#243: How to Make Prospect Conversations Easier (and Land More Clients) with the ‘Selling Staircase’

Welcome to the High Income Business Writing Podcast, helping you propel your writing business to a whole new level. And now, here's your host, Ed Gandia. Hey there.

Welcome to the High Income Business Writing Podcast. I am your host, Ed Gandia, and this is the podcast for business writers and copywriters who want to earn more and less time doing work they love for better clients. You can find detailed shownos for this episode@b2b launcher.com Episode 243 those notes include a summary of our discussion as well as all the links and resources we mentioned during the show. If I had to pick one aspect of running a freelance business that most writers hate, it would be the discovery call with a new prospect. A discovery call is that first conversation you have with a prospective client. It's a sales conversation where you discuss their need, their specific project, and hopefully your fee or at least some kind of estimate or ballpark figure. And I think that part is the one that freaks so many people out. So two main reasons why I believe writers tend to hate these conversations. The first is that they're not sure what to say, what to ask, what to do, and they don't want to botch the opportunity by saying or asking the wrong thing. They work so hard in many cases to generate that lead, they feel like, oh my gosh, I gotta get this to the finish line. The second reason is that they don't have a process for leading that conversation. So not only are they not sure what to ask or say, but even when they do, they're not sure how to lead this conversation step by step, in what order, they don't know how to make it flow well and how to increase the chances that the prospect will say yes. Well, today I'm joined by Nikki Rauch. Nikki is a sales coach, author, speaker and founder of sales maven. After 25 years of experience selling to such prestigious organizations such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Hewlett Packard, and NASA, Nikki decided to trade in her road warrior status so she could help entrepreneurs sell in a way that builds relationships, creates true connection, and results in more closed deals and long term clients. Today, her focus is helping others transform the misunderstood process of selling into techniques, tools and tips that can be successfully incorporated into a process. A process that's replicable by anyone whose livelihood relies on selling a product service for themselves. So that's us. Nicky's approach to this discovery call is very well aligned with my own and I frankly learned a lot from her ideas and insights. I'm confident that you're going to get a ton out of this conversation.

Enjoy. Nikki, welcome. Great to have you here.

Thank you so much for having me on your show. I'm very excited to be here.

Oh, and I'm excited to have you. I'm excited about this conversation. You know, this is one of my favorite topics and I think it's one that we need to talk to or talk about a little bit more often. Before we get into the meat of our discussion, why don't you give us a little bit of background so you know what you do today, what types of clients you work with, and maybe a little bit of background, the story of how you ended up here.

Okay. So my company is sales maven. I'm the CEO and I teach people who are non traditional salespeople how to get comfortable with the sales conversation. My background is I have 25 years or more now of sales experience. I was a professional salesperson for most of my career. And in addition to that, I have a background in neuro linguistic programming. And if that's a new term to anybody listening, it's the study of communication and it's the way we process information in our brains. It's about language, it's about habits. And when I started my business back in 2013, it was the idea of getting to be around really amazing entrepreneurs, People who are really passionate and very good at their craft and them struggling to make money. And I found that the struggle often came because either they didn't understand the selling process or somebody somewhere had told them, this is how you're supposed to sell and it felt really gross, or they just weren't quite sure how to like move the conversation along. And so my business was born out of just really wanting to spend time with entrepreneurs who are super cool and passionate and really good at what they do and teach them how to be more strategic in the conversation so that it got easier for them and more importantly, it got easier for the client to get to that process where you make a decision, yes, I want to hire you, or it's not a good fit, and either way is okay.

Got it. And so what type of entrepreneurs do you typically work with?

I traditionally work with women who have been in business for about a year to the about the 10 year mark, because I find those oft. And I do work with men too, but I primarily focus my marketing efforts. I love to work with women. I came from a very male dominated industry and I just find that women oftentimes struggle with a lot of that sales conversation. They struggle with the money conversations. And I also know that when women do really well, they support their communities and their communities thrive as a result of their businesses growing. And so I have a real passion for that.

