She Thinks Big, Episode 275
Have you ever hung up from a sales call sure she was going to say yes, and then never heard from her again?
You replay the call in your head. Was it the price? Should you follow up, or will that look desperate? Your calendar fills up with conversations that feel great and go nowhere, and you start to wonder if you’re just not built for selling. Every one of those quiet goodbyes is a client you didn’t get, and hours you won’t get back.
Here’s the good news: this is a pattern, and it’s solvable. It usually has less to do with your marketing than with what happens inside the conversation. In this episode of the She Thinks Big podcast, I sat down with sales strategist Nikki Rausch to talk about the five steps that give every sales call a shape, so you know what to say, when to say it, and how to end with a real next step instead of a hope.
What should you say when a prospect says, “I need to think about it”?
According to sales strategist Nikki Rausch, don’t say “let me know.” Ask how much time she needs, then put a short follow-up call on both your calendars before you hang up. That keeps you off her to-do list and on her calendar, and gives her a set time to ask her last questions or tell you no.
Nikki’s reasoning is simple: “let me know” puts you on her to-do list, and most of us never finish those. A calendar invite is different. When she sees your name tomorrow, she’ll decide: send a no, come with questions, or show up ready to start. Before you get there, Nikki checks whether anything is missing that would help her decide. I add one more step. I ask permission to find out what she’ll be thinking about, so we can talk it through right then. And never end a “think about it” call without saying your price, because nobody can decide without it.
What should happen on a discovery call?
A discovery call has three jobs. Find out whether the person has a real need or want. Decide whether you have a solution that fits it. Then ask permission before you present your offer. Nikki Rausch says skipping that permission step is what makes selling feel pushy, because you end up pitching someone who never asked.
To get there, Nikki uses two kinds of questions. Right fit questions tell you quickly whether you’re talking to an ideal client; if not, you let her go kindly and save you both time. Expertise questions set you apart. They help her realize she doesn’t have the answers and wants them, and they do the persuading for you. If you catch yourself trying to convince her, the balance of power has tipped. What you call the call matters far less than how you run it.
Should you put your prices on your website?
Yes. Nikki Rausch’s advice is to be transparent about pricing, because most buyers won’t risk being embarrassed or shocked on a call. If your work is custom, post a range instead of a “starting at” price. A “starting at” number anchors buyers low, so your real quote feels like sticker shock.
On a live call, Nikki usually waits for the buyer to ask. She lays out the offer, asks how it sounds, and when the buyer asks the price, she says it, invites a decision, and then stops talking. If you keep meeting people who gasp at your number, that’s a sign to be even more open about pricing, or to add a range question to your intake form. Buyers who can’t find your pricing often just click the next search result.
Add this directly after the pricing section:
Should you give free advice on a sales call?
No. If you coach on a discovery call to prove what you know, the buyer often leaves thinking she has enough to go on alone. Nikki Rausch compares it to handing over a few grains of sand from a whole beach. When she asks for advice, tell her it’s a great question and you’ll work on it in session one.
Everything you know, every experience and resource you bring, is the beach behind you. She can’t see it, so she thinks the few grains you handed her are all there is, and she doesn’t know what to do with them. The same goes for “Can I pick your brain?” Nikki says yes and sends a link to a paid session. Charging for the sales call itself usually doesn’t make sense, Nikki says, unless you’re delivering something on it.
Why does selling feel so uncomfortable?
Most of us have been sold to badly: pushy, manipulative, built on making us feel broken. So we decide we’re “just not good at sales.” Nikki Rausch’s view is that sales is something you do with a person, not to them. It’s a guided conversation, and like any skill, it can be learned.
Nikki describes it as someone walking around giving people paper cuts, then offering to sell them bandages. No wonder you’d never want to sell like that. Her five-step Selling Staircase gives you guardrails instead of a script: you still sound like you, and the steps stay behind the scenes. The buyer just experiences a conversation that feels easy. As I see it, if every sales conversation needs a custom, emotionally exhausting performance from you, your business can’t grow past you.
What happens when you ask for the sale?
When you ask for the sale, use a clear closing question, like “Should we get you scheduled?” Then one of five things happens: she says yes, she says no, she asks a question, she raises an objection, or she says she needs to think about it. Every one of those moves the conversation forward. Silence and guessing don’t.
Nikki calls this close language, and it’s the fifth step of the Selling Staircase. A coach once told her that most people are one question away from hiring you, and your job is to let them ask it. Often they don’t know what that question is until you invite a decision. Objections work the same way. If you never ask, you never hear them, and you can’t answer an objection you don’t know about.
How do you bring up money when someone wants you to speak for free?
Ask about budget early. When an event reached out about having me speak, the organizer spent time describing the company before asking about me. I stopped and said I work on a professional fee basis, not product. The call ended right there, saving us both time.
Nikki asks every speaking request about the speaker budget before going any further, and happily points anyone without one to her free podcast, no hard feelings. Her rule for any sales conversation that’s drifting: when you’re not sure what to do, ask a question. Often the right one is simply, “What have you budgeted for this?” Being upfront about money isn’t rude. It respects everyone’s time.
About this episode
Nikki Rausch teaches women business owners how to sell with confidence and kindness, without feeling pushy. In our conversation, she explains why “let me know” can be such an expensive phrase in your sales vocabulary, what a discovery call is really for, and where your price belongs. She also makes the case that the best move on almost any call is to ask a good question and then stop talking. I share the story of a speaking inquiry I ended with one sentence about my fee.
About Nikki Rausch
Nikki Rausch is a sales strategist, coach, and founder of Sales Maven. A Master Certified Practitioner of Neuro-Linguistic Programming, she has sold to organizations including NASA, Hewlett-Packard, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. She is the author of The Selling Staircase and hosts the Sales Maven podcast.
