486. Making It Easy: The Art of Seamless Sales

Welcome to episode 486 of the Brainy Business Understanding the Psychology of why People Buy. Today's episode is all about making it easy to do business with you with Nikki Rauch. Ready? Let's get started.

You are listening to the Brainy Business Podcast where we dig into the psychology.

Of why people buy and help you.

Incorporate behavioral economics into your business, making it more brain friendly.

Now, here's your host, Melina Palmer. Hello.

Hello everyone. My name is Melina Palmer and I want to welcome you to the Brainy Business Podcast. No matter what your industry, whether you are an entrepreneur or part of a global corporation, there's one big thing you have in common. A desire for more customers, clients, members, whatever it is that you have in your business. And of course, you do everything in your power to make it easy for those people to buy from you, right? Make it easy for them to connect and learn more and understand what you offer. As we have all experienced on the consumer side of things, it isn't always as easy to do business with a company as it might seem. Which is exactly what my guest Nikki Rauch and I are talking about on today's refreshed episode, which originally aired in April of 2020. Nikki integrates more than 25 years of experience selling to such prestigious organizations as the Bill and Melinda Gates Found Foundation, Hewlett Packard and NASA, sharing with her clients the same approaches that led to her shattering sales records in her industry and receiving multiple top producer awards along the way. She is certified in Neuro Linguistic Programming, which is a foundation for the advice she gives to clients in her work books and podcast sales maven. Nikki has received numerous sales awards and was featured in Female Entrepreneur magazine. A sought after speaker, she regularly shares the results of success through illuminating keynote addresses and business changing workshops. She's also an absolutely wonderful person who I have known and had the joy of calling a friend for many years, so I'm always delighted to share about her and her work whenever possible. I'm sure you're gonna love her. Don't forget, links for my top related past episodes and books are waiting for you in the show notes for this episode, which are found within the app you're listening to and at the Brainy. All right, let's talk about making it easy to do business with you. Nikki Rauch, welcome to the Brainy Business Podcast.

Thank you so much for having me.

Absolutely. I'm so excited. I know that you actually, I think, are officially the first repeat guest on the podcast, but we're flipping it this time so you interviewed me back about the pricing course when that was launching. And then now I get to showcase some of the really amazing things that you do in your business, which I'm excited about. And I know that the listeners have heard your name many times, but I would love if you can tell everyone a little bit about you. And specifically we were talking about your credentials in nlp. If you can tell everybody what that's all about.

Well, thank you for asking me to come back. I feel like I at least checked a box that I passed on the interview with you the first time around that you let me come back. So thank you for that and for the listener. Hi, I'm Nikki Rauch. My company is sales maven. I am a sales coach, trainer and speaker, author and now podcaster too. And my background is I have 25 years, well more now, of sales experience primarily selling in the technology space. And then in addition to my sales background, I have an extensive background in neuro linguistic programming. So if that's a new term for anybody listening, it's really the study of communication. So neuro, the way we process information in our brains, linguistics is the language piece, so how we speak to others, how others speak to us, and also any internal dialogue you have going on in your head. And then the programming part of NLP is about habits and patterns. And I have over 1200 classroom hours as a student, an assistant, and even a trainer, which most people who have a similar certification than I do have about 200 hours.

So a few more that you have.

A few more, yeah. So now when I am teaching people around sales, I always bring my NLP background into it and I really focus on the conversation around sales, like the actual conversation between you and the prospect and the conversations that you're having with your clients. And primarily work with my clients to improve their conversation, the sales conversation, so that they feel confident and they're able to seamlessly move somebody through the process.