That's really cool. I would say one of the things that I work with a lot of women, I would actually say that I don't say. I know 70% of my coaching clients are typically women. And I find that women are so much more in tune with what's going on and how the conversation is going than men are. And I'm generalizing, but I find that if with the stuff that we're going to be talking about today, if they had systems, processes and something they were confident in, they would do so well in these conversations because they're already just natural feeling people more than guys.

Guys.

They don't have that emotional connection that women have, generally speaking.

Yep. I totally agree. From a general standpoint, this idea, and this is I teach a lot of structure that comes from my background in neuro linguistic programming is that they're, you know, the basis behind this is that if you can teach a structure, then it allows for people to implement that structure into their own style. So it's not trying to teach people how to sell like me or teach them to talk like me or any of that. It's more about giving them a structure. And once you can give them a structure to follow, it just gets so much easier. And I think women are great collaborators, great at building relationships. And the piece that they often tend to fall down is this idea of positioning themselves to be the expert and then moving somebody into the close of the sale.

I agree.

So let's talk about start at the top, right?

Selling sales. Why would you say it's so misunderstood? What do people tend to get wrong about it? What are the big misconceptions? I know there's a lot of them, big misconceptions that tend to trip us up.

Well, I think one of the biggest ones is that people think that selling is something you do to somebody. And I disagree. And I teach that selling is something you do with somebody. And that means having a collaborative conversation, understanding what's going on, what's the problem, what's the need. And then when you have a solution that fits it, positioning it in a way that makes it easy for the person to make a decision. So the idea that you're doing something to somebody oftentimes feels like, oh, that feels manipulative, that feels gross. But that's actually not if you're, in my opinion, if you're doing relationship Selling, you're never doing it to somebody, you're doing it with somebody and to their benefit, not to yours.

Yeah, I like that. What else do you see out there that just, you know, completely baseless or wrong?

Well, I think the other thing is that you have to sell like somebody else, right? Like you have to be pushy, that you have to be aggressive, that you have to like really hone in on people's pain points. And like, it's like if somebody has a paper cut and you just push on it as hard as you possibly can just to make it sting so bad. I'm not, I don't buy into that. I don't. I mean, yes, you need to understand people's pain points and you do want to offer solutions, but trying to shame people into buying from you, trying to aggressively convince somebody that you know they're wrong and that you're right, I feel like is such a waste of time in our society nowadays. And it just breaks down the rapport, it breaks down the relationship. And you know, again, this idea of relationship selling is are you building rapport and are you offering a solution to their problem or need not trying to shame people or convince them? I always say, like, if you try to convince anybody of anything nowadays, they draw a line in the sand and they're like, I'm not crossing that line no matter what you say. So you, you don't have to convince people, you just have to understand their need, their want. And if you have a solution that matches that, you put it in front of them and you make it really easy for them to make a decision. And then you earn people's business.

You do. I find that it's, I mean, to your point, it's. You don't have to have a certain personality, you know, like, I know growing up, one of the misconceptions and I bought into this for a long time, I think it's still kind of deep seated. It's this idea that you have to be this extrovert who's charming, quick witted, you know, quick think quickly on their feet and come and address objections right there on the spot. I think that's. First of all, I would say two things that can work, but you don't have to be that person, number one. Number two, I would argue that people who I've seen who've done the best or actually the opposite of that.

