Unfortunately, many sales teams miss out on opportunities, not because of the product or service, but because of poor communication. Misunderstanding what the customer needs, speaking at the wrong pace, or failing to establish a real connection can result in lost sales.
But even worse, poor communication doesn’t just hurt sales; it can strain relationships with your team, suppliers, and clients, creating unnecessary friction within your business. Without effective communication, these issues can slow your business’s growth and limit its potential. So, what exactly is NLP, and how can it improve the way you communicate and sell? And what steps can you take to start integrating it into your sales strategy?
But there’s a risk: when you raise prices, customers expect more. If the product doesn’t live up to those expectations, it can hurt the brand. While higher prices can boost sales and make a product seem more premium, it’s important that the quality matches the price. If not, it can lead to lost trust and dissatisfaction.
The goal is to move through these levels by practicing NLP techniques until they become natural and effortless in your everyday life.
For example, starting a sales call by explaining the purpose and confirming the time frame reassures the prospect that their time is respected. It also prevents the conversation from becoming unfocused or overly drawn out. By asking for permission to lead the call, you keep the conversation on track so it remains productive and addresses the prospect’s needs. This approach builds trust and keeps the focus clear.
Pre-framing transforms sales calls by creating clarity and reducing uncertainty for the prospect. It results in a more focused discussion and increases your chances of successfully closing the deal.
Kathy (host):
Hello, and welcome back to another episode of “Help My Business is Growing,” a podcast where we explore how to grow and build a healthy and sustainable business. I’m your host, Kathy Fatina, a fractional CFO and founder of Newcastle Finance. At Newcastle, we believe that everything you do in your business eventually shows up in your finances—and having healthy finances means having a healthy business. The question is: how do you get there? That’s where this podcast comes in to help.
Kathy (host):
Today’s episode is a special treat for me because I’m interviewing my business sales coach, Nikki Rausch. We’ll be discussing Neuro-Linguistic Programming, or NLP for short. I first learned about NLP when I hired a career coach a couple of years ago, but I didn’t truly understand how to implement it in my business. When I discovered that Nikki was an NLP practitioner, I immediately jumped at the opportunity to be coached by her.
Kathy (host):
NLP is a powerful tool for anyone looking to improve their communication skills. It can help grow your sales and enhance interactions with your team, shareholders, stakeholders, and suppliers—it’s even valuable in your personal life. We’ll be covering what exactly NLP is, how it can transform your approach to communication, how it can help your business grow, and the steps you need to take to start using it effectively. Nikki is very practical, and as you’ll see in this episode, she provides many great examples and techniques you can start using in your very next conversation, whether it’s a sales call, employee meeting, or personal interaction.
Kathy (host):
Before I introduce Nikki further, I want to remind you that all episodes of this podcast, including this one, come with timestamps for topics discussed and their own blog posts. You can find all links and detailed topics in the episode show notes—they’re there as a resource for you to use whenever needed.
Kathy (host):
My guest today, Nikki Rausch, integrates over 25 years of experience selling to prestigious organizations such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Hewlett-Packard, and NASA. She shares with her clients the same approaches that led her to shatter sales records in her industry and receive multiple top producer awards. Her business degree from the University of Washington and master certification in Neuro-Linguistic Programming mesh perfectly to create a powerful foundation upon which she built tremendous sales skills that now provide enormous benefits for her clients. Nikki has received numerous sales awards, shattered sales records across industries, and was featured in Female Entrepreneur Magazine. She’s also a sought-after speaker, podcast host, and author. This is going to be a great episode. Please join us.
Kathy (host):
Nikki, welcome to the show.
Nikki (guest):
Thanks for having me. I’m so excited to get to have this conversation with you.
Kathy (host):
Thanks so much for being here. For my listeners, Nikki is actually my sales coach—we’ve known each other for almost a year and a half at this point. We work together very closely, and she’s taught me a lot of good stuff, not just about sales but about communication in general. I thought this would be a great opportunity to have her on the show and share her knowledge with the rest of you.
Nikki (guest):
Well, I’m excited to share, and it’s been my absolute honor and pleasure to support you in the last year and a half.
Kathy (host):
Thank you so much, Nikki.
Nikki (guest):
I’m a huge fan.
Kathy (host):
One of the things you’ve taught me is NLP, which is Neuro-Linguistic Programming—I hope I said that right. It’s kind of a tongue twister. I think it’s such an important thing to have in your toolbox as you’re building a business. But let’s talk about what NLP is exactly.
