Making It – Episode 174

Confident Sales Without Feeling Pushy (Nikki Rausch)

Nikki Rausch: I’m Nikki Rauch and you’re listening to Making it. I run a sales training organization called Sales Maven. And entrepreneurs and women business owners hire me to learn how to have more strategic sales conversations so they’re able to close more deals.

I never really understood the concept when somebody said, like, follow your passion, you’ll never work a day in your life. I was always like, I don’t know what that means. I guess I don’t have any passion. I was primarily raised by my dad. I have three brothers. My mom was in the picture, but not all the time. My dad and my grandfather had a small business. It was a tool store. From the age of 10, I started working in the tool store. They actually let me run the register, count out change and price things. This idea of this small business and spending time there, very male environment, it really kind of taught me some skill set around business.

I honestly never thought I wanted to have my own business because it was so hard. We were always barely making it. My dad, you know, would get to the end of like, you know, we barely had groceries and it was like figuring out, what are you going to scrape together for dinner? And there was no money. So I never thought I’d own my own business. But I’m glad they had those experiences of working, watching my dad and my grandfather struggle to keep this business afloat. I remember when I was 15 telling my grandmother that my goal in life was to make $75,000 a year because that felt like an unbelievable amount of money. I said, if I could make $75,000 a year, I could own a home and I would have that security. Like, I wouldn’t have to worry about buying groceries.

And that was kind of the goal at 15 was like, I just gotta get to $75,000 a year. The direction for that was getting my first job where it was commission based and realizing that I could really control my income. One of my first commission jobs was I was making minimum wage. And this was in the way back days, I think minimum wage was like $4.25 an hour. And so my goal was always to double by the end of my shift at this company I was working for. And a lot of times I was tripling it. The owners of the company came to me and they were like, hey, what are you doing? Because you’re selling more than everybody else.

But it was really just having that experience of growing up in the tool store, approaching customers, showing them things and offering to be a help in the store that really allowed me to do well in that first commission job. So if I could double or even triple what I was supposed to make per hour, that felt, yes, I’m making an impact.

What prompted me to start my business was I was helping to grow someone else’s business. And it was the first time I started networking with women. I came from a very male dominated industry. The last 10 years of my career, I was the only woman on the sales team. So as I was helping somebody else grow her business, I started networking with women to get the word out about this other business. And that’s when I just was so inspired by these women that were super passionate and wanting to make an impact in the world. And when I started hanging out with these women, I was like, oh my gosh, they’re so passionate. And I just wanted to be around them as much as possible. I wanted to rub up against them like a cat, hoping some of that passion would rub off on me.

Because I was networking, I started commuting with somebody. And in the car, she would ask me questions. And I found that she really struggled with sales conversations and for me seemed natural. That was my background. And she started implementing these things that I was, you know, giving her suggestions on. And she started getting phenomenal results in her business. So much so that the company she was working for, the president called her and said, what’s changed? Your sales have gone up so much. She said, I started working with a sales coach, but I was not a sales coach. I was just her friend, you know, in the car commuting with her.

They got interested in me and what I was doing. They ended up hiring me to speak at their national conference. And she said to me, Nikki, you need to be teaching these skills that you’ve been giving to me. I really thought, nobody’s going to pay me for that. It seems too easy. She’s like, I think people will pay you money. So as soon as they hired me to be their speaker at their national sales convention, Sales Maven was born.

The hardest thing to overcome in my entrepreneurial journey has probably been mindset, you know, struggling with. Does my voice matter? Does my opinion matter? I have enough proof, right? I’ve had my business long enough that I know that the advice that I give when people implement the techniques and things that I teach, they get results. So that, I feel rock solid on. There are times where people will ask me questions where I still to this day sometimes think, am I qualified to answer that? So I try to make the distinction that based on your question, here’s what I know works. And based on your question, if it’s a different type of question, here’s my opinion about it.

So I try to make a distinction because to me, credibility is super important. And I always want to speak from a place of credibility and not mislead anybody, because there are things I’m an expert on, and there’s lots of stuff I’m not. I remember many years ago, I had this idea that I was going to talk about buying signals. I really struggled. I was putting together a talk, and I felt like, I really want this talk to be focused around this topic, Buying signals. Before I gave the talk, I had a complete meltdown. Feeling like I cannot go in front of this group of 50 people and talk about buying signals. They’re going to laugh me out of the room. They’re going to go, this is the dumbest thing anybody has ever talked about. Because they were so obvious to me that it felt too basic. So I really wanted to cancel.

I had a little meltdown. I cried about it. And I will say, because I had committed and I keep to my commitments, that I would go and give this talk. And I had really kind of already said what the topic was going to be, right? So they were expecting this talk, and I went and gave it. And people were like, what? There are buying signals? I never heard about this before. It was one of those moments where you come off and you’re like, oh, people actually do care. And they haven’t actually heard this, and they don’t think it’s stupid, you know, because in my mind, it was like, Nikki, this is so dumb. I really thought I would be laughed off the stage. And it was such a popular topic that I actually wrote my second book around buying signals, which still to this day makes me laugh because there are times where I think I probably shouldn’t talk about this anymore because everybody knows what these are.

And then somebody new will show up in my business and be like, Nikki, I heard you talking about buying signals. I had no idea. And, you know, I’m almost 12 years into my business, so for people to still be surprised by them feels, it’s one of those things, like, lean into the things that I know make a difference, and I have to remember to keep talking about them. Even though I feel like everybody’s already heard me talk about this. I do challenge myself to do new things. I love new and different in my business. I have to allow myself to do new and different things to stay engaged, because that’s one of my motivational traits. And one of the ways I do this is, I think, how can I put a new and different spin on something I have already taught 80,000 times?