Yeah, I agree. I mean, I've worked with, in my career, I worked with a lot of salespeople because my job was to go out and support salespeople and help them close deals. And so I always say, like, if you take who I would consider the top 10 salespeople I've ever worked with in my career, and you put them at dinner together, they probably wouldn't have a lot in common. Like, they're not the same personality. They don't like the same things. They don't show up with the same way. But the one thing that they all consistently did was they understood who they were and they understood who their client was, and they were able to find solutions for people and do it in a way that, I mean, I think this word sometimes is overused, but I love it. Is authentic. You know, it's not trying to be like somebody else or sell like somebody else. It's being yourself, letting your personality shine through. And, you know, I had a client years ago, he used to always say, like, I'm really awkward, Nikki. Like, I'm super awkward. And I was like, great. Let's figure out how to make that work for you and really embrace that part of your personality so that anything about yourself, like, you're perfect, all of you listening, like, you're perfect. Who you are and learning how to embrace that part of you that makes you you is what I think is charming. And whether it's awkward, whether it's aggressive, whether it's shy, all of that can work. It's just figuring out how to be more strategic in the conversation.

Well, let's talk a little bit about.

That, because I would say that a big percentage of my listeners are introverted and. Or shy. So when I work with writers, one of the big objections, you know, when we talk about, hey, you have to get on the phone with a prospect, like, don't try to do all this. And we're going to get to that. Because I want to get a little bit into. Can I do some of this over email? I get a lot of resistance. Right. It's because of the shyness and. Or I'm introverted that just, you know, I don't like doing that. That just sounds exhausting. So how can you use that? Because you're saying, hey, you don't need to change. Let's leverage what you already have. Can you give us some ideas, A little bit of a framework, maybe, or some tips or steps?

Yeah. So I teach a framework for sales that I call the selling staircase. And there's five steps that you move somebody through. And the idea is just so you like to be really candid, I'm also an introvert, and I Am shy. So like, I so relate to people that are like, I don't want to get on the phone, I just want to send somebody an email. Like, I get all of that. The idea though is that when you start to understand what's going on in the conversation, it's learning how to be strategic. So this is why I teach this five step process. And the steps are, you know, step one is introduction. That can come over, you know, social media, that can come via email, that can come through your website, or it can come through face to face. Right. Like all of. And there's things in there that you can do to set yourself up for success. Step 2 In the process is creating curiosity. Now this does require a little bit of thought on everybody's partner of coming up with statements that have people go like, tell me more about that or like, I wonder if that's something I could use or. And I'm happy to dig into.

Yeah, could you. And I know we're, we're going to.

Well, why don't we talk about the.

Staircase and then we can go back to some of these and use some examples.

Okay. So step two is create curiosity. Once you create curiosity, often what comes next is people start giving you what I call buying signals. And that is an indicator that they're ready to like, investigate more, find out more, could mean that they're ready to buy. So step three in the selling process is the discovery. Also some people call it consultation. I teach it as discovery because I really want people to think about. The idea here is to discover what's going on for this person. What's their problem, what's their want? Ask strategic questions that lead them to identify, yes, they're a right client for you, or no, they're not. And then once you get to step four, you're into that proposal phase. That's where you're clearly laying out your offer, making it easy for somebody to say, yes, I want to take this next step with you. Yes, I'd like to pay you money or hire you or whatever that is. Step five is the close. And that's really issuing that closed language. And I always like, you can't really do the proposal without the close. And if you miss the close, somebody just walks away and goes, well, thanks for the proposal. They don't actually ever buy, so you have to issue that closed language. So those are the five steps. Introduction, curiosity, discovery, proposal and close.

Perfect. So let's do this. Why don't I give you a typical scenario and then let's maybe walk through some of these steps and maybe use a little bit of a few examples, a little bit of role play, whatever makes sense. So typically what will happen is. And it just depends, it could be an inbound lead. So an inquiry usually comes in over email or it could be an outreach where I send someone a prospecting email, somebody who doesn't know me and said I noticed what you're doing in this area. Fantastic. Curious if you ever work with an outside writer and what it would take to be considered for a future project. Right. So I find that each has a different dynamic because one, obviously they're coming to you and there's an element of being pre sold to a certain extent before they even contact you. The other one is you've caught them by surprise. So I don't know which one you want to start with, but you know, maybe we could do the inbound. How's that? You know the.

