MBA2168 Guest Teacher – Nikki Rausch – How To Make Sales Simple Using The Selling Staircase

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I'm your host, your coach, your teacher Omar Zenholm. I'm also the co founder of Webinar Ninja, an independent software company I started with my co founder back in 2014 and today's episode is a guest teacher lesson episode. In our guest teach lessons we bring on an expert to teach their area of expertise. Today we have Nikki Rauch and she'll be teaching you how to make sales simple using the selling staircase method. Nikki Rauch is known as a sales maven and she gets it. Sales can be intimidating. Many of us don't have experience in doing sales. We get nervous. We're not really sure what to say or how to approach the whole situation. And that's why she's here to teach you the Selling Staircase method. Nikki has over 25 years in sales experience and has worked with some pretty big players, pretty big organizations like the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation and NASA. She's broken sales records and has been a top performer in sales for so many years and she's here to help you. She's going to show you step by step how to conduct a sales conversation and how to increase your chances of closing that sale let's get into it. Let's get down to business.

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When I was growing up, I was really not a big fan of sales, which was funny because my father was in sales. He was a car salesman. I used to go to his work on Saturdays and see him in action.

And I used to wonder, wow, how.

Do these people do this? This seems so hard. But then I learned, like any skill, sales is something that you can learn, something that you can pick up, something that you're going to need to practice at to really feel comfortable with. But you need a framework. You need some rules, you need something to follow. And that's why I'm excited about today's guest teacher lesson with Nikki Rauch. She's going to show you step by step how to have that sales conversation, whether that is in person or on a call or even on a webinar. So I'm going to pass it on to Nikki, but I'll be back to wrap up today's lesson and give my takeaways. But for now, take it away. Nikki.

Welcome to make sales simple using the selling staircase framework. I am Nikki Rauch and I'll be your trainer for the next few minutes, talking about how to really simplify sales for you. Now, I have crafted a signature framework for a sales conversation, and I call it the selling staircase. It's broken into five steps, and the reason that it's broken into this structure of a staircase is for you to think about sales in your sales conversations is that it's your job to move somebody from one step to the next. Now, just like you wouldn't have somebody stand in front of a five step staircase and ask them to jump from the bottom step all the way to the top, you're gonna just move or guide them one step at a time. So I'm gonna go into each one of the steps in a little bit more detail. But I want you thinking about when you're in a sales conversation, ask yourself, what step am I on right now with this client and what do I need to do to move them to the next step? Because the objective is to get all the way to the top. So that's where you exchange dollars for services. But what you don't want to do is try to skip over steps. When you skip steps in a sales conversation, you will oftentimes annoy or overwhelm your prospect and you'll miss out on earning their business. Now let's dive into the five steps of the selling staircase. I'm going to start with step one. And step one is what's known as the introduction. The objective of this step is to make a powerful first impression. So I would challenge you to think about who's your ideal client client and think about your ideal client. Who would they look for? Who would they hire? How would the person have to show up that they would hire to perform whatever your service or buy whatever your product? What kind of person are they looking for? And are you showing up in the marketplace as their ideal person that they want to buy from? And if not, you need to make some changes to what you're doing. Super important that you make a powerful first impression so that you attract your ideal client. Now, once that happens, you move to step two in the sales conversation, which is create curiosity. This is the most misstep in the sales process. Most people don't ever even think about, do I know how to create curiosity when I am talking to a prospect? Now, one of the easiest ways to create curiosity in a sales conversation is the way in which you answer questions. Can be a simple question, but you want to look for ways, opportunities to plant some seeds that would pique somebody's interest and make them want to know more. So for instance, if somebody asked you right now, how's business? What are you going to say that could pique a little bit of curiosity and make them go, oh, that's so interesting. So for instance, right now, if somebody said to me, how's business, Nikki? I might say, oh, it's really exciting. I'm just about to launch my next mastermind masterclass. Then it gives them an opportunity to go, oh, what's your master class about? That starts a conversation, super important. Now, based on my answer about the master class, they might think, oh, or say, that's something that I might want to join. That then results in what's known as buying signals. When you're able to create curiosity in your sales conversations, often what happens next is somebody will give you a buying signal. Buying signals are verbal and non verbal cues that people give that indicate interest. So when you get a buying signal, your job is to act on it you're going to invite them to whatever the next logical step is. Now, I mentioned earlier when I was talking about you cannot skip steps in the sales conversation. The only exception to being able to skip steps in the sales conversation is if a client shows up and says to you, because you created some curiosity, I'm ready to buy. I don't want you to say, hey, slow your roll. You gotta, we gotta go back to step three. Go ahead and take that order as long as it's a fit for you. But if they're not sure what to do next, your next logical step is to invite them to step three in the sale, the selling staircase, which is the discovery step. This is where your job is to uncover what's the struggle, what's the need, what's the want from that client. And the way that you do this is by asking really smart questions. Now, when I say smart questions, smart questions are questions that plant seeds in the mind of the prospect that gets them thinking, ooh, these are good questions. These, this person knows something or has something that I need. So really important that you ask questions that lead people down the path to hiring you. A couple mistakes that people make in the discovery process. One is they ask all the questions that they only need the answers to once somebody hires them. That's a mistake. Your job is to just ask enough questions to identify, am I talking to an ideal client? Do I have a solution that would possibly meet their needs, and do I have enough information to lay out that solution for them and allow them to hire me? So don't want to make that mistake. And the other mistake that people often make in the discovery process is they will ask a question, get the answer from the prospect, and then they'll go into sales mode, and then they'll ask another question, get the answer from the prospect, and then start selling something else. And then they'll do this over and over again. That's a huge mistake because one, it will overwhelm your prospect, and two, it'll take up too much time. Your discovery process should be clean. You're going to ask questions. You're going to get all the answers that you need in order to earn the person's business or at least establish whether or not you have a solution that's going meet their need or solve their problem. Now, once you've done that, well, you're going to move to step four in the process. By the way, I'm going to give you an example here in a minute of how to move a prospect from one step to the next. But let's say we've, we've done a great, done a great discovery. They're absolutely an ideal prospect for us. Now we're going to move to step four in the selling staircase, which is proposal. Now, that might sound really formal. I don't mean it to sound formal. It could just be you laying out an offer verbally to them of how to, how to buy from you, what that next step is. Or it might actually entail a more formal proposal. And that's okay. Depending on your business, you do what you need to do to earn the person's business. But now here's the objective in step four. In proposal, your job is to stand in your place of credibility and authority and recommend what the person needs, not what you think they can afford. And there is a difference. Your job, I'm going to say this again, is to recommend what somebody needs, not what you think they can afford. So don't sell from somebody else's wallet. You recommend based on their questions to the discovery, what is the right solution that's going to meet their need? And you want to lay out a really clear offer, stand in your place of credibility, like I said, and make a recommendation. They're coming to you because you, you have something that they need. So don't just say, oh, I have 10 ways to work with me. What would you like? No, actually recommend based on what you've shared. My recommendation would be this product or this package for you. And then you're going to move to step. Once you've laid out your proposal, your offer, you're going to move to step five. Step five goes really closely. It links really closely with step four. So you've laid out your proposal. Step five now is the close. And the objective here is for you to get closed language out of your mouth. This is a misstep. Oftentimes people don't think about, am I issuing clothes? Language. If you only get to step four and you don't issue closed language, most people won't decide to hire you. So we want people to hire you. You've got to get closed language out of your mouth. An example of closed language would be to say to somebody, you know, here's my proposal. This is the, this is the solution that I would recommend for you. Is that something you would like to go ahead and get signed up for? That's closed language. And then once you issue closed language, job is to zip it. You're no longer allowed to speak until your client speaks first or your prospect speaks first. So Let them say whatever they need to say next. Oftentimes they're going to say yes. They might say no. They might have a question. But you've got to give them the opportunity to respond to your offer. So those are the five steps of the Selling Staircase. Now, one of the easiest ways to move a client or a prospect from one step to the next is to an issue invitation from one step to the next. So they'll hang out on whatever step they're on. If they don't know what to do next, your job is to guide them. Here are some examples of invitation language. You could say something as simple as Would you be interested to learn more about X, Y and Z? Or should we schedule a time to chat more about this? Or are you ready to get started now? Or based on what you shared, you'd be an ideal candidate for XYZ package. Is that something you'd like to learn more about? Any of these things are invitation language and it's in the form of question that allows somebody to decide to hire you. Because here's a little secret for you about sales. If you want to make sales simple, you have to learn how to invite people. Most people will not buy from you until the invitation is stated, so you gotta state it. All right? So that's a little simple training for you around how to move somebody through the sales process. Make sales simple Using the Selling Staircase Again. I'm Nikki Rauch. My company is sales maven and I specialize in helping people have more strategic sales conversation that result in attracting your ideal clients and moving them to the place where you exchange dollars for services. If you would like to lear learn more, you can check out my website and you can go to yoursalesmaven.com I'd love to hear from you. I wish you continued success in all of your sales conversations. Thank you so much.