Don’t just listen, implement it
Pick one of these and do it before your next sales call:
Pull up your last three conversations that went quiet and look at how each one ended. If you see “let me know,” start there.
Write the sentence you’ll use to say your price, and say it out loud until it sounds like you.
Swap “let me know” for a calendar ask: “How much time do you think you’ll need? Let’s put a short follow-up call on the calendar.”
If you’d like help making your whole business feel this much lighter, book a conversation with me.
Resources mentioned
Related She Thinks Big episodes
Connect with Nikki
Visit Sales Maven to learn more about Nikki’s work.
Connect with Andrea
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INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT Andrea Liebross: Nikki, why don't you just start and tell us who you are and then we're gonna dive into some much more interesting things Not that who you are is not interesting, but just set us up set up the listener so they know who you are Nikki Rausch: Okay. So I'm Nikki Rausch. My company is Sales Maven and I'm a sales strategist and coach and I really specialize in teaching people how to have more successful sales conversations. So the conversation of sales is my jam and how to say things and when to say them so that you can confidently have genuine conversations that are strategic and move people closer to the closing. Andrea Liebross: Okay, love that. All right, I'm gonna dig right in. I'm gonna just ask you some questions and I wanna hear what you have to say. So one of the big things that I talk about with my clients is so many women, all my clients are women, so we can have a women-based sales discussion. If you're a man listening, you're still welcome, but that's, you So I like to say, it's like when you're stuck in the peanut butter jar. So when you're stuck in your own business, for example, Nikki Rausch: Yeah, please. Okay. Nikki Rausch: Same. Yep. Yeah, same. Andrea Liebross: It's so hard to read the label and to figure out what's going on on the outside, because you're so in it, right? And I can be guilty of this too. I think we all can. But in this world where so many women are trying to read the label from inside the peanut butter jar, I see them think that they have this marketing problem when deep underneath, I really think they have a sales problem or they have a structural conversation Nikki Rausch: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Andrea Liebross: type of problem. And it's almost like they're driving in circles in the parking lot because they don't have a systematic framework to help them park the car. And then they have all these conversations. Well, they were kind of interested, but they never got back to me. So what do you see is really happening there? Tell us your thoughts. Nikki Rausch: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Nikki Rausch: Mm. Nikki Rausch: Yeah, I mean, I agree with what you're saying 100 % in that there is a structure to a successful sales conversation. And I teach a five step framework for a successful sales conversation. actually wrote my third book around it. It's called The Selling Staircase. And the reason that I call it a staircase is because most people understand that when you're ascending a staircase, you go one step at a time. And if you don't have a process for sales, what happens is you jump around over steps You try to skip steps and that is awkward and weird. And it's very confusing for a buyer. So if you can guide somebody up the staircase one step at a time and you know, here's where we are in the conversation. We're on step two or we're on step three. Then it takes a lot of pressure off of you and it can be more conversational. So you're not trying to sound like a robot and read a script. That's ridiculous, frankly. And people don't wanna buy from robots or scripts, right? So we wanna have real conversations with people, but there needs to be some structure to it so that you understand what stuff am I on and what is the logical thing to do or say next. So this five step process for me is really gives people that it's like the guardrail. So I'm not teaching anybody how to sell like me, because you're perfect the way you are and how you show up in the world. Now let's add some strategy to it. Let's add some structure to it so that you can still be you, but that you know like your destination. I know where I and I know where I'm going. And now it takes like just the selling process gets so much easier for everybody, not just you, which is important, but for the buyer, it gets easier for them too. Andrea Liebross: Yes. Andrea Liebross: Yeah. Do you think you should reveal to them that you're like going step one, step two, step three, or do you think that should be kind of behind the scenes? Nikki Rausch: I think that's kind of behind the scenes because it should feel natural. The conversation should feel like we're having a real genuine conversation. So one of the places I think where people get hesitant about sales is we've all had sales done poorly to us, right? We've all been sold to in a way that feels weird or awkward or pushy or aggressive or all the things that, especially women, like we don't want to be seen as, right? And so... this idea of like the misconception often is that sales is something that you're doing to another person. Well, just think about the way I said that, like how many times do you want people to do things to you? That feels manipulative, that feels uncomfortable and awkward. And I teach that sales is actually something you do with another person. It's a guided conversation. You're the guide, but you're not the person who... Andrea Liebross: Mm-hmm. Nikki Rausch: you know, shows up and like word vomits all over somebody and it's like, well, you better buy from me because your life is going to fall apart if you don't. none of us, like we're savvy. Like we're, we're hip to this. We're hip to the, you know, thousand emails that we get a week of people telling us all the things we're doing wrong on YouTube or Instagram or, know, in our business and our websites. And it's like, that's not, that's not how you build rapport. That's not how you connect with another person. by showing up and telling somebody who you don't even know all the things they're doing wrong and how you can fix it. You've got the solution. I often will, I do this when I go and speak, I'll talk about, it's like walk, you know, the person who walks around with a really sharp piece of paper and they like slash it across your fingers all the time. And then you end up with paper cuts and they say, Andrea Liebross: Mm-hmm. Nikki Rausch: Bless your heart, darling, you're bleeding. Guess what? I sell band-aids. They're the best band-aids out there. And as a matter of fact, if you don't buy them, you're just gonna bleed to death. It's like, well, yeah, I'm bleeding because you cut me. Like, no, I don't wanna buy band-aids from you. That's awkward. It's weird. And frankly, now I'm annoyed and I got a paper cut. So this idea of trying to approach people with this, like I have to perform, but do it in a way that makes people feel