Sure.

I found you on LinkedIn.

We're looking for someone to help us, you know, with we're looking to get some ebooks written and you know, typically I would say most prospects because there's no trust yet. It's kind of like what are your rates? Like they go straight to price.

Yes. Yeah.

So I don't know where we want.

To start in kind of the staircase.

But I'll leave that to you.

Okay. So a couple things I'm. We'll see. I don't know Ed, how you. What your agreement level is going to be with what I'm going to say. I'm happy for you to challenge me on it, but I'm going to say a couple things. So when a lead is coming in the door for you, you're kind of past this introduction and discovery phase and we're starting to move towards the curiosity phase and we're moving towards discovery because they're coming in like we have at least some permission to start to talk to them in some way and understand what's the problem, what's the need, what's the want.

Okay, agree completely.

One of the things I will say is I am a huge proponent of having some pricing, doesn't have to be all but some pricing on your website because I think especially for us introverts and those of us who feel a little shy, if all the questions that you get are what is your price? It puts you on your back foot. It makes you start to feel like you're having to justify your pricing. So you can actually eliminate a lot of those questions by having some pricing on your website and you Might be thinking, well, I can't list pricing because I've got, you know, it depends on the project, depends how many pages I'm writing. Or there's a myriad of things that could come in.

Everything's custom.

Yeah, yeah, but give a range. Even just give a range. Just say, you know, ebooks could range between. I'm just making up the prices because I don't know, could range between, you know, $500 and all the way up to 10,000. I don't really care what the range is. You just give it. So it gives people some type of, like, mindset when they come in. Like, I'm not going to get somebody to write an ebook for me for a hundred dollars. You do not want to have discussions like that with people who are like, Well, I have $100 to spend. Like, what can you do for me for that? Because again, it starts to make you question your value. It makes you question like, am I in the right business? How am I going to ever make this go? But if you have some pricing on your website, it cuts down on a lot of those. And then the other thing is, in a sales conversation, I believe there should be a balance of power. And what I mean by that is you can't just ask all the questions and you also can't just answer all questions. Like, they don't get to just ask you all questions because then it creates this imbalance of power. The person who's asking the questions holds the power in the conversation. So one of the ways that I do and what I recommend to my clients is when somebody's coming in for initial conversation, you want to pre frame what's going to happen in that call. This is a way for you to take a little bit of the lead, but also give them permission that you're going to create safety, that they're going to have an opportunity to ask their questions. So a pre frame might be something as simple as. Thank you so much for your interest in this work. The objective of our call today is to find out a little bit about what's going on for you and see if we have a solution that meets that. And if we do, we can move to the proposal phase. These calls usually take about, you know, give a time, like 15 minutes or 20 minutes. Does that work in your schedule? They're going to say yes or no, and you go, is it okay if I start with a couple quick questions? They're going to say yes. People don't say no to that.

Sure.

And now you have your questions prepared that you need the answers to to identify whether or not this is an ideal client and whether or not you have a solution that meets them. So I find a lot of times in discovery people are asking either too many questions or they're not asking the right questions.

Oh, couldn't agree more now, but just to pause real quick, this is already you're in the call. This sounds like the language you just use would be perfect. Right. To get them to that call. So let's just say you have the pricing on your website, so they already have an understanding.

Right.

Now I always propose that you and I would suggest get them on the phone. You're not going to be able to do this over email.

Chances are for a first time client you're not going to just send like have them go. I always wish, like we all wish this was true. We put up a website, people come to it, they click buy buttons and they just send us money. Like that would be awesome. And that's not how it works. Most people want to have some conversation with you before they give you money. So here's the other thing. Are you making it really easy for people to get on the phone with you or are you making it really difficult? Because when you make it easy for people to take next steps with you, oftentimes they will. But when you put up roadblocks, when you make them jump through a bunch of hoops or fill out this, you know, hour long form in order to get on a call with you, you know they're just going to say no.