There is this idea that we often don’t want to know how hard was it to push through those different challenges that come up in your business or in your personal life that challenge you in your business to stay focused and keep going? Because we always hear these success stories about, oh, this person had this difficulty, but then all is well, they push through and all is well. But that feels like a candy coated version of how stinking hard it can be to just feel like you’re trudging through mud and nobody’s paying attention and you can barely lift your foot sometimes to get to that next step. And sometimes that next step is like an inch, it’s not even a full step up. And still being able to say, I’m gonna keep going.

When a lot of people around you are quitting and you want to quit and people are telling you to quit and it’s like, what do you find within yourself and how do you dig that deep to go, okay, I moved an inch, maybe I can push and get another quarter inch and I have to keep going. I was experiencing some stuff in my personal life that was incredibly difficult, something I wasn’t prepared for that completely flattened me and really didn’t know that I could go on. And frankly, I’m still dealing with some of it almost five years later. It was debilitating. There were times where I could get on a call with a client, have a session with them and get off and just be a complete mess, like tears, not really functioning.

And then to really have to say to myself, like, okay, that’s all you can do today. That’s your best. It wasn’t great, but it was the best that you had. So do it again tomorrow. And it took a long time to get through it. I’m still not quite through it, but I can get up now and go like, I’m just gonna do what I can do some days that is like super productive. And, you know, I feel like I nailed that coaching call. Like, I was so great on that. Like, I gave somebody something that is going to absolutely make a huge difference. And then there are days where it’s like, all I’ve got today is like, I’m just gonna get through the podcast or I’m just gonna get through the, you know, getting the newsletter written, or I’m just gonna. But that has to be enough. And I think giving yourself grace, which is such a hard lesson, but giving yourself grace to be like, that’s all you got. You did your best. Your best wasn’t great, but that’s okay. Keep going.

And sometimes my very best is like an eight and a half. I don’t feel like I’ve ever hit a ten, but if I’m having an eight and a half, awesome. But sometimes my best is really a 3. Instead of thinking, oh, Nikki, you need to get from a three to an eight and a half. That’s so unrealistic. So sometimes I just think, can I get to a three and a half? Can I bring it together, hold it together? And also realize that it’s for a moment of time. Because I think you need time to go, like, okay, I need to decompress here. I need to let the face fall. I need to let the emotion come and then get it back together. Get back to the three, get back to maybe the three and a half. And that is enough.

When you’re an expert at what you do, you still have to remember that you being the expert and bringing your expertise to your clients is more than what they can do on their own. And so they’re still getting value out of it, even though there’s a part of you that’s like, oh, but I could do so much better, or I could be so much better. Sometimes that’s enough, and you have to be okay with that. 

One of the common mistakes I think people make on the road, and I made this, too, is listening to too many other voices and not really asking yourself, is this in alignment with me, what this person is advising or saying? I believe in mentorship big time, and I have some amazing mentors and have since a very young age. But not everybody should be a mentor to you. And you shouldn’t look at somebody just because you think that they have accomplished something that you want to accomplish. You probably need to check it out, make sure they actually have. Because what you see on social media, what you see out in the world, isn’t always what’s going on behind the scenes. Be careful who you listen to and choose your mentors wisely.

Some of the best business advice that I’ve gotten is from my mentor, Shane Sams. Shane says this thing that I love so much, and I repeat it often to my clients and add my own spin to it.He always says, most people are one question away from hiring you. And then my piece is, you have to give them the opportunity to ask you the question. Questions have become such a big part of what I teach and how to frame questions. How to make sure they land really softly to the other person in the conversation so they are engaged and want to participate and answer. So as a business owner, that’s so exciting because if you’re having a conversation with somebody and you know how to ask them questions, but you also know how to allow them to ask you questions, you have the opportunity to earn their business.

Making it for me today means truly working with clients in a way that allows them to bring more money into their business so that they can make a bigger impact in the world. Because I know that when women make money, they bring money into their families and that makes an impact. They are big supporters in their communities and that makes an impact. And that feels like making it. Something that’s super important to me is generosity. I want to always approach life and my finances from a place of being generous. I give away money every month from a place of wanting to help people who need that little bit of extra. Right. I have a big goal around being generous and I’m not there, so I have a long way to go. But I see where I am now and what I gift every month.

And when I look at the year, it’s significantly different now than it was, you know, 10 years ago, five years ago even. For me, it’s to be able to give away $5,000 a month to actually gift organizations a total that would really move the needle in my community and in the world. So that has always been the goal. I’m not there by any stretch of the imagination, but I’m working my way towards it and that feels in alignment with who I am. I haven’t made it yet. I don’t feel like I’ve made it yet, but I feel like I’m a work in progress.

I’m Nikki Rauch and you’ve been listening to Making It. You can find my information on yoursalesmaven.com. And I would love to offer you a gift. I have a training. I normally charge for it. I’d like to gift it to you for free. And you can get it by going to yoursalesmaven.com/making and you’ll get a training scroll down to the bottom and you’ll see I already put a coupon code in there for you and you’ll get this for free. And it’s all around the questions that you ask in your consultation calls. It’s called Seal the Deal. Thank you for listening.

Danny Iny: Making it is part of the Mirasee FM podcast network, which also includes such shows as Course Lab and the Neuroscience of Coaching. To catch the great episodes that are coming up on Making It. Please follow us on Mirasee FM’s YouTube channel or your favorite podcast player. And please leave us a comment or a starred review. It’s the best way to help us get these ideas to more people. Thank you and we’ll see you next time.