bad. So they'll buy from me. Andrea Liebross: Yeah. Andrea Liebross: Yes. Nikki Rausch: Like that's just garbage. And anybody who has had that done to them, they don't want to sell like that. And so then they shy away from selling because they're like, I don't want people to see me that way. I don't want to have conversations like that. So I guess I'm just not good at sales. It's like, no, you can be good at sales. You just have to have some structure and have some training. Like anything, it's a learned skill. Andrea Liebross: No. Andrea Liebross: Totally. Yes. So, okay. So when you said the band-aid thing with the slashing, I just had a conversation this week about what to call a sales call. And that what the band-aid, what your analogy there made me think of is a lot of times people will use the terminology of a discovery call. So it's like, but are we just discovering and unearthing all the things that you're bad at, right? Or all the things. So I guess, Nikki Rausch: Mmm. Nikki Rausch: Hmm. Andrea Liebross: How do you shift that into a different framework? Right? Because it doesn't feel good to have someone say, well, yeah, you should be doing this and you should be doing this. now I can, right? Where'd you go wrong there? You went wrong there. Now I can help you. I can cut you and then I can give you band-aids. how do, what's like, okay, I guess a question could be, what should you call it? And then should it be called a discovery call or a consult call or a sales call? What should we call it? And then two, Nikki Rausch: Yeah. Yeah. Right. Andrea Liebross: What's like one tidbit you can get to shift away from slashing them with the paper, giving them paper cuts? Nikki Rausch: Yeah, I have so much to say about this and this, spend a lot of time around it. So yeah, I love this. I love this so much. So you just jump in and like interrupt me if I'm like, cause I'll keep going. Okay, so first, what do you call it? It's actually less important what you call it and how you structure it. Okay, so you can call it a discovery call. And I actually teach in my five step process that step three in the process is discovery. Andrea Liebross: I know, mean, we could, that's why we could have a hundred conversations, but. Andrea Liebross: I will. Okay. Nikki Rausch: So that can be your consultation call. You call it your sales call. You can call it a chemistry call. I don't love that one, but I don't know. That feels judgy. That feels like, let's make sure that you're good enough for me, but that's just me, right? So I'm fine with a consultation call. I'm fine with a sales call. I'm fine with discovery call. Now here's the thing. In a discovery call, there are three things that you need to do. Andrea Liebross: Okay. Andrea Liebross: Yes, yes. Yes, yes. Nikki Rausch: in that call as the seller first establish does this person have a need or a want? Okay, we need to understand what that is. Now, how do you get that you ask really smart questions and I'll go there in just a second about questions. The second thing is the objective of this call after the first one is do they have a need? The second objective is do I have a solution that would possibly meet that need offer, you know, meet that problem or fulfill on that want. The third objective is do I have permission? This is so important and this is often people miss this. Do I have permission to actually put the solution in front of somebody? My philosophy is you should not be selling to somebody you don't have permission to sell to. So if they have not given you permission to sell to them, then you're showing up. Andrea Liebross: Okay. Yep. Andrea Liebross: Okay. Yeah. Nikki Rausch: from this place of being the person who shows up in your email and points out all the things you're doing wrong and why you should do something different and why you should pay them money to fix, you know, fix you. Well, first of all, none of us are broken, right? Or if we are, that's not our job, it's to fix people. Our job is, do they have a problem? Do I have a solution? And do I have permission to put it in front of them? Now, how do you, you know, meet those objectives? You ask smart questions. Andrea Liebross: Mm-hmm. Nikki Rausch: in your conversations. And when I say smart questions, I think of questions as there are two types of questions in a sales conversation in this context. There are right fit questions to help you establish, am I talking to somebody who actually is a right fit for what I do? And then the second type of questions are what I call your expertise questions. And these questions set you apart from anybody else in your industry. from competitors, from other solutions that they might find, your expertise questions are the thing that does really the heavy lifting in the sales conversation. So a lot of times people get into these consult calls and they think as the seller, I have to demonstrate my expertise to this person and essentially convince them that I am the right solution for them. And anytime you find yourself in this mode of trying to convince somebody, I always say you create an imbalance of power in the dynamic, in the conversation. And in a sales conversation, there should be a balance of power. You don't give the client all the power because if you do, they will not value what you offer. You don't try to take all the power in the conversation because if you do, they'll find somebody else to go buy from because it won't feel good to work with you. So your expertise questions. Andrea Liebross: Mm-hmm. Andrea Liebross: Yeah. Nikki Rausch: are the things that start to plant seeds in the mind of the buyer to go like, Andrea is asking me questions that make me think, I don't know the answers, I want the answers, and I realize that in order to get those answers, hiring Andrea is gonna be my solution, right? So it starts to plant seeds, it starts to do the heavy lifting. In a sales consult, if you're doing all the talking, Andrea Liebross: Mm-hmm. Nikki Rausch: I always say like, you're acting like you're the monkey and you're supposed to dance. It's a conversation. There should be back and forth. That's not me talking at you. It's me talking with you. That means there'll be an opportunity for you to ask me questions for sure. But I am going to also be asking questions because I am evaluating kind of back to your thing here about chemistry. Like, are you a right fit client for me? Or, and if you're not, I wanna find that out pretty early in the conversation, because I don't wanna waste your time, but I definitely don't wanna waste mine. So I always say like, find those, ask these right questions so that you establish quickly, am I talking to an ideal client? And if not, I'm gonna bless and release in a kind way, not to make you feel bad about yourself, but not to waste your time. And if you are a right fit client, as soon as I have figured that out in the discovery process. Andrea Liebross: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Nikki Rausch: I am going to ask permission to move us to step four in the sales conversation. And that's actually where I start to sell. That's where I lay out the offer. That's where I present