Yeah, they're not.

They're not going to invest the time and energy to learn about who you are and what you can offer them. If you're making it like too difficult for them, it's gotta be as easy as possible for them to get that next step. And oftentimes that comes with a conversation, a live back and forth conversation where you can ask them questions, they can give you some, you know, nuances to their answers without having to, you know, write out the ebook to you. Right?

Yeah, yeah. So yeah, if you have some pricing on your website that might kind of fit what they're looking for, that will give them an idea. So that way they may not lead with the question about price, but if it's not, at least they'll have an idea. They might still ask because let's say you had ebooks, but they're interested in blog posts, so they may still ask in that call. So you suggest. Hey, great, thank you, thank you for your interest. I'd like to get on a quick conversation with you so we can see what you're looking for and the language you use and then just try to sell that next step. Right, let's do this.

Yeah, you're really only trying to move them to the next step. Like, one of the biggest mistakes people make in the selling process is they try to go right from introduction to close. Like, I'm just going to skip all the steps because then it's shorter.

Tell them everything about me and why I'm great.

And yeah, now I will say I do have a policy that when somebody asks me for my price, I will give it. And I'm pretty congruent about that because my price is my price. So if somebody reaches out to me through my website or sends me an email and says, nikki, how much do you charge for this? If I have a straight up answer to it, I will give it. Right. But if they're asking for something like, hey, we want to hire you for 10 trainings. Well, that's not going to be a straightforward answer. Or we want to hire you to do 10 ebooks, that's probably not a straightforward answer. Right? Like, we need to understand some more. So I would give a range. I would say, you know, ebooks could range between this price and this price. And in order to give a custom quote for you, it would be important for us to have a quick conversation. Would you be open to setting up a time for us to chat? And then here's one of the things I teach all of my clients to do is I suggest that you give people three ranges of time to meet with you. And so the way that I phrase that is I would say, you know, would you be willing to, you know, get on a quick call so we can find out a little bit more? And I can put together a proposal for you in case you like this idea. Here are a few possible times. Please pick one that works best in your schedule. And then I would say Monday, put the date and the time zone, anytime between. And I don't care what you're. Anytime between. It could be a half an hour, it could be two hours, it could be whatever. And you do that three times. And then you say, of course, if you prefer something else, please let me know what works for you. And I'll do my best to be available. So I make it all about them. I know sometimes people go, I just want to use a scheduling link. I just want to send them my schedule.

So you prefer this to the scheduling link because that was my next question.

Yep. I do. I'll tell you why. Most people's scheduling links say things like, here is my calendar. Please pick a time when I'm available. Well, that sounds like it's all about me and it's not about the client. By giving people three times, I actually don't care if they pick my one of my times. What I do care is that they slow down enough to go, nope, can't do that time. Nope, can't do that time. Oh, here's a time I could do. And then we actually get a time scheduled. But if you send someone a scheduling link and it's got 10 questions they have to answer before they can even schedule it with you, they're less likely to fill that out. But if you make it super easy for them to look at their calendar and go, oh, I have 15 minutes on the 12th between this time and this time. Yeah, sure, let's get it on our calendars. And then you do the work. You send them a calendar link. You make it super easy. And if you're opposed to this, you know, to my three times, I get it. I know people love scheduling links. Then go and look at the language that you're using in your scheduling link. Make sure it says things like, please pick a time that works best in your schedule versus pick a time when I'm available, because it's not about me, it's about the client.

Yeah, gotcha. All right, so let's say we're at the call, and I don't want to get into. I know you have a whole thing on questions and flow and all that, but one thing I'm very interested in, and I teach my clients and my listeners, you know, the flow that I recommend and. Yeah, but one thing that I definitely would like to get your feedback on or your take is talking money. So I find, and I'm curious to get your take, I find that a lot of writers shy away from talking money in this discovery call and may have come up as a kind of a range. Maybe it didn't. But they ask all these great questions. They avoid the budget question, they avoid talking money. And then they work on this proposal or this quote. They put a lot of thought into it, they send it out, and then they don't hear anything. And I know there's several things that they're missing here, not just the money thing, but. Would like to get your take on that.