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I love these simple steps that Nikki has laid out and also the do's and don'ts you should be looking out for. One of the things I learned along the way in my 20 years of entrepreneurial experience is the best way to look at sales is to say to yourself, my job is to help them make a decision. They're there with a problem, they're here to talk to you about their problem and hopefully you have a solution for them with your products or services. They're not sure if they're a good fit. Your job is to make it easier for them to make that decision, to give them the information, to coach them through it and see yourself as an advisor. Just like Nikki said, find the right product or service that's right for them to solve their problems or needs. Because at the end of the day, you want to build trust with this client because that won't be the last time they'll see you. It won't be the last time they buy from you. So you want to have a lifelong relationship with these people that you're talking to so that they continue to do business with you. You thanks so much for listening to the $100 MBA show. If you want to learn more from nikki, go to yoursalesmaven.com and she's got a little goodie for you over@thousalesmaven.com MBA so go ahead and check it out. If you're listening to today's episode and you're like, okay, these are great tips. I really like what I'm hearing. I've learned a lot. Don't stop here. Apply what you just learned. Put it into action. Ask yourself, when is the next sales conversation I'm going to have? Look in your calendar. Make an appointment if you don't have one so that you can actually put these into action. Put it on a post it note so you can remind yourself when you're on the call, when you're having this conversation to actually practice this because you need some reps for it to feel natural. We love you here. Hit subscribe, Hit follow on your favorite podcast app so you don't miss a beat and you don't miss an episode. Also by hitting subscribe or Follow, you get access to over 2,000 business lessons in our archives. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. Here's something people don't talk about. You can't make anybody buy anything. You can't force them to do anything. But your job is to build a relationship and build that trust between you and your client so that when they are ready to buy and make that decision, they come to you and nowhere else because they trust you. Now they know that you have their best interests in mind. Business is a long term game. Play the long game and you'll never lose. Thanks so much for listening and I'll see you in tomorrow's episode. I'll see you then. Take care.

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