you with a possible solution. And then I invite you to work with me. Andrea Liebross: Okay. I love that. I mean, it seems so easy. Nikki Rausch: Okay, good. It should be easy for you and for the buyer. Again, like I always say, the easier you make it for people to be in conversation with you and the easier you make it for somebody to buy from you, the more likely they are. Like think about your buying decisions. know, lot of us, we're looking for easy right now. Like we have a desire, like, I'll just go on Amazon or I'll go to Google and see where can I get this and how fast can I get it, right? Like we want easy and sellers, Andrea Liebross: yeah. Andrea Liebross: Yeah. Yeah. Nikki Rausch: You know, people who aren't comfortable selling, oftentimes they put up unintentional roadblocks. They make it hard for somebody to like just get what they need. They ask too many questions. They ask questions that aren't relevant. They wanna do the like, let's think about you in 10 years and what do you wanna see and what do you wanna feel and how do you wanna, and they're like, I'm just looking for somebody to come fix my toilet. I'm not thinking about 10 years from now and my toilet, right? I'm not saying like, it's fine, plumber, whatever you are. But the idea here is I'm just asking enough questions to establish, are you a good fit client? Do you have a problem? Do I have a solution? And I'm gonna ask permission to put it in front of you. And if you say no, I'm not gonna sell to you. And if you say yes, then I've got permission to put an offer in front of you. And then I'm gonna invite you to make a decision to say yes or no to us working together. Andrea Liebross: Yes, yes, yes. Nikki Rausch: The simpler I make it, the more likely you are to buy. Andrea Liebross: Is the invitation step five or is that part of step four? Nikki Rausch: So you're gonna actually invite in every step of my selling process, step five is the close. And so that invitation is very specific. So it is getting close language out of your mouth. And so even though I call it step five is the close, that doesn't necessarily mean that they're going to like that you've closed the sale. I wanna clarify that. Andrea Liebross: Okay. Nikki Rausch: What it means is that I have invited you to make a decision. So I've asked you a very specific question. And that question can be framed in a few different ways. It could be something as simple as, Andrea, is this something you're ready to move forward with? It could be, should we get you signed up? Should we schedule your first session? Or how would you like to pay? All of these are invitation questions, but with a closed frame around them. And when you issue closed language, there's one of five things that will happen. for the buyer. They'll say, yes, great. Now there's something that you should do next, right? They'll say, could be a no, okay. Then I'm maybe gonna check if we've gone all the way through the five steps of the selling staircase and you say no to me when I get to that place of inviting you, I might check and see, can I ask your reason for declining? Like that's okay if they say no, that's fine. The third thing is they might have a question. Andrea Liebross: Yay. Yep. Nikki Rausch: Great. You know, I used to have a coach that said to me, Nikki, most people are one question away from hiring you. And my follow-up to that is, and your job is to allow them to ask the question. And sometimes you have to issue closed language for them to even recognize what that question is that they need answered in order to say yes to moving forward. So I'm gonna answer their question and then I'm gonna invite them again. Andrea Liebross: Mm-hmm. Andrea Liebross: Yeah. Nikki Rausch: The fourth thing that can happen is they might raise an objection. Like we all talk about that. hear about like how to overcome objections. Well, the thing is, is if you never issue closed language, they may never issue their objection and you can't overcome an objection that you're not aware of or that they're not aware of. Right. And then the fifth thing, and this is the one that sometimes throws people into like a tizzy is they might say they need to think about it. Andrea Liebross: Mm-hmm. Andrea Liebross: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Nikki Rausch: Now there's lots of philosophies out there about how to handle that. need to think about it. Can I share mine of what to do? So when somebody, okay, great. So if somebody says I need to think about it, I might check and see, is there any information that we haven't covered yet that would be helpful for you to have? I am totally okay with like giving people time and space because some people really do need time to process. That's their style, right? Andrea Liebross: Yeah, sure. Yep. Because I have way I handle this, but I'm curious how you handle it. OK. Nikki Rausch: on the Kolbe, are they a quick start or are they something else? So if somebody says to me, need to think about it, I say, great, about how much time do you think you'll need? Let's go ahead and schedule a circle back call now on our calendars. And that way, it'll be an opportunity for me to answer any last questions that you might have and then for us to talk about next steps for working together. And then I offer a time and then I get it on their calendar and on mine. Because if you miss this, if you just say like, okay, yeah, think about it and let me know, never ever say let me know to somebody who you want to earn their business because saying let me know to somebody is essentially saying my time is more important than yours. And you're probably gonna just add me to your to-do list because that means you have to actually schedule time to think about it. And I don't know about you, but they say most of us die with our to-do lists undone. Andrea Liebross: Yeah, you're totally forget it. Andrea Liebross: Mm-hmm. Andrea Liebross: Yep. Yep. Right. Right. That's funny. Yes. Nikki Rausch: Right? So I don't want to be on any buyer's to-do list. I want to be like on their calendar because most of us live and breathe our calendars. So if I'm on somebody's calendar, that means we're actually going to either have a conversation or when they see me, like they look at their calendar for tomorrow and they go, I have an appointment with Nikki and I'm supposed to tell her. like I'm ready to work with her or not, I'm gonna make a decision right now. I might just send her an email and say, hey, Nikki, go kick rocks. I'm not gonna hire you. Fine. Now don't have to get on a call with somebody to have them tell me no, that's great. Or they might say, yeah, I really need, I need to spend some time thinking like, what are my questions that I have for Nikki? Or I get on a call with them and they're like, I'm ready to go, let's go. When can I have my first session with you? Great, all of those things are a good thing. Andrea Liebross: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Exactly. Nikki Rausch: because I don't have to spend as the seller any time or energy thinking about what's gonna happen next. Should I send an email? Should I follow up? Should I wait two days? Like, what should