Nikki (guest):
So, Neuro-Linguistic Programming—”neuro” is the way we process information in our brains. “Linguistics” is the language part: how you speak to others, how others speak to you, and also any internal dialogue you’ve got going on. I always say I have a few voices up there, but that might be a therapy session! And then the “programming” part is about habits and patterns. It sounds super technical, right? Processing information in your brains, language, and patterns—but realistically, the most basic way to explain it is it’s learning the art of communication and how to use that in conversation to put the other person at ease and be more effective in the way you communicate. NLP is used around the world for all different types of applications. It’s used for patient compliance, therapists use it, obviously sales professionals use it. All kinds of people use NLP for different things, but for me, it’s about the communication piece—how can you communicate in a way that makes it easier for the other person to stay in conversation with you, and for you to get to more of the heart of the matter, versus always just talking at a very surface level.
Kathy (host):
That’s really interesting. And how, if you’re having a conversation—for example, if you’re having a sales conversation using NLP—how would that be different from just a sales conversation that you would have if you didn’t know NLP?
Nikki (guest):
Well, there are a few techniques, and you might know of these from psychology or behavioral economics. But specifically in a sales conversation, one really easy technique—and by the way, all of the things I’m going to talk about you can use in any conversation—is paying attention to somebody’s rate of speech. This is important because we all have a certain rate of speech. If you think about it on a scale of zero to ten, there are people who talk really, really fast—sometimes they don’t even take breaths between their sentences. Then on the other side of the spectrum, you have somebody who really takes their time when they’re speaking.Think about whatever your rate of speech is—again, zero to ten, wherever you fall, whatever number you’d assign yourself. How uncomfortable is it for you to be in a conversation with somebody who speaks at a very different rate than you? If you’re somebody who has a slower rate of speech, and you’re talking to somebody who’s a fast talker, oftentimes you might look at that person if they’re trying to sell to you and think, “Oh, they’re slick,” or “They interrupt me constantly and step on what I’m trying to say.” Now, on the flip side, if you’re somebody who’s talking to a really fast talker and you have a slower rate of speech and you’re trying to earn that fast talker’s business, it might be painful for them to be in conversation with you. They might be thinking, “What are you trying to say? My brain is processing so fast—what’s going on here?” When you can adjust your rate of speech in a conversation with somebody, specifically in sales, you make it easier for them to actually engage, and you also make it easier for them to process what you’re saying. When you want to earn somebody’s business, it’s important that they can actually take in what you’re saying to them. It also gives them permission to be more revealing about how to earn their business because they’re more comfortable with you. Think about somebody you meet for the first time where you instantly have that connection—you think, “Oh, this person’s so easy to talk to.” Chances are you have very similar rates of speech. When you meet somebody like that, you can be talking to them for an hour, and it feels like it’s been five minutes because it’s just so comfortable. And on the flip side, when you meet somebody with a very different style than you, you instantly feel that “ick factor,” and you talk to them for 10 minutes, and it feels like you’ve been talking to them for an hour, and you need a nap! So adjusting your rate of speech sends the message that we can be in conversation. I don’t have to match you 100%—I just have to be willing to make some adjustments to make it more comfortable for you, because the more comfortable you are in the conversation, the easier the conversation flows. The other thing I’ll say about this is, when you meet people who you feel that connection with, the people who you think, “I like this person”—chances are there’s something about that person that feels very similar to you. We like people who are like us. But here’s the real kicker: when you meet somebody who’s like you, you think that person is smart, because you know you’re smart! And don’t you want to work with people who you feel comfortable talking to, who get you on a level where you think, “Oh, it’s better working with this person than working with some other salesperson who’s just trying to talk at me the whole time.” So that’s one example of using NLP with rate of speech.
Kathy (host):
Would it be fair to say that you’re projecting the energy back to what the person is giving you, or are you trying to basically mimic them, but doing it in such a way that it still feels comfortable for that person? Would that be the goal?
