Rausch:

And I was like, what? What do you mean rejection? Like, who’s rejecting me? I was so taken aback by her response. And then she goes, you know when people tell you no, it’s rejection. And I was like, oh, no. A no is not rejection. And if you’re looking at it that way, you’re in the wrong mindset. And the example that I’ll share is if you go out to eat and you have a really wonderful meal, and the waiter comes by at the end and says, can I show you the dessert menu? And you say, oh, no, thank you. I’m so satisfied, and I’m full. We’ll just take the check.

Nikki Rausch:

They don’t go back into the kitchen and be like, hey, can you believe that broad? I offered her dessert, and she rejected me. Right? They don’t take it personal. They’re not attached to it. But at the same time, if you’re sitting there and the waiter just comes by and drops your check and doesn’t offer you dessert, you might feel a little bit out of shape. So, your job in a sales conversation isn’t to being attached to somebody giving you a yes. What you should be doing is approaching it of like, I’m just identifying. Am I talking to an ideal client? Do I have permission to put an offer in front of them? Can I lay my offer out in a way that makes really good sense for them? And then I’m going to invite them to do business and it’ll be their decision one way or the other. I’m the waiter in this moment offering you dessert, and I’m not going to be offended if you say no.

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Melinda Wittstock:

And we’re back with Nikki Rausch, CEO and Founder of Sales Maven.

INTERVIEW CONTINUES

Melinda Wittstock:

What are the best close questions? What’s the best way to get this to a close? Like you’ve established, they’ve sort of given all the signals that, yeah, this is exactly the right client. They need. Exactly. They have the budget. It’s all good. They like you. All the different things.

Melinda Wittstock:

All the boxes have been ticked, and now it’s the time to close the deal. How do you go about that? What’s the best way to ask?

Nikki Rausch:

Yeah. So, this is where you’re going to issue an invitation. And the invitation, it’s in the form of a question. It’s going to be a yes or no question that you’re going to ask here. So it’s not an open ended question. It’s clearly a yes or no. Now, this question might need to tweak a little bit or change a little bit based on the conversation you’re having, the type of business that you’re doing. But an example of a closed question is, are you ready to get started? That’s a yes or no question.

Nikki Rausch:

Doesn’t mean you’re going to get a yes or no per se, but we’ve got to ask a very clear, close question. And this is so crucial. And I teach a five-step process to a sales conversation. Number five in the selling staircase is what I call my framework, is the close. And it’s the second most misstep of any sales conversations because most people never ask the closed question. And if you don’t ask the closed question, oftentimes the prospect won’t make a decision, not because they don’t want to hire you, not because they don’t need what you offer, but because their brain is lazy and tired and we have decision fatigue, and we address decisions as they’re like, right in our face as they come at us. So, I don’t know, Melinda, if you’ve heard the studies out there about on average, the adult makes a certain number of decisions a day. Have you heard that before?

Melinda Wittstock:

No.

Nikki Rausch:

So, if you think about you and just you. In a normal day, on average, how many decisions do you think you make in a day?

Melinda Wittstock:

Oh, gosh, it feels like loads.

Nikki Rausch:

Yeah, but if you were to put a quantitative, like, put a number to it, just throw out any guess we’ll.

Melinda Wittstock:

Do, I don’t know, big, little, I don’t know, 50?

Nikki Rausch:

Yeah. They say the average adult makes more than 30,000 decisions in a day. Is that crazy?

Melinda Wittstock:

Okay, well, I was way off there. That’s hilarious. But maybe I’m just, as an entrepreneur, I’m thinking about these big decisions, you know what I mean? Like, should our product roadmap or this or marketing strategy, all those sorts of decisions. But you’re talking about the micro decisions of, like, should I get up and get a cup of coffee right now? And what color shirt should I wear? I mean, I don’t know.

Nikki Rausch:

Everyone. Do I put my shoes on first or do I go grab my bag before I’m ready to leave the house? Like, all these decisions. But realistically, even when you said 50 to me, and especially when you qualified it and said about your business, like, 50 decisions in a day, that’s a lot of decisions. So, you’re tired. Your brain is tired. And it’s been proven our brains are lazy. Our brains will do the minimum amount of work as it needs to do to keep us functioning. So therefore, you have to put a decision right in front of somebody in the moment, because otherwise, if you think, oh, well, they’ll decide tomorrow or the next day or the day after that, you’re putting yourself at the bottom of a lot of decisions that they have to make that are immediate.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah. Okay, so say you get to, okay, are you ready to get started? And they say, yes. That’s like, great, okay. And then you have all your, like, okay, well, I’ll send you a contract. Or maybe at that point, should you have agreed the price already before you’ve said, are you ready to get started? Is there more negotiation after that? Or is that really the final thing?