Yeah, it's pretty hard to put together a proposal or quote for somebody if you don't ask that question. And there's different ways that you can ask it. Right. You could say, what have you budgeted for this? Or you could say, what's your, you know, what's your budget? Or you could say, do you already know that ebooks run between this price and this price? Do you already have an idea of what you're looking to spend?

I like that.

So sometimes you can give a range. And I actually love to do this. Especially when clients are nervous about the money. They're like. Like they're going to be shocked. I mean, if you say the price of your proposal and your client grabs their pearls and says, like what? Like you've missed a step somewhere.

Yeah.

And most people, by the way, even though we think everybody's going to have that response, I always say, you know, 25 years of selling, I've never had anybody be like, what? To my pricing? Even if it's out of their price range right there, it's okay for somebody to not be a good fit because my price is higher than what they want to pay. That's okay. But be willing to check with people because sometimes they. Again, you're the expert. They may not have any concept of what it costs to hire a copywriter, and they might be a little surprised by it. But we need to get that up front before you do any work around a proposal. Like, the proposal should be like, here's the outline of what going to happen. They should have some kind of an idea of pricing.

Yeah. Wasn't that question through me again? I mean, that was just beautiful the way you positioned it. Do you know that they range between X and Y?

Yeah. You know, ebooks tend to range between this price and this price. Do you already have an idea of what you're looking to spend?

Yeah. That's so. Well, I'm a big believer when it comes to critical questions like that to say them exactly the way that feels right for you.

Yes.

And then to practice it so it sounds and flows as natural as you just said it.

Yeah. It should sound very conversational versus, like, so my sheet says to ask you.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, all right, that's great. Because then you're having that discussion before you spend the time. And if there's going to be a huge problem, you can address it here. You don't have to spend an hour putting together this, you know, this quote or proposal or even longer.

Talk to me a little bit about.

How you set up the close. You know, so what can you do in the proposal stage or the discovery call stage to make sure that the Close. Just kind of. It's much more organic. And not one of these, like, beat them down.

Yeah. One of the things I think is really important is once you have a good idea from your discovery of what a potential solution would be, you ask permission to move them to the proposal step. So one of the ways I would say this is, I would say, you know, based on what you've shared with me so far, I do have an idea of a project that we could put together that would solve what it is that you're wanting. Are you interested to know more about that? And then I wait, see what they say. Yes, no, or, like, I don't know. I just was going to ask you some questions. Thanks for talking to me. Right. And maybe they get off the phone and that's okay, too, because I don't want to spend a bunch of time working up a proposal for somebody who's like, I had no intention on ever buying from you.

Yeah. Based on you get, you're giving them an out right now.

Yeah, totally. Like. And really what I'm. What I'm really wanting is for them to say, yes, do a proposal for me. Right. Or lay out the offer. Because now it's okay to sell. So I always say, like, don't sell during discovery. That's not the objective of your discovery call. It's not to sell during that. It's to understand the need, understand the problem, make sure you have a solution for them, ask permission to recommend. And then when you lay out the proposal, couple key things. Let's say that based on what they've shared, there's maybe, like, two or three options of ways they could go to get their need met. Your job is to be the expert and recommend what the client needs, not what you think they can afford. So if they've said, my budget is this, but they're, you know, my budget is 500, but they're asking for a $5,000 package. It is absolutely okay to say, you know, based on what you've shared, I have a package that's going to give you everything. It's 5,000. I also could step down into something that has something that's in your budget, and here's what you're going to get for it. But they've got to know that this other option is available to them. You always recommend the highest package. The highest. The most expensive package first. Doesn't mean you have to recommend. Like, if you have a $20,000 package, but the 5,000 package, you know, gets their need met, you're out of integrity. If you recommend the 20,000. So you only recommend the one that fits for them. But you start with the most expensive. You don't start with the least expensive. Because if you start at the $500 package and say, but if you add a little bit more money, you know, you could get this and this. People don't want to be like upsold in this moment, but we as humans love to have everything we want. And so when we get a package laid out for us that has everything we want, then we have to understand what we have to give.