I love everything you do, which you know and I think the audience probably knows because I've talked about you multiple times on the show. But I, I have read all of Nikki's books and you know, little known fact I guess is in a previous version of my business, I actually where we first became friends, really, I mean we knew each other before but I think got close was that you hired me when I was just doing freelance on the side and I edited Nikki's second book and we've worked together on other things. I have hired Nikki and I love working with her on different pieces of just the way that you phrase things, it's so good to have an extra set of eyes. And I know we've talked about all these different pieces where we both work in communicating better with the brain, but have different training. So we talk about a lot of the same things, but in a slightly different way. And I just love everything that you're doing. And I'm so excited about your podcast and we'll talk about that before we close out the show for sure, because people will want to check that out. But the reason I brought Nikki on today is I had been thinking for a while about this sort of concept of making it easy to work with people having good communication. And I know that's something that Nikki talks about a lot. I don't know where my thought on this began and yours ended and whatnot, which is why I felt like I needed to bring you on to talk about it, because I know we've talked about this so many times, but just making it easy for people to do business with you and understanding the way people communicate and what they're going to be talking about. I was seeing a lot of communication in my own email where it's people asking for something or looking to set times and making it to where all the effort was being placed on me, where they were asking me for something. And you get into this space where you realize how just so many of us inadvertently communicate in a way that makes it difficult for people to buy and don't even realize it. And so you were then doing a training on great email subject lines. And I thought, you know, we should just have a conversation about this because I love your perspective and I know that the listeners will, too. So that doesn't really segue well into a question per se, but I feel like.

Well, I have some thoughts on it.

You talk now.

Well, as you know, I have hired you as well. I'm a client of yours and a raving fan of this podcast. And I think our work complements each other really well. And a lot of times you will have a term for something that I'm teaching, a concept or a technique, and you bring in these, you know, the scientific based terminology. And it's been so great to be able to, you know, reference you. I know, you know, you've given me permission to reference you in my own work. And really what it comes down to is the easier you make it for somebody to take the next step, whatever that step is that you want them to take it, and this works in sales and this works in life, the easier you make it for the other person, the more likely they are to follow through. And unfortunately, we have become this society of, like, we want everything to be easy for us, and so sometimes we inadvertently push back onto the person we shouldn't be pushing back on and ask them to do all the work because we want it to be easy for me, right? If I'm in the position and I'm asking you to do something and I'm trying to earn your business, like, I should not be pushing back on you and asking you to do all the work and jump through a bunch of hoops in order to pay me money or in order to hire me. And unfortunately, it's showing up more and more and more. And I think when you and I first started talking about me coming on the podcast and having this conversation, it was in an email. I call it effective email techniques and emails that convert was the training and talking about, like, are you making it hard for people because you are putting up these roadblocks constantly, or pushing back and asking them to jump through, like, a bunch of hoops to get whatever it is that means they're going to ultimately become your client. And every time you put up a roadblock, every time you ask them to jump through a hoop, you risk the chance of them going, nah, moving on.

Right. Well, and even not in a malicious way where people even realize, like, thanks, but no thanks, not worth the effort so much as it gets put in the I'm going to deal with that later shelf, right? When I have time for that, I'll do this thing. And one of the pieces for this that I love, when something that has become a norm that feels like you have to do something a certain way and it feels like you're doing the right thing, you feel really good about it. You don't necessarily realize until it's pointed out how ridiculous it actually is. And in this case, and I used to do this a lot too. So in our brains, you have this feeling when you're saying in an email and offering up times for somebody you're trying to meet with someone, it feels like, you know, while, yes, it is easier for me to not have to look at my calendar and find times that can work, but if I then say, well, what's a good time that works for you? I can justify to myself that I am making myself uber available to you and your time. I'm being so flexible and open that you can pick a time that works, but actually you're just pushing the work off on somebody else to then come up with times and look at their calendar and do all of this work? But it reframes the question. When you put something out there that says, you know, here are some times that work. Do any of those work well for you? And then it's easy to answer the question, say no, and then they come back with some more times. It keeps that conversation going. Can you talk a little bit about.