Nikki Rausch:

Well, that could be dependent on your business. I’ve had people say yes to me when we haven’t even discussed price. So, then my next follow up to them is, okay, and the price for that is this. How would you like to take care of that today?

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah. Okay.

Nikki Rausch:

Now, if you need to send a contract.

Melinda Wittstock:

So, everything’s a question, so how would you like to take care of that? And then they may say, well, this time to send me an invoice. Or they may say, I don’t know. What do you suggest? I don’t know. How does that usually go?

Nikki Rausch:

Well, for me in my business, I will usually say, okay, so the price for this program is 5999. How would you like to take care of that today? I can either send you a link right here through Zoom that you can just click on and pay, or if you’d like to give me your credit card, I can actually run it through my system right now. Which do you prefer?

Melinda Wittstock:

Right. You’re getting the payment immediately, right away. So no gap for them to think about it.

Nikki Rausch:

Yeah. And I get a pushback from clients on this because they’re like, oh, I need them to sign my contract before I can take their money. Why? And I mean that I said that a little sassy, but I mean it with care in that. Is that true, really? Because most of the time if I took somebody’s money and I sent them my contract, which I do have contracts for vip clients, if I send them the contract and they come back and they’re like, I’m not going to sign this, worst case scenario, I refund them their money.

Melinda Wittstock:

Right? Yeah.

Nikki Rausch:

But best-case scenario is now they’re in, they’ve paid, and now we’re working together.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah. And once people are invested, they’re less likely to have an issue with that. Yeah, that’s a really important point, actually, because I think we put so many things ahead of the sale, and maybe that’s the mindset thing of, like, deep down, you don’t think you deserve it or you don’t value it, whatever that is. That kind of cobweb of subconscious stuff. Right. People putting things ahead of the sale, like people who plan for the sale but don’t actually ask for the sale. So, if someone says, okay, so you say, are you ready to get started? And they say no, what do you do then? Is it just like, oh, is it just the wrong timing for you, or is this just the wrong thing for you? How do you handle that?

Nikki Rausch:

So, I would ask permission to inquire about it. So, if somebody said no, and we are that far into the process, I’m probably a little surprised they’re saying no at this point. So, I might say, is it okay to ask your reason for declining?

Melinda Wittstock:

Right.

Nikki Rausch:

What most people will say, just let’s put it out there, is most people will say, I need to think about it.

Melinda Wittstock:

Right.

Nikki Rausch:

That’s really common. And so, can I give you some suggestions when people get that answer?

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah, please.

Nikki Rausch:

Okay. So, if somebody says to me, Nikki, I need to think about it, I would say, now, is there any additional information I can provide that would assist you in making the decision one way or the other? I’m going to wait, and then I’m going to say, okay, so about how much time do you think you’ll need to think about it? Let’s schedule a circle back call on our calendars. Now. That way I can answer any additional questions that come up for you, and then we’ll make some decisions about moving forward and working together. And then I get a time scheduled on my calendar and theirs for us to have that conversation. And the reason for that is because my job is to make it as easy as possible for somebody to make a decision. And if you don’t schedule a follow up call with them, chances are you’re never going to reach the top of their 30,000 decisions. But if it’s on their calendar now, they see like, oh, Melinda and I are talking tomorrow, I better think about what she proposed to me and make some decisions.

Nikki Rausch:

And if I decide, let’s say I decide, okay, if it’s somebody that’s going to work with me, and they go, I thought about it. I don’t think I’m ready to move forward with a sales coach. Chances are they’re just going to cancel the meeting with me, which is fine, because that’s a decision, or they’re going to get on the call with me. They’re going to have a question or two that I need to answer in order to earn their business. I had a great coach that used to always say, most people are one question away from hiring you. And the piece that I’ll add to that, it’s your job as the salesperson, is to give them the opportunity to ask you that question.