Nikki (guest):
Yes, to a point—but I wouldn’t use the word “mimic,” because mimic feels like parroting, and that feels awkward and weird. In NLP, we call it matching and mirroring, and I teach this in sales. The goal is to only match about 50-60% of somebody. So if you’re matching rate of speech and they’re at an eight while you’re a two, if you can speed yourself up to a five, it makes it easier for them to be in conversation. You don’t mimic somebody, but there are things you can match and mirror besides just rate of speech. You can pay attention to the phrasing that they use because words create pictures in our minds, and certain words create certain pictures. I don’t get to see into your brain—I don’t get to see what picture you’re forming—but if I pay attention to the words you’re using, it helps. For instance, I had a client who was a photographer, and she was telling me that her website attracted a certain type of clientele. They would set up discovery calls—consult calls—with her, but she could never close the sales. She couldn’t understand why she was getting all these leads from this certain group, but then they would get on a call and there would be this disconnect. As I dug into her sales process and started paying attention to the words, I asked her, “How do these people who are showing up on your website often describe what it is that you deliver?” She’s a photographer, so she talked about photography, photos, photographs. She said, “Well, they call them pictures—this group of people, they call them pictures.” I told her she needed to call them pictures when talking to them because that word means something to this particular group of people. Every time you correct them and say “photos,” you’re essentially saying the way they speak is wrong. You’re creating a different picture in their brain, because what “picture” brings up in their brain might look very different than what “photo” brings up. So paying attention to people’s words is critical because words create pictures in our minds.
Kathy (host):
That’s really interesting. You and I have done a similar exercise together, because—for disclosure here—every discovery call that I have, I record it with my AI note taker. It’s so valuable to have those recordings because now I can go back and actually see the sales process and where I failed when the sales process just kind of fell apart.
Nikki (guest):
Yes, because you can see sometimes where—and sometimes it’s not even intentional on your part—you have a thought, you create mental pictures and images in your brain. Sometimes, I don’t know if this has ever happened to you, where somebody says something and you hear it totally different, but maybe it’s played back different, and you’re like, “That’s not what the person said.” Well, it’s recorded, so it’s right there—this is actually what they said, but that’s not what your brain heard. In a sales conversation, if you’re not turned on and tuned in and paying attention, sometimes we can create these disconnects between us and somebody else because we’re taking what they’re saying and applying what we think they mean versus actually what they said. Sometimes what somebody says and what they mean—you don’t actually know what they mean, and don’t assume that you do. We often do this in conversations, especially if we know somebody well. We’re like, “Well, you said this, but what you really meant was that.” But in a sales conversation, if you do that, then it just sounds like you’re not paying attention to the other person or you’re not speaking their language. It’s kind of like going to a different country where they have a native language that’s not English, and you walk in and say, “Hey, I speak English, so I’m only going to frequent your restaurant or stay at your hotel if you can speak my language.” Well, this is also why they think “Ugly Americans,” right? Because we demand everybody be like us. You don’t want to be like that in a sales conversation. You don’t want to be the person who shows up in somebody else’s country and tells them that their language is wrong or not as good as yours, because that’s just not true.
Kathy (host):
And how do you train yourself to look for those opportunities? Because I will tell you, one of the hardest things is there’s already a lot of stuff happening when you’re communicating, if you’re trying to be an active listener, you’re taking things in. And now there’s another layer to it that you have to be paying attention to, I would assume, obviously you get better with repetition and with practice. But what are some of the practical tips that maybe you can give to someone who is just starting to use this and they’re like, “Oh, my goodness, there’s so much happening. I feel like I’m tuning everything out.”
Nikki (guest):
Yeah, my suggestion always is just to pick one thing, like one extra thing to add to what you’re doing. So if you’re going to pay attention to somebody’s rate of speech, for instance, don’t worry so much about what the words are that they’re choosing. Or if you’re going to say, “Oh, I’m going to pay attention to their words,” don’t pay attention to the rate of speech, because it’s too much, right? Like you’re putting too much in your brain, because you’re also supposed to be talking about what your offer is, and you know, all the other stuff that goes into sales. So just pick one thing and get good at it, because at some point it will move from your—have you heard of like, the four levels of competency before?
Kathy (host):
I have seen and mentioned, but if you can explain that to our listeners, what exactly that is?