I do? It's like, no, no, no. They're on my calendar on Thursday. We're gonna talk at 10. And if they reach out to me before then, then that'll be an answer. But otherwise I'm gonna get on the call at 10, being prepared. I've got a structure for that call and I'm gonna be ready for whatever comes my way. Andrea Liebross: Mm-hmm. Andrea Liebross: So true. let me know. I never let that happen, actually. And a lot of times when someone says, I just need time to think about it. OK, like I'm all about thinking. I understand that. But then I always ask permission to ask them what they might be thinking about. And there are any questions that I could answer now ahead of time before they even start thinking. So it's almost like, what are you going to think about? Nikki Rausch: Yeah, good. Nikki Rausch: Yeah. Andrea Liebross: Can I help you think through it right here? anyway, all right. Question, pricing. Where in this whole process on the stairs do you share your price? I'm gonna guess it is not in steps one, two, or maybe three, no? Cause four was layout the offer. So I'm gonna guess it goes there. Am I right? Nikki Rausch: I love that. Nikki Rausch: Yeah. Nikki Rausch: Yeah. Okay. So yes and is my answer to this. Yes and. Andrea Liebross: Okay, yes. And should you have told them how much do they need to know ahead of time before even getting on a call with you if you're in a business that's not, you know, the prices are laid out right in front of you? Or should they be? I don't know, this is all like. Nikki Rausch: Yeah, I'm pretty transparent. Yeah, they should be. They should be. So any coach who says to you, don't put your pricing on your website because you want to get on calls with people to establish your value. It's going to make it easier to earn business. They have your best interests at heart by saying that, but they're wrong because it isn't about your best interests. It's about your buyer's best interests. And most buyers will not put themselves in a position of being embarrassed. Andrea Liebross: Yeah. Nikki Rausch: or shocked when they get on a call with somebody if they don't already know their pricing. So should you put your pricing on your website? Yes. Should you be transparent about your pricing? Yes. Do you need to make it the forefront of every conversation? No, not necessarily. If you're getting a ton of people getting on calls with you and they're tire kickers, those people that, you know, when you do bring price into the conversation, they clutch their pearls and they're like, what? I would never pay that. Then that's Andrea Liebross: Mm-hmm. Andrea Liebross: Mm-hmm. Nikki Rausch: is also an indicator to you that you need to be more transparent, even more transparent about your pricing so that you're not getting on the call with tire kickers. Now, if I get on a call with somebody, I don't necessarily know if they know my pricing or not. In the like laying out of my five steps of the sales conversation, in a live conversation, I rarely bring price into the conversation until they do. So I might say, Let's say I do the discovery, I see that I have a solution for you, I ask you permission to lay out an offer, and I might say, know, Andrea, based on what you've shared, I do see a way that we can work together. And my suggestion, my recommendation for you would be a private coaching program. And it would look like this, this and this. How does that sound to you? Notice I didn't bring in pricing. So I'm gonna wait for you to say, that does sound like something I'm interested in, how much is it? And now I'm gonna say the price, and then I'm gonna follow. up with an invitation to close. if you say, how much is it? And I say it's $4,995. Is that something you'd like to go ahead and move forward with? Then I'm going to zip it and I'm going to wait. But if I'm getting on a bunch of calls with people and we're getting to this place where, you know, it's like, I say $4,995 and they go like, that's going to start getting in my mindset of me thinking like, oh, people can't afford me or people think I'm, you know, priced out of the market or whatever. So instead I might put in an intake form that I might say, you know, private coaching with me ranges between $700 and $5,000. Where do you see yourself in that range? Or I might say, I have, you know, I have a group coaching program ranges in price between 47 or $47 to start. Andrea Liebross: Mm-hmm. Andrea Liebross: Mm-hmm. Nikki Rausch: to $197 a quarter. Like I'm going to just be transparent because if somebody sees on that like, oh, Nikki charges $700 for a session, I would never pay that. Okay, then that means you're not my client and I'm okay with that. But I also, you know, I often have people say like, oh, Nikki, I thought it would be way more when we talk about like what the offer is or what I suggest for them. They're like, I was expecting to pay more, which I'm like, well, OK, so maybe I should be raising my prices. But realistically, I don't want people to have sticker shock because it kind of like throws me in a conversation. And I don't think most sellers, most probably of your clients listening, want to have those awkward conversations. Now, the one thing I won't do is get off a call with somebody who says they need to think about it if we haven't discussed price. Andrea Liebross: Mm-hmm. Nikki Rausch: because they can't really make a decision until they know what the price is. So if I say, you know, my suggestion for you would be private coaching and it looks like this, and you say, yeah, I really need some time to think about it, then I'm going to bring price into the conversation. And I'm going say, and I want to be really transparent with you that the pricing for that is this, that's going to help you and assist you in making your decision, kind of given that price range that I just threw out. Andrea Liebross: Yeah, yeah. Nikki Rausch: Like where does that land for you now? Like I want to know, cause if you're like, I had no idea how much it costs, you know, to get sales coaching, then all right. And, or it gives me an opportunity to bring an alternative offer in, right? Like a down sell and that's okay too, but don't be afraid of pricing. And if you're the person who's like, I got to get off the call with somebody and I just want to send them an email with the price. Andrea Liebross: Yeah. Nikki Rausch: you're likely you're causing people to not make a decision to buy from you. And if you act hesitant about your price, because you know, for whatever is going on mindset for you, you're sending the message unintentionally to the other person of like, be careful, you might not be making a good, a good decision. And that's, that's not your job. Andrea Liebross: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. No, it's totally not your job. It's totally not your job. I get the question a lot, should I put my pricing right on my website or should it be embedded in a questionnaire form, intake form? Do have any thoughts on that one? Nikki Rausch: Yeah, I think it should be on your website. And I want to address this because some people might be listening and think, well, I can't put my pricing on my website