Yeah. So one of the things is people will say, like, let me know when you're available or tell me when is a good time to talk to you. And frankly, the answer to both of those questions is never. Because none of us are just ever available. Most of us live and breathe our calendars. And if it's not on our calendar, it kind of doesn't exist in our universe, Especially people who have a lot going on. Right. And so saying to somebody, like, let me know when you're available or when would you like to meet? It's kind of. I always equate this to. It's like saying to somebody, you know what I really want, like, more than anything in the whole world. And you're the person who can give it to me. And I just been waiting to ask you for this. Like, what I really, really want is world peace. And you look at me like, I don't know what to do with that, Nikki. Like, that's so big. And, you know, where do I even begin? And when you give people these, like, hey, let me know when you're available or what time works for you. You're essential. Hey, stop what you're doing, Mr. Or Mrs. Like busy person, and get on your calendar and find a bunch of times and then send them back to me and then I'll make some decisions about whether or not I'm available and then I'll send it back to you and pick a time. It's like, no, that's not easy for me as the client or as the person you're trying to get a call scheduled with. So the technique that I teach, I call it my three times technique. And there's some specific language around it, which is to say, would you be interested in setting up a time to chat? Here are a few possible times. And then I always recommended giving three ranges of time. And I correct this oftentimes inside the sales maven society. And I know you're in our group, so, you know, because people post their emails to me and I'm constantly rewriting and offering suggestions for them on their messaging. But you cannot say in three times. You can't say, like, Monday nine to noon. Because then it sounds like you're asking for a three hour appointment which nobody's gonna give you. So I always say make sure you say Monday anytime between 9 and noon. If you have that open on your calendar and you do that three times, give ranges of time. And I don't care if the range of time is a half an hour range like 8 to 8:30, or if it's a bigger range that's like 2 to 5, it can be anything. And you don't have to hold those times open on your calendar either, by the way. But anyway, and I'll talk about that. So you give the three times and then you say please pick a time that works best for you. And if you prefer something else, here's a calendar link where you could pick a time in your schedule or please let me know what time does work and I'll do my best to be available. But you can't make that statement until you've given this three ranges of time.

Right. And I know you've talked about and it's in one of your books at least, but you have the information, the piece being about someone that you had where when you just throw the scheduling software at people, it can feel really impersonal and like they don't care where. I, as the person with scheduling software am trying to make it easy to do business. It feels like that's what I'm doing. But if I just say here's a link to my scheduling, I'm far too important to email you. But like putting the three times in there shows I put in some effort. I think that's a little bit of the reciprocity piece. I care enough to do this for you. I know that in some of your tips too, you've talked about, you want to make sure you put time zones in there. I work with people all over the place and if I just say from 2 to 5, that means nothing. And the Pacific time, or even doing that extra effort I've actually started doing, if I know someone is in Eastern time, even if I'm in Pacific, I can then put and say this is going to be, you know, from 2 to 5 Eastern exactly. To make it that much easier on them. It's a little bit of extra effort, but that's making sure it's easy for them. They see that I did that little bit of work. So making sure that you're not just throwing the scheduler at people. And do you want to share the story of your, I guess, clients that have.

Oh yeah, yeah, well, and just to add on that, and then I'll share the story, is that I am not opposed to a scheduling link. And especially now, I think even since I wrote the book, like, scheduling links are even more common nowadays.

Absolutely.

It's the way that you frame it to the person. So you never want to say, here's my scheduling link. Find a time on my calendar when I'm available.

Right. Oh, I'm so glad we're transitioning into this. Getting to the eyes and me's of the world.

Yeah, yeah. But the story that you'd asked about what happened was I introduced some clients at a networking event. They had some common interest. One of my clients definitely could have benefited from hiring my other client. They agreed that they would connect outside the networking meeting. And my one client who wanted to earn the business sent a message saying, here's my calendar link. Please pick a time that I'm available, and then I'll talk to you about ways that I could work with you.

Okay.

And so my other client, the person who was in the position of being the prospect in this case, was super turned off by this and offended. So offended. And also happened to be somebody that isn't real tech savvy. And it just didn't land well. And I know this because they both called me privately, have complete meltdowns about this. The client who got the messaging with the calendar link was like, she actually sent a message back to the lady saying, I'm no longer interested in talking to you. Basically, thanks, but no thanks and go kick rocks. Right. And when she reached out to me, she was like, it's so offensive. It's just about her. She only cares about her. She's just trying to get money out of me. And I feel like she doesn't. She's not even making it easy for me. She's not even taking time out of her day. You know, she's just obviously too busy and too important for me, which is not the case because my other client is this sweet, lovely woman who is salt of the earth type person. She's such a good person. And so when she. She reached out to me to have the conversation, and so perplexed by the response, I said, well, let's look at your messaging. Let's look at what your calendar link says. And when you log into her calendar link, it is riddled with I statement. Like, I use a scheduling link to make it easy for me to find times to be, you know, to meet with you, to talk about ways that you can hire me. Right. It was like, it was all. I didn't say a bunch of I statements there, but it was, it was so focused on her, and that's not her intention. But what happens when we write is we write from our own perspective. We have a thought, we type it out. Right. And unfortunately, that is never very interesting to the reader, especially when it's a client, you know, a prospect type situation. It should always be for their benefit. So your scheduling link should say, please pick a time that works best for you.