Yes.

That's lost to save money. Yes.

And you're anchoring at a higher number. So psychologically then it's going to make the other ones cheaper.

Yeah, it makes it like, wow, that one's a, that's a deal. I want the deal. Yeah. So again, recommend what they need, not what you think they can afford. And especially if you haven't had the budget conversation, don't make assumptions like they'll never spend $5,000 on a package. You don't know that. You don't know that until you put it in front of them and have them go, I don't think I can afford a $5,000 package. What else do you have?

And by the way, is this still verbal before you hang up or is this now at the stage, okay, this is preferred?

You know, my idea is I want to close that sale on the call. Now, sometimes when you're dealing with corporate, they have to take back the proposal. They have to run it through a department, get initials signed off by different people. You also need to ask that in the discovery, like, you know, whom besides yourself is involved in the decision making process. Like, we need to understand when we're selling to corporate companies, like, what's their buying process? Because that might determine how much effort and work you want to put into a proposal. If it has to go through 10 departments and they need to go out and get five competitive bids, you need to decide whether or not you really want to bid on that proposal.

Agreed. So it's a good thing to have it there. Before you hang up, go ahead and let them know, give them an idea. If you have different options, start at the highest one. And if you don't, like, let's say this is going to be a complete custom thing and it's not, you know, you don't have a package or the packages you have are not in this area. Do you still recommend, you still obviously still want to talk money, maybe give them a range, hey, look, a ballpark I just want to kind of throw this out there. We're probably looking at, you know, between this and that. That way you get into that before you hang up.

Yes. And if they say, okay, well, send me the proposal, here's one of the most important things. This is like, if I could just say, like, this is the one thing you have to get out of your mouth. Like, this is super important. So somebody says, send the proposal and we'll take a look at it. Your job is to now say, great, I'll have that proposal to you by. Tell them when. And then you say, let's schedule a circle back call to review the proposal and answer any additional questions that you have. Can we get that scheduled now? And you schedule it, or you at least attempt to schedule it on their calendar before you get off the phone. Because if you let them off the phone with no next step scheduled, you're doing a disservice to this person because they may go like, yeah, we got that proposal. Yeah, it's really important. Until 18 other things floods their email and then they forget to look at your proposal. And now you're sitting there going, like, should I call? Is it too soon? Should, should I wait? Should I send an email? Should I pick up the phone? And you're like lamenting over what to do and that that's a time suck and an energy suck for you. So knock that off. Just have a time scheduled on the calendar to review the proposal with them, answer any additional questions they have, and then we move like, they've looked over the proposal. Now we've got to issue some close language when we get to that call or sometimes if that happens on that initial call, that's fine too. But you've got to get to that place where you're issuing the opportunity for them to make a decision. And if you don't get them on the phone, they may never make a decision.

I agree. All right, so I know the close thing. We could do probably three episodes on that, but let's kind of fast forward to that. And you know, if there's one thing that you would say, you know, one or maybe two things, we've got that call scheduled. We get on the call. Let's say that they haven't said anything over email because I know many times they don't even get to that. Like you send it, it's like, hey, let's move forward, we're ready to get rolling.

Awesome.

But if not, and you have that call and it's one o' clock on Tuesday, Anything there that's just absolutely critical that you do or don't do.