because every, you it's a custom project, for instance, right? And I understand that and I respect that. And so some of the advice out there is people will say, well, just put a starting at price. That is a mistake. Again, they have your best interest at heart, they're wrong because they just told you to anchor a lower price. And then when you Andrea Liebross: Okay. Nikki Rausch: quote a higher price to somebody, they're gonna feel disappointed or they're gonna have sticker shock. So put a range, if you can't put a specific price, like this is the price of the program, then put a range, say, know, private coaching ranges between X and Y. I mean, I think I looked at your website, you have a beautiful website, by the way, and you do have pricing, it was very transparent in how you work with people on your, Andrea Liebross: Yeah, then it's, Andrea Liebross: All right. Andrea Liebross: Mm-hmm. Andrea Liebross: Thank you. Yeah. Nikki Rausch: And you say right on there that you can have two private sessions with me and up to two, right? You're so transparent about it. And that just, that builds trust, right? So now when I get on a call with you and I'm like, well, Andrea, I need some help with this. And you say, well, Nikki, I recommend that you do my retreat, like go come to one of my retreats or do one of my programs. Or maybe it's just a, you and I start with a one on one session. I already have some idea in my mind. Andrea Liebross: Yep. Yep. Andrea Liebross: Mm-hmm. Nikki Rausch: about kind of where I'm landing as far as pricing. So be transparent about it. will serve you in ways that you probably won't even know about. But I can tell you so many times where people are like, I looked at their website, there was no pricing. I just went to the next person that Google recommended and saw what their pricing was. Andrea Liebross: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's so true that you do, you humans, we like to know what to expect, right? That's part of, I I call it the motivational triad, right? So we want things to be safe, easy, and efficient, and feel good. And if you don't know kind of what you're walking into, it's probably not gonna feel too good. Yeah. Nikki Rausch: Yeah. Nikki Rausch: Yep. Mm-hmm. Nikki Rausch: Yeah. Safety comes up a lot in the stuff that I teach about making sure you're creating a safe environment. And, you know, one of the places I talk about safety is even creating it at the start of your discovery or your consultation call, whatever you call it, that your job is to create safety right at the beginning for somebody because if they don't feel safe, human nature, right, we go into fight, flight, freeze. Andrea Liebross: Mm-hmm. Nikki Rausch: right? And it shows up in that conversation. So I'm going to do everything I can to create safety at the beginning of the call for you so that you can be at ease because we make better decisions when we feel at ease. This doesn't mean that I'm going to force you to buy from me or that I'm more likely to even earn your business, but I am more likely to earn your business if you have a need for what it is that I sell, if you feel safe, because if you feel unsafe, Andrea Liebross: Yeah. Andrea Liebross: Yes. Nikki Rausch: You're going to be like, I'm always looking for what might Nikki say? What might she do that I need to be like on the lookout for? Well, that's what's the catch. Yeah. Love that. Yep. Andrea Liebross: on the lookout for like, what's the catch? What's the catch? Right? And I think it's when the buyer is looking for what's the catch, right? Then it makes it a lot harder for the salesperson, right? Then it's not easy. You can't shift into, cause I hear, like I see a lot of business owners saying, I'm ready to scale. Like I'm ready to kick this thing up 10 notches. Like, let's go. Okay. How can we make this easy? Nikki Rausch: Yes! Nikki Rausch: Yeah. Yeah. Andrea Liebross: That's like the next thing. How can we make this easy? They've committed, in their brains at least, to kicking it up a notch. How can we make it easy? That's the next thing that happens. But then they design their business. And one of the things in the business is the sales process, so that it's not easy. It's not easy. And I feel like if every single sales conversation requires a customized, bespoke, know, emotionally exhausting performance from the salesperson, it's just not gonna, we're not gonna get there. And that's brings me to another thing. Every client's different, right? And you kind of already addressed this with, yeah, okay, everybody's different, but you still can have a very solid framework of how you're going to handle every different client or prospective client, right? Yeah. Nikki Rausch: Yeah, yeah, yeah. The other thing is just like how exhausting that is, Where, yes, I can't tell you how many times people will, they'll hire me and they're like, so I'm gonna have this sales call next Thursday with this company and I wanna be able to sell them this, this, this, this, this, this, I wanna be able to talk to all these different, Andrea Liebross: Yes, that's emotionally exhausting, isn't it? Nikki Rausch: departments within their organization. And I'm like, okay, so let's back up for just a second. So who are you having a conversation with? Like, what did they show interest in that prompted the conversation? It's like, you're spending all this time prepping for something that we don't even know yet, if they're looking for what you offer, right? Or, you know, back to this idea about pricing, I had somebody hire me last year, where she was really excited about this opportunity. Andrea Liebross: Yes. Nikki Rausch: of somebody who had asked her to kind of create something new. And this would be like, she was really excited about like, what could this mean for her business? This like new offer. And you know, the first question I asked her is what's this person's budget? And they go, I didn't ask that question. I was like, well, it's pretty hard for us to design something if we don't even know if we're in the same ballpark. And so, you know, I we went through, I gave her some questions to go back and she went back and you know, her and I were talking about like each individual thing that she was going to offer to them was going to be about a thousand dollars. And this was like times 20, right? So it was a, it was a relatively good size deal. And so we were thinking, you know, she was thinking like, oh, if, if I charged a thousand dollars for each one of these pieces, this would, you know, meet this requirement that they have. Well, then when she went back to the person, Andrea Liebross: Mm-hmm. Nikki Rausch: with this thousand dollars per item pricing, they were like, I was thinking like a hundred dollars. It's like a hundred dollars. couldn't even, you know, she couldn't even start the project for that. It just didn't even make sense, but it's because she didn't feel comfortable asking the question about budget and pricing that then she went off on this tangent. And, you know, I was like, gosh, like we got to ask these questions. Andrea Liebross: Yeah. Andrea Liebross: So, so, yeah. Nikki Rausch: We can't put offers in