Right.

It should be about the person who's using the link. Because if you sound like I'm so important and I'm a really big deal and I have this scheduling link, people are like, you're not that important. I can find a million other people who do what you do.

I. I forget where I think I was at a networking event and someone was presenting and she was saying how, you know, it's so difficult, but, like, I can make some time for you if anybody's interested. The time's available and, you know, you have to. I specifically remember she said, you have to be God to get more than 15 minutes with me on my calendar. And I just.

I'm cringing, I'm cringing like, this is your pitch.

Is this supposed. Well, you know, I guess I'm not cool enough for you. That's. Sorry. But, you know, there is this where, you know, busy used to mean important and being able to show that you're so. Everyone is so stretched for time because I've got so much going on. I'm glad that that' kind of going out of trend in a lot of ways. But there is just the, you know, people, you know, the know, like and trust factor. People talk about that all the time, so we don't need to belabor it. But the simple tweak of removing I statements, it is an easy thing to say. It is excruciating in practice. I maybe not that bad and I'm getting more used to it, but I'm like putting my Nikki hat on all the time where I write the email and then I go back and look at it because like you said, I know not to do that. But when I'm writing it, I then write it out once of this is basically what I want to say and then have to go back in and remove. And I know you've said even, you know, you've been teaching this for umpteen years, but you have to do this yourself too. It's not, it's always going to be a little Bit out of our nature. I'm sure you do it less than, you know, people that are just starting that practice. But the simple shift of tweaking those can be so impactful on getting more business. I mean truly. And having people that enjoy having a conversation with you. I love your relationship selling piece to where it's just about kind, generous interactions with people and doing the right thing. And that feels so much more authentic when it's able to get across better. When you're coming from this, this is why this would be valuable for you. I'm thinking about you versus the me, me, me, me.

Exactly. Yeah. And for the I statements. So it's unrealistic to think that you can send every email for the rest of your life and never use.

Not.

A hard and fast, never use an I statement. But I do try to recommend and I recommend to my clients and I rewrite a lot of my clients messaging. This is one of the services that I offer and I see when somebody sends me an email or posts an email for me to review those I statements, they pop off the page to me. One of the ways to check this for yourself if you're not sure if you're, you know, overusing I statements is count how many sentences you have in your email. So if you go and count, you go, oh, I have 10 sentences. And then you. And then go and count how many times you use the word I. Okay.

And then, okay, there are 25. Is that too many in my 10 sentences?

And that's not uncommon by the way, because of the way that people are writing and even people who are sell out there selling people on, you know, email scripts and stuff like that. And I have many clients who've bought bottom and then they show them to me and I'm like, ah, no, that is not interesting to the reader. So it's things like saying like I want to meet with you or I care about you or I want to help. People don't care what you want, what you like, what you, what you want to help. That's not interesting to them. So instead learning how to make more you type statements and or ask questions. So the 8020 rule is what I recommend. So if you have 10 sentences, you should not have more than two I statements in your in full email. And it's saying stuff like instead of saying I would like to meet with you to talk about blah blah blah, instead say would you be open to meeting and talking about blah blah blah. Now there's no I statement in there and it does take practice So I know, you know, I'm laughing too, that you had the same response. It does take practice. I still have to practice. And I will say, like, for me, it's much easier now because I do this all day long, every day for clients and for myself as well. But when I find that it's the hardest for me is when I'm feeling stressed or if I'm feeling pushed for time, and if I feel like I'm in a hurry, that's usually the indication. Do not send that email. Like, wait until I can go back and get these I statements out. And I just had this happen not too long ago. A couple months ago, somebody had hired me to do a training for her team. And on Friday evening at like 5 o', clock, and the training was on a Monday or something, and at five o' clock on a Friday, she sends this email about how her team is so excited and looking forward to having me talk about these two topics. Well, one of the topics that she put in the training was not the training that I had prepared and printed workbooks for her team about. And I didn't even see the email until Saturday morning. And when I got it, I was like, like, oh, my gosh, I obviously made this huge mistake. I went back in my notes three times in my notes. I had the topic that I had prepared. But what she had put back into an email to me was this, like, totally different training. So I, you know, I wrote the email and I was feeling very stressed about it. And then I was like, okay, look at this email. And I could see my I statements in there. I could also feel the pressure in the email. And I didn't in any way break rapport with her and be like, no, this is the training that you and I agreed to. This is what, you know, blah, blah, blah, like, you know, you don't want to break rapport. So instead I just, I spent quite a bit of time sending back what I wanted to come across as a very calm and easy email just to check, to see. So just checking in about the two topics you had mentioned. These were the two that I had prepared. Did I make a mistake? So, you know, I'm checking because I'm, I'm not saying, like, no, you're wrong because, because maybe he's right, I don't know. And so let her know that how I would, how I would correct it to ensure that her team was delivered the training that they were prepared to receive. And, you know, she got back to me, like two hours later and she's like, no, you're right. Sorry. I pulled that from something else. And, you know, and it was all fine. And then I actually brought this up because I was actually teaching her team around emails that convert. That was part of the training. And so I brought it up in the room and she was like, Like, I'm so surprised that that email back from you, that you felt stressed because it felt so calming and it was just so easy. Well, I had to take some time to really pay attention to that message because when the stakes are high and there's, you know, client relationships on the line, it's worth it to slow down, to rewrite this message and think about it. How is this going to be received by the reader?