Melinda Wittstock:

Right. Exactly. This is such good advice. So, Nikki, how did you get interested in sales to begin with? I know you’ve been doing it. You’ve been a salesperson for more than 25 years, and you started your business back in 2013. What got you interested in it?

Nikki Rausch:

Well, I actually got my first professional sales job through a college project. So I will say that I fell into this opportunity. But what I loved about sales as a professional salesperson is that it gave me the ability to determine how much money I was going to make. And I had these big goals in my twenty s. I remember telling my grandmother, actually when I was 15, like, I just want to make $75,000 by the time I’m 30. That felt like a huge number to me at 15 and in the kind of family I grew up in, that was almost an unattainable, unimaginable type of money that somebody could make. So when I found this idea of a sales job where I could control my income, I definitely surpassed that goal in my early 20s in sales. And so, I loved the idea of being able to determine my income and then starting my business really was coming from a place of, I was about to turn 40, and it felt like there needed to be something a little bit more fulfilling in my life.

Nikki Rausch:

And I had no idea what that meant. And I wanted to spend time around people who are super passionate. And I started hanging around women entrepreneurs. That wasn’t my background. I came from a very male dominated corporate industry, tech space, and I started spending time with these women entrepreneurs. And I found that a lot of them struggled to make money in their business because they didn’t understand the selling process. So I just wanted to hang around them. So I started helping some of them on the side.

Nikki Rausch:

And my business was really born out of people getting results from the things that I was showing them how to do.

Melinda Wittstock:

Amazing. So good. Because I read somewhere that only 3% of women entrepreneurs make it to a million dollars or more. A lot of people start businesses, and they basically just created a job for themselves without job security. Getting to a place where the business is actually not running you, that you’re running the business. And there’s some scale. I know scale can be hard in a service business, but that, I think, holds back a lot of folks in the context of sales, because they go and say they’re successful at sales, and they go and sell a lot of things in a service business, and then all of a sudden, now they got to serve all those clients, and so then their pipeline dries up, right? Like they don’t have the right systems. How do you help people with that? Just like managing that piece, I see a lot of businesses go wrong, like trying to juggle those two things.

Nikki Rausch:

One of the things that I focus on with my clients often is how to increase the lifetime value of their clients, because if you’re just always going out trying to find the next client, you will burn yourself out. But yet there are things that you should be offering from a service based that maybe don’t require any or much more of your time, but deliver huge value to a client, and they’ll pay a premium for that value. So now when you can increase the lifetime value of a client, that is one way to scale business.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah, 100%. So important. So, I know a lot of people do need your services. What’s the best way to find you and work with you? Nikki?

Nikki Rausch:

I’m going to wrap it around a gift for your audience if that’s okay.

Melinda Wittstock:

Oh, yes.

Nikki Rausch:

Okay, good. Thank you. So, I mentioned I have this five-step process to a sales conversation. It’s called the selling staircase. I have a little mini training where I actually talk through each of the five steps and give language suggestions on how to move somebody from one step to the next. And you can get it by going to yoursalesmaven.com wings. It’s called mastering the sales conversation. It’ll change the way you have sales conversations.

Nikki Rausch:

I would love for that to be my gift to you. And once you get it, we’ll be forward slash wings. That’s for your listeners.

Melinda Wittstock:

Melinda, wonderful. Well, Nikki, thank you so much for taking the time and sharing so much insight about this. I mean, if there’s one thing in our businesses, apart from having a good service or product, it’s actually knowing how to sell it. It is business, after all. Thank you so much for putting on your wings and flying with us today.

Nikki Rausch:

Thanks for having me.

Melinda Wittstock:

Nikki Rausch is the founder and CEO of Sales Maven. Make sure you take advantage of her Exclusive Mini-Training, free for Wings listeners. Access it at yoursalesmaven.com/wings and elevate your sales game. Also, download Podopolo, check out Nikki’s podcast Sales Maven, and of course, follow Wings of Inspired Business there, create and share your favorite moments with our viral episode clip feature, and join us in the episode comments section so we can all take the conversation further with your questions and comments.

Melinda Wittstock:

That’s it for today’s episode. Head on over to WingsPodcast.com – and subscribe to the show. When you subscribe, you’ll instantly get my special gift, the WINGS Success Formula. Women … Innovating … Networking … Growing …Scaling … IS the WINGS of Inspired Business Formula …for daily success in your business and life.

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