front of people and have no, like, you're just shooting in the dark, which it's like, well, the mice will just throw spaghetti at the wall and go, let's see what sticks. Like, it's just, it's a waste of your time. Andrea Liebross: Totally. Andrea Liebross: I'm going to tell you something that happened to me. I just last week, I posted on LinkedIn this sales story. And it has gotten so much, so many comments. It's so many, like, I cannot believe sort of blown up. so you have to go find it. Yes. OK. So I was approached to, they reached out to me, hey, we're having an event. We'd like you to speak at or consider, we'd to have a conversation. Nikki Rausch: Okay. Nikki Rausch: I gotta go look for it, yeah. Andrea Liebross: about you potentially speaking at this event. Okay, so I'm genuinely interested. Let's have a conversation. So I have a conversation with first person. He kind of goes through actually steps in your world. He would be like, hey, we got to the place where I'm a good fit. Okay, so I'm a good fit. All right, it's like that kind of place in the conversation. And he says the next step is to talk to this next person. She's the one that handles Nikki Rausch: Good. Andrea Liebross: all of the logistics, sales, like the pricing piece of it. Okay, totally fair. All right, get to the next conversation. Person goes on for 13 minutes, because I had my timer on, 13 minutes at the beginning of the call telling me all sorts of amazing information about the company, which I had already known. And then finally says, so now tell me about you, or like, let's get to the meat of this. So I stopped kind of the conversation. And I said, before we go any further. I would really like to align on how I structure speaking engagements, because I had this sneaking suspicion that they weren't going to pay me, or they were going to try to pay me in product. OK? So I stopped the whole thing. Yep, I stopped the whole thing. And I was like, I need to align on how I structure this. I do this on a professional fee basis. I don't do product-based compensation. And the end. Nikki Rausch: Yep, I'm so familiar with these. Nikki Rausch: Yeah. Yeah. Andrea Liebross: That was the end. That was the end. And it was so interesting to me just to, cause we could have been on the, we could have had 30 more minutes to get to the punchline there at the end. And I just, I had to put it out there, right? Like I had to put it out there. And I, so I told, said, I said, I don't even know exactly what you're asking me to do yet. Like, is this an hour? Is this a whole day? We hadn't even. Nikki Rausch: Yes. Andrea Liebross: But I did have to say this is where the starting point would be. I just gave that and that shut the whole thing down immediately. So was so interesting to me, that whole thing. Nikki Rausch: Yeah. Yeah. Nikki Rausch: I'm so proud of you though for like just stepping up and making that, cause like you said, you would have wasted 30 more minutes. You'd already talked to what two people before, right? Before you got to this. And it's this idea of like, and then you start to kind of beat yourself up about like, maybe I should have said this sooner. should have, but realistically it's like, if there's hesitation or if they're like, this is why being transparent about pricing, being transparent about your fees. Andrea Liebross: Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah. Andrea Liebross: Yes. Nikki Rausch: When somebody asked me about speaking, one of the things I first say is, what's your budget for your speakers? Because I'm not even interested in continuing the conversation if they have no budget for their speaker, right? Or like, well, this is about exposure for you, Nikki. I love when people say exposure. Yeah. Andrea Liebross: Great. Andrea Liebross: Right. Andrea Liebross: well, so I had this sneaking suspicion about that because the first conversation, he started to plant some seeds on that one. This is where my like spidey senses were going up. Yeah. It's an opportunity. Yeah, not really. Yeah. Nikki Rausch: Mm hmm. Yeah. Yeah. It's an opportunity. Yeah. I always liked the saying of like, you know, people actually die from exposure. Right. Like if you're out in the wilderness, you die from exposure. So this idea of like, well, you're getting exposure, which again, like, believe me, I've spoken to many, many times I have spoken for free. Absolutely. Andrea Liebross: Right, mean, there's a time and place for that. I mean, and it may be the right thing at that moment and it may be attractive to you, but. Nikki Rausch: Yeah. Yeah. And there's no judgment about it. And I certainly have done it enough times. And it's just easier to be transparent. And again, this is why, like, you don't want to waste your time and you don't want to waste the time of a buyer by going down this road with somebody and then them being like shocked by whatever the response is, whether there's a fee involved or whatever the fee is. Andrea Liebross: No, no. Andrea Liebross: Yes! Nikki Rausch: Like, let's just get it out there. Don't ever be afraid to ask somebody, what's your budget for this? When they're asking you for something, like, well, what's your budget for it? And like that will probably shut down the majority of conversations. It's kind of like, you know, people used to always say like, Nikki, can I just pick your brain for a couple of minutes? And my answer is yes. And here's the link to book your session. And that has a payment attached to it, right? And then nine out of 10 people who want to Andrea Liebross: No. Andrea Liebross: Yeah! Nikki Rausch: pick my brain when they get that link for this, like, you know, what I call it a spotlight coaching session. They're like, okay. Well, the best thing is one person says yes, and they're delighted, right? And they, they pay me great. I'm delighted. But the other best thing out of this is nine people stop asking to pick my brain for anything in the future. It's like, just get it out of the way. Don't be afraid of it because Andrea Liebross: Yeah, they don't. Andrea Liebross: Yes! Nikki Rausch: It's just easier for both of us from a relationship. And it doesn't mean you're a bad person if you don't want to pay my fee. And I'm not a bad person for charging a fee. And we can still be friends. But like, it doesn't have to be awkward. It's just, it needs to be transparent. It needs to be out there. Get in on the table. And if you're ever worried about in a conversation of like, this could be, this could be like, I don't know where we're going. Like I always say, when you're not sure what to do in a sales conversation, Andrea Liebross: No. Totally. Nikki Rausch: always revert back to this, ask a question. Just ask a question because it'll help get you back on track. And sometimes the question is, well, what's your budget for this? How much have you budgeted for your speakers or how much have you budgeted for sales coaching? Andrea Liebross: Yes. And sometimes they're like, well, nothing. And then, OK. Nikki Rausch: And then, yeah, great. And then you can say, well, typically it ranges between X and Y. How does that land for you? Do you find yourself, where do you find