Right, Absolutely. When you were talking, it reminded me of a couple of things and some specific statements. So I love the way that you transition that to be the Did I miss something? You know, instead of that accusatory rah. Like, that's not my notes. That's not what happened. But so I have.

I remember.

So I interviewed Roger Dooley on the podcast about his book Friction, and he has this great example of the word actually, and that it is actually never helpful to use that word because it just sounds very. Makes the other person sound dumb. Right. To say, well, actually, if you go here, you'll find that one of my trigger ones that I always hated in a corporate space, and I hear it still around all the time. But is the. Does that make sense?

Sense, yes.

Which I cringe and immediately think, well, I'm not stupid. So yes, that makes sense. You know, you just get irritated, irked. Right. And so I have advised people to change. Instead of saying, does that make sense? To say, did I explain that well? So that again, bring. Puts a little bit of that responsibility back on you and opens up for the feedback of if something wasn't well explained, it's because I did something improperly, not because you're dumb. And you can't. You don't. You can't make sense of the words coming out of my mouth, which is the way it sounds. Do you have any other terms or kind of catch points? And I apologize that I'm potentially like, we didn't talk about this in advance, but it just sort of came up in my brain. But are there any others other than the I statements that you kind of always advise around shifting that you see very often?

Yeah, I actually teach around the. Does that make sense too? Because it can be a trigger for somebody.

Yes.

And one of the ways that I love the way you framed it. I think that is beautiful. That's a great way to take responsibility so it's not pushing it onto the other person. One of the ways that I teach is to say so based on what we just talked about, what questions come to mind for you?

Right.

Like that's another way to say it so that it's not putting it so also it doesn't sound like you made a mistake either. Although I'm totally fine putting things on me to a point. Because you don't want to be self deprecating.

Right.

And credibility with somebody. The other one that I will say I'm going to see what you think about this because we did not talk about this ahead of time. I feel like this is heavily used in marketing and it's way too overused because it's used in marketing. And I get the concept of isn't always effective in a sales conversation is using the word if and making if statements. So if you'd like to get on a call or if you'd like more information, that is totally unnecessary. So I try to get those out of my clients messaging too. Instead of saying if you'd like to get on a call or. Or if you'd like more information and just say let's set up a time to chat or to receive more information, click here. Like you don't need if in those. Because there's the concept of if then which I feel like that's probably something you know way more about than I do. But I know there's a concept of like the if when or if then type statements. But in sales conversations, when you say if you want to do this or if you want to buy, you're essentially saying to somebody I think you're talking right to their brand saying hey, slow down, think about it. Make sure you're making decisions.

Not everybody's interested in this right now.

Yeah, like no, you're dealing with adults. Let them make the decision, pose the question to them. Instead of saying if you'd like to move forward, just say would you like to move forward?

Right.

Yes.