Absolutely critical is to say first you check to see what questions have come to mind since we last spoke. Have you looked over the proposal? And then you say, are you ready to move forward with this? You have to issue closed language. And if you don't get. And so a lot of times people teach in sales, like you want to ask open ended questions. And I agree. Until you get to the close. The close is a yes or no question. So it's like, are you ready to move forward with this or should we go ahead and get this project started for you? Like, there's a million ways you can say it, but it's a yes or no question.

I like that a lot better than these. So what do you think?

No, not what you think. That's too vague. It's too open to interpretation. And also it's almost like inviting them to critique your proposal. That's not what we're doing. We're ready to earn the business. That's what we're doing.

I absolutely love that. That is so simple. What I'm hearing from you is that because you've done the heavy lifting earlier on in the process, the close is just a. Let's, you know, let's cross our T's, dot our I's, let's, let's get this thing going.

Yeah, yeah.

And then, and of course, any questions, any questions that may have come ask.

Them, offer them an opportunity to ask you questions at the beginning, then you go, you know, have you reviewed the proposal? What questions have come to mind? You answer them and then you go, are you ready to move forward with this or should we move forward with this? It's a yes or no. And then you wait, I would say then you zip it. Like, don't keep talking, just ask the question, wait, see what they say next.

Love it, Love it. That's beautiful. I think that is, I don't think I know that is someone who is very shy, someone who may not like talking on the phone. This is a process anyone can follow because I'm with you 100%. If you follow the process and you practice, then you can rely on the process and not on being a certain way or having a certain personality. And then let the process. I'm a big believer the process trumps personality, then the process does the work. Right? And you gotta trust the process. It's gotta be a good process. But this is, it's brilliant.

Yeah. And just like anything, there is some muscle memory to this, right? Like you have to practice, you have to be willing to get some of this language out of your mouth. But once you do and you start seeing results. And this is super common with my clients as they come back and they're like, oh my gosh, I issued closed language. The person said, yes, I just booked, you know, a brand new client or I just booked my highest client ever because I just was willing to say it. And I'm like, that's the result. That's the result that my clients get over and over and over again is just like you said, be willing to trust the process, follow the process and the sale. It not only does it get so much easier for you, but it is so much easier for the client to make a decision.

I love it. Nikki. This is highly, highly informative, so helpful and inspiring. I think, you know, just like listening to you, I know I can tell that reader listeners are going to be, they're going to think, wow, I, yeah, I can do that, I can do that. Which is great. And of course you can tell us about your new book. I know you got a new book out. And then also about where listeners can learn more about you.

Thank you. So my latest book is called the Selling Staircase, not surprisingly. And it teaches you the five steps of the selling process. You can find it anywhere where books are sold. There's an audio version, there's a ebook version, and then there's of course the hard copied version. And the way to find me, I actually, I'd love to give a gift to your audience. Is that okay?

Oh, that'd be awesome. Yes. And we'll make sure to include it in the show notes as well.

Okay. So I have an ebook, it's called Closing the Sale. And so it really focuses on kind of those last three steps that we were talking about and gives you some language suggestions. So you can get that by going to my website. Go to yoursalesmaven.com hibw and this is specific for your listeners to get this right. High income business writing. So yoursalesmaven.com HibW Perfect.

Easy to remember. We'll make sure to include that link in the show notes. That's beautiful because I know if you're listening to this for the first time, you're in the car or somewhere where you can't take notes, you're thinking, oh, I got to come back to this. But man, the show notes are one thing, but to be able to get more detail on those steps in some more language and have that all in written format. That's, you know, my listeners are all about that.

So awesome.

Thank you for that, guys. Go check it out.

This is good stuff.

And you know, Nikki, what I love is that our approaches are very well aligned. And so I know this is resonating with people, and this is stuff that really works well for creative professionals like us. So thank you.

Thank you for having me and thank you for this discussion. This was a lot of fun.

The High Income Business Writing Podcast is a production of B to B Business Launcher. Learn more at B to B Launcher. Com.