yourself in that range? And if they're like, well, I just thought you would do it for free. You go, great. I have tons of free resources. I have the Sales Maven podcast. I encourage you to go listen to it. It's packed full of information for you. Like again, no hard feelings. Andrea Liebross: Nice! Yes! Andrea Liebross: Yep. No, no hard feelings. What's your thoughts on, since you just triggered this in my brain, for a, it's almost like charging for the consult call, charging for the sales call. I mean, we could go so many different ways on that, but what's your three sentences on that one? Nikki Rausch: Okay. Nikki Rausch: Yeah. Okay, so my first instinct is it probably doesn't make sense for the majority of businesses. If you're coaching during that call, if you're delivering some type of results, yeah, if there's a deliverable, there probably should be a fee for it. Because one of things I also say is that there should be no coaching. Andrea Liebross: There's a deliverable, right, of some sort, yes. Nikki Rausch: in a discovery call. And this is why I teach people the structure of them. I set them up with the questions to ask in that discovery call. Because if you coach during your discovery call, and even if there's like a part of you, you know, I've been doing this for a really long time, Andrea, you've been doing this for a long time. You're really good at what you do. And like, I just had a great conversation with you a week ago where my mind was blown by the things that you shared. Andrea Liebross: Mm-hmm. Andrea Liebross: Yes. Nikki Rausch: And, but if you and I had been having a private conversation and you were giving me like this coaching advice as a way to prove your worth, to earn my business, I probably would have walked away from that conversation going like, I probably don't need to hire her because she gave me so much good stuff. would say, I know, right? It's like you just blew, I mean, you blew my mind last week in the conversation of, you know, that we recorded for my podcast. Andrea Liebross: And now I have to really simmer and think about this. Nikki Rausch: the thing I haven't stopped thinking about this, this idea of stress and the types of stress and you know, like it really resonated. Now that's one thing to give, you know, in a context of like giving it to a larger audience. But if you had been giving it really specifically to me and specific about my business and it was on a discovery call, I always say it's like all of your resources, all of your experiences, all of the things that you bring into your client work. Andrea Liebross: okay. Love it. Nikki Rausch: Imagine that like it sits behind you and it's a big beautiful beach and every resource, every experience, everything that you can pull on, every framework is like a piece of sand on that beach. And so in a call, on a discovery call, you might give me a few grains of sand because to you, like, you know what's behind you. You know what's on the beach. You know that all these resources together make up this powerful ability to really scale your business. Andrea Liebross: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Andrea Liebross: Mm-hmm. Nikki Rausch: but you give me these grains of sand. And I think that is the beach, because I can't see the beach behind you. I don't know about all of your experience and your resources and your structure and your, like all these things that you bring. And so I walk away going like, I got these three grains of sand and look at this beach that I have. And like, I probably don't need to hire her because I don't even know what to do with these three grains of sand. They're so great. They're so powerful, but I don't do anything with them because it's not enough. Andrea Liebross: Yes! Andrea Liebross: Right. Nikki Rausch: It's not enough to really scale at the level that your clients get to scale out when they work with you privately or go through one of your group programs. So no coaching, no coaching, no giving away advice on your discovery calls. If they're asking, well, like, what would your advice be about this, Andrea? Like, would you say to me if I were your client right now? And your answer is, that is a really great question and I have an answer for it. And it's something that we'll work on in your first session. Andrea Liebross: Yes. Nikki Rausch: Should we go ahead and schedule it now? Andrea Liebross: think we should. Right? yeah. They're like, wait, you can't, yeah, I didn't want to answer. Yeah. Nikki Rausch: Yeah, right, because she's got an answer for me and I want an answer. And now I got to pay for the answer. the other thing I'll say about this is it's not about how much money I pay Andrea as the buyer here. It's about what I invest in myself to get these skills that are going to allow for me to feel really confident and proud of myself. about what I did in my business and how I grew my business this last year. And if people go, well, how did you do it? And I would say, I invested. I invested in a coaching program with a coach who is incredible. So it's not about like, and I'm not meaning turning this, I meant to turn this back to me. So it's not about them saying like, oh, I spent X number of dollars with Nikki. I want them to go like, I invested X number of dollars in me and look what happened in my business. Andrea Liebross: Yes! Andrea Liebross: So true. I love that. I love it. So, all right, we got to wrap this up. We could talk, we could do seven million podcasts together. It would be so fun, actually. Very fun. If people want to find out more about you, I mean, we kind of already shared, but tell us, where do they go? Where do they go? Nikki Rausch: Okay. It would be fun. Nikki Rausch: All right, well, I'm gonna wrap it around a gift if that's okay for your audience. Okay, okay. Okay, well, one of the things I think that stalls people often is what should I write in my follow-up messages? Like, I'm not getting a response. I wanna reach out to somebody, what should I write? So I have a very simple guide. It's an easy follow-up guide and you can get it by going to yoursalesmaven.com, that's my website, forward slash easy follow-up. Andrea Liebross: You totally can wrap it around a gift. I bet I know what it is, but you tell us. Nikki Rausch: and that will be my gift to you and you can use it. It's got scripts in it. And the idea isn't necessarily that you follow my script. It's more about like to give you a structure that you can then like, if you like my script, great, use it. But if you're like, I wouldn't say it like that. At least you've got a structure to start with. And then the other way to, you know, to connect is listen to the Sales Maven podcast because obviously you're a podcast listener. So check out mine. Okay, good. Thank you. Andrea Liebross: Love it. Andrea Liebross: Exactly. You're already listening. You're already listening. I love it. Well, this has been an absolute, I'm going to call it a master class. It's been a master class. just created a master class in communication, in structure, in sales strategy. been a pleasure. Thank you so much for being here. Nikki Rausch: Thank you. Nikki Rausch: Thanks for having me.