I think that is so valuable. And it's also in that assuming the sale. So the in the Snickers example from which is in episode 11, I will definitely tie back to that on anchoring and adjustment. But this piece of reframing the question of do you want to buy Snickers to how many do you want? Makes a very different. And it's even just that implied piece where I think if you're interested and a lot of people Wouldn't be right. It's sort of the way that your brain might be hearing that. Whereas instead if you just are saying, here's the thing, you're ready now you want this. Now every question or piece that I'm putting in my brain after that is now saying, but if you have questions, which is, oh, stop it, stop saying if. Now that's going to be.

That'll be your new one. Yeah, you'll be thinking, dang, Nikki, I.

Know you've primed me for it.

And there was one more I was going to add to is, and I think your Snickers example, which by the way, I cannot tell you how many people quote Melina's Snickers example. Use that to me all the like, well, when Melina talks about, you know, it's like the Snickers thing that Melina talks about. So many people talk about. That's such a great, such a perfect example. And so many people that I know tie that right back to you. The other one is, do you have questions?

Right.

And that's, that's not something that I think is effective because it's kind of like saying, does that make sense when you say to someone, do you have questions or do you have any questions? A lot of people don't want to sound stupid. Like, well, hopefully none of us want to sound stupid. I try really hard not to and yet sometimes I feel stupid. Right. So some people will have a knee jerk no to the do you have any questions? And unfortunately in sales, if you don't get them, if people aren't allowed and offered the opportunity to ask the question that they need answered in order to buy from you, you will not earn their business. So instead of saying to somebody, do you have questions? What I will recommend is what questions come to mind so far.

Right. And I even, I love the. A very similar suggestion to this when you're doing a presentation and so they always want you so, you know, you're speaking at an event and then they say they want to have, you know, it's an hour long presentation and leave 10 minutes for questions. And for anyone who's ever had the who has a question and then you stand there in the room of crickets and nobody wants to ask is the very different of who you know who has the first question is, you know, one that's been put out there and then, you know, you give it a second and then you can sort of say, a common question I get is to help get the ball rolling. But it's one of those Things where that slight reframe, the tiniest hint of a shift can make so much difference in the way that it's pinging your brain. And I did an article for inc. And I was talking about the Starbucks barista when I was going through the drive through. And instead of saying, is that it? You know, the. Do you need anything else where you kind of have that instant. No, that's it. That the question was, you know, and what else sounds delicious.

I heard that episode. I love that.

Yeah. Which then you go, oh, well, you know, a marshmallow dream bar. Sounds amazing. Actually, now that you say that.

Now that you posed the question.

Right. Well. And then I was even. I gave the example of in a grocery store and they say, did you find everything okay? You know, how many people actually found everything they were looking for okay. And easily at the grocery store or. So often we leave and we don't have everything we intended or were hoping to find, but it's not worth having the conversation or bringing it up. And so did you find everything okay? Yes. Yep. Yep. Stop talking to me, let's get out of here. Sort of a thing. But if you say, what's the one thing that you couldn't find when you were looking or is there something we should have someone grab for you that you. That might have been missed?

Whatever.

Yeah. Was there anything on your list that you didn't find today?

Absolutely. Right. Just that slight.

Of course. I go to the grocery store with a list now. You know that because good.

Helping with the overwhelm where, you know, the rest of us are buying all the cookies and chips of the world, so.

Well, they're on my list. That's right.

So you plan to buy. Yeah. That's hilarious. I love that. Okay, so what other top tips do you have when it comes to. I know we were talking a little bit about. So we, I guess framed this on email and also making it easy for people to do business with you, which I know is a lot of what you do. So you can't cram it all into this one episode here. But what. What would be one more tip if you were going to give to the audience that ties in with kind of what we're talking about on theme today.

One of the tips that I would give here. And you and I kind of talked a little bit about this before we got on the. Before we actually started recording, which was this. This mentality of how we do what I call a go fish type response to clients or when you're working with somebody, if people don't understand how to take the next step if all you're doing is saying, I think the example you and I were talking about is how somebody will send you something and say, you need to fix this. And then you fix it. And then you're like, okay, now what? Instead, if that person would take it upon themselves to say, when you fix this one thing, then we'll move to the next step, right? And then take the action to move to the next step or let people know, like, what it is. I often say this too. It's like if you call your doctor's office and you say, I'd like to make an appointment to see the doctor, oftentimes the front desk people are so guilty of this go Fish type mentality. They'll say, when would you like to come in? And you go, Thursday at 10. Oh, I'm sorry, the doctor's busy that day. When else would you like to see the doctor? And you're like, Monday at 2. Oh, no, the doctor's busy that day too. Is there another day? And you're like, could you just tell me when the doctor is available? And so when you're doing this with clients, if you start having this back and forth, this lobbying, like, you say this, then they say that, then you say this, then they say that you're starting to play this, like, go fish mentality, and somebody will stop playing. And it's often going to be the client. They'll just say, thanks, no thanks. I'll just move on. And they may not even tell you, but they'll start ghosting you. And so when you want someone to take action, you need to always have a clear next step laid out for them. And so here's the last tip. I'll leave around this, unless you want to really dig into this a little bit more. But it's kind of like don't say to somebody who you've gone through the sales process with them, and they're like, I better think about it. Don't say, oh, okay, great, yeah, think about it and I'll reach out to you next week. That's a go fish response. Instead, say, great, how much time would you like to think about it? Let's get a time scheduled on our calendars next week or, or whenever to circle back on this. And then you get a time scheduled. And now we're not playing go Fish. Now we have a time scheduled. You have challenged their brain to actually think about it before the next scheduled time. And you're much more likely to earn their business if you can keep it easy for them to take the next step. But you calling them like next week sometime, I don't know about you, but at this point you cannot just call me randomly out of the blue and expect me to answer your phone. Like I won't answer my phone that way.

Well, Nikki, if you call me, I'll answer because it says that it's you.

That's true. Right. Well, you and I, Voxer, that's. I think that's our main form of communication is that we. We have an ongoing Voxer chat.

Yes.

Yeah. Forever. Forever and ever.

Yep.

Yep.

Celebrating wins and asking questions. All sorts of good stuff. Yeah. I'm, I'm so glad that you brought up the circleback call. So, so audience and world that is listening now. There are so many genius tips that Nikki provides in all of her books and she's got a great newsletter. There are a lot of people that you get the newsletter and kind of go, bleh. I don't need to read that. I don't care about it. I save all of Nikki's. I know so many of the tips, but I always like to have them. They're so well put together and I just love all of the things that you have out there sharing. But the removing the I statements, the circle back these, you know, the three times in the email, these little things, they're such a small shift, but because they are well aligned with that neuro linguistic programming, the way that the brain likes to communicate, they make such a difference. And even, you know, at the networking group, instead of handing everyone your cards when we're back and able to be in person meetings again, we're recording this during, you know, coronavirus pandemic. But that instead of just saying, oh yeah, here's my card and call me. That's sort of the same as here's my scheduling software. I'm so important and find a time to meet with me. That instead if you say, oh, you know, like you phrase it all the time, Nikki is, you know, I keep my calendar right here on my phone and, and if you're, let's go ahead and find a time right now, if that works for you. It feels a little bit awkward at first when you start doing this where you think someone's going to feel like it's being weird or I'm being pushy. They don't. They absolutely don't. And even I do this when I'm getting off of one call, even with, you know, so clients that I have booked that have however many Strategy sessions. And we know that there's just going to be a next one. And I have a scheduling software they could go. But more often than not, I try to find a time before we get off the phone to get the next one on the calendar. Because if it's out there just sort of in la la land waiting for them to book, it takes forever and it just sits in, you know, lies in wait. And that's with people that have already paid me.

Yeah.

It's not like I'm trying to earn the business. I want to help them to actually take the time. So people just get busy. It's nothing against you, but if you are the person who's scheduling the time, they know they're going to talk to you at a certain time. They're excited about it, or at the very least they're going to pick up the phone. Right. That makes it to where it's that much easier to keep going. And just from those slight little tweaks, you will just convert so much more than everybody else.

It's so true. People will respond to you differently. Your interaction with your clients will get so much better. They'll hold you in higher regard because you make everything easy for them and you're easy to do business with and your level of professionalism will stand out from the competitors.

Absolutely. I know that you've said and I have the same experience for when people reach out to have me speak at events or to participate and work on things. And coming back with the three times and here's I have the packet of information already available. And so you are the first person. I haven't done a ton of interviews on the show so far, but where got booked and not even, you know, I have a email that says, oh, here we're excited. There's not much to prepare in advance, but if you can send me a bio and headshot. I didn't even have time to send that out because it made its way to me of. You know, typically I know that when Nikki does interviews, you know, it was came from your assistant. But I know that's based on your setup. Right. So typically these things are asked for. Here they all are. I didn't even have to ask for them. They just appeared in my inbox like right after the appointment got scheduled, which is awesome. So you definitely make it easy and that's how you continue to win business. And then people refer that you're top of mind when they are thinking about another event or something coming up. So just those little tidbits can make such a big, big difference. So for everybody listening as we're all virtual for a while now. But remember those circle back calls in all of your emails, removing those I statements statements and definitely suggesting specific times, making it easy on the other person to do business with you. And I believe that Nikki has a couple things she can share with us. So you have your podcast that just launched which I'm so excited about and some other cool stuff. So go ahead and tell us about where those things are.

Thank you. While the podcast is out, however you listen to podcasts, you should be able to find my podcast there. If you just look up sales maven, you'll find it. And then for your listening audience, I always like to give a little gift when I get to come and be a guest on a podcast and it is my ebook called Closing the Sale and it walks you through some of the steps and some of the language of how to move kind of from discovery to the close. So to get that, if you go to my website, yoursalesmaven.com and then Brainy, then you will receive the ebook on building confidence around closing the Sale. So I'd love to give a that to anybody who will benefit from it. So thank you for having me on. And once you're on my website, then I'm there. You can message me, you can reach out to me if there's any way that I can support you. I'd love to do that.

Yeah, links to all the socials and everything. I'm sure it's all, all there waiting.

Yes.

Awesome. Well, thank you again Nikki and for being the first repeat visitor on the podcast. As always, it has been been lovely chatting.

Thank you.

So what got your brain buzzing as you learned about making it easy to do business with you today? For me, I always love talking to Nikki, which I think you could gather in the conversation here. She is so fun and knowledgeable and I really love how applicable her insights are. I'm confident she has been in every sales experience from one on one to larger groups, tiny dollar amounts to massive ones, and pretty sure she has the perfect words to say in every situation. One of the simplest, often the most brilliant pieces of advice I've always associated with Nikki over the years are those I statements and knowing just how often we use the word I, especially in sales. But the thing about selling is it's not about you or in this case I, but it is about about the customer, the person you're selling to. If you can reframe your approach and reset that mindset and think I am of course reaching out because of X and that's what I need. If I was the customer, what would matter about that to them in this moment? And then instead of saying something like I made this new thing and I think it's really great, so I think you should buy it. You can can reframe that mentality to be more in the space of last time we spoke, you mentioned that you were looking for a solution for X. Is that still on your radar? If so, I'd love to tell you about why. As Nikki said in our conversation, you aren't going to get rid of every single I statement. There's still an I in that. If so, I would love to tell you about why situation I mentioned just a second ago, but that's only after after it's qualified that they're interested in whatever it is. Before you get to why you're reaching out, it shows that you remember something about them and your previous conversation and makes that I okay because it's still about them. It might make sense to practice various reframes in there along the way. Maybe if you said, is that still on your radar? If so, would you like to hear a bit about why you can practice and try on daily different phrases for size to see what works with your clients, industry and situation? There are so many options to reframe and it starts by not thinking about you, but instead thinking about making it easy on the person who you're selling to to take the next best step for them, whatever that might be. And remember, they can opt out at any time with no explanation. So don't play Go Fish.

Don't.

Don't fill the experience with unnecessary hoops and don't make it about you. Those are some easy places to start as you make it easy to do business with you. As we close out the show, don't forget about those show notes with links to my top related past episodes and books like Buying Signals as well as ways to get in touch with Nikki and myself and more. It's all waiting for you in the app you're listening to and atthebrainy business.com for. And just like that, episode 486 on making it easy to do business with you is done. Join me Friday for a brand new episode with Dr. Emily Falk, author of what We Value. It's going to be a lot of fun. You don't want to miss it. Until then, thanks again for listening and learning with me and remember to be thoughtful.

Thank you for listening to the brainy.

Business podcast, Molina offers virtual strategy sessions.

Workshops and other services to help businesses be more brain friendly. For more free resources, visit thebrainybusiness.com.