Nikki (guest):
There’s four levels of competency, like, at the basic level, is what’s known as your unconscious incompetence. These are those things like, I can’t even tell you what mine are, because I have no awareness around them. You can probably tell me what you’d be better at telling me what mine are than I can tell you what mine are, because it’s like you just don’t know what you don’t know. That’s unconscious incompetence. Now at some point you move up on this scale and you get to conscious incompetence. Now I can tell you I have a laundry list of things that I am incompetent on, like, for instance, I could never do what you do Kathy, like, I couldn’t look at somebody’s finances and paint a picture and create a roadmap for them on how to improve that. That’s me being consciously incompetent. Now the next level up is you get to conscious competence. These are those things that you know how to do them. Maybe you have to think about it a little bit or like, for instance, if you’re cooking a recipe for the first time, you’re probably going to follow that recipe pretty religiously, right? Like, you’re going to put in the right amount and all the things it says. But after you make that recipe a few times, you might start like, “I’m not even going to look at the recipe. I’m just going to doctor it, because I think I know what goes in there.” So that conscious competence is where you know what you know. You have to think about it a little bit, then you move to the highest level. And this is your unconscious competence. These are those things that come so naturally to you that it’s like, it’s almost like breathing, like whether or not you recognize it. Anybody listening right now, your body is breathing right because you wouldn’t be listening if you weren’t. So you’re not having to think about your breath. It’s just, you’re just doing it. Your body is doing it. It’s become unconsciously competent that you can breathe. And there’s many things in your life you’re unconsciously competent at these are those things that people often think like, “Oh my gosh, I think you have a superpower. How do you know to do that?” And you kind of think, “Doesn’t everybody? It’s kind of easy.” That’s those unconscious competence. So with these techniques that I’m talking about, the goal is to one, move it from unconscious incompetence to now you’re consciously incompetent. Decide to implement it in some way and move it to conscious competence. And at some point, you’ll do it enough times where it will become unconscious for you, you won’t have to think about it. It’s just how you do right? Like, I get a lot of clients that show up, like “Nikki, how do you know to say this? Or how do you know to do this? Or like, how do you know to tweak this message or change this phrasing?” And a lot of times I think, well, it seems really obvious, but if you’d asked me to do those things 20 years ago before I started studying NLP, I didn’t know how to do those things. It feels natural to me now, because I’ve been doing it for so long, but at some point it becomes just my personality, my second nature, and these things that I’m talking about, even though they might feel big and overwhelming, you practice them a little bit, and pretty soon it just becomes how you show up in a conversation. Like, I can’t show up in a conversation and not pay attention to some of these things now, like I have to think about not paying attention to it, because it’s so natural for me to pay attention to.
Kathy (host):
What was your—when you first started studying this concept, what was that switch that said this would help me in my sales career? Because like, was it that someone said it to you? Like, what was that switch that you said, “Huh, maybe this is something that I need, I should go down that path?”
Nikki (guest):
One of the first big things is I took a storytelling class, and it was in the Redwood Forest. And I took it because one of my mentors and good friends asked me if I wanted to spend the week with her, and my answer was immediate yes, because I absolutely adore this person, I knew I would get huge value. And then she said, “Oh yeah, we’re going to take a storytelling class in the Redwood Forest.” And I was like, “Okay.” Well, it turned out that at this class, the teacher of the storytelling class became my NLP teacher for many years, and she had offered, for those of us who didn’t know anything about storytelling, and that was me, she offered at lunchtime, those of us who want to stay back during lunch, that she would do some private—like, not private because it was in a group, but individual coaching. And so it was my turn, and I got up at the fire, you know, in front of the fire, and I started to tell my story, and she stopped me, and in a really kind way, she said, “Nikki, do you know that when you speak,”—and I’d already been in sales, by the way, for many years and had a lot of success—she said, “Did you know that when you speak, you smile the whole time?” And I was like, yes. Now, I was raised by a misogynist man, and I have three brothers, no sisters, and there was a lot of, you know, things that you heard back in those days where it was like, “You need to smile as a girl. You need to be quiet. You know, don’t raise your voice. Be pleasant. You know, like, be happy.” Those were all the messages, right, constantly. So I learned to get along in my family, that I needed to be happy and smile. So I took that into my sales career. So when I would be speaking, and in this case, telling a story, I was smiling the whole time. And when she pointed that out to me, and she said, “Now, what would happen if you just relaxed the muscles in your face and told your story?” Now, again, there were other people that were sitting around the fire that had stayed behind on their lunch hour, and so I told it. And then she asked the group, “What do you guys think?” And they were like, “Oh, so much more credible.” And I was like, what? And that next week, when I was back at work, I gave a presentation, and I relaxed the muscles in my face when I was talking about my product and what we delivered. And somebody in the room, and this is no exaggeration, she came up to me afterwards, and she said, “You are so credible when you speak.” And that was it. That was the turning point for me. I went all in and, you know, started studying NLP, became master certified. I have over 200 classroom hours in the years that I was studying it, which is significant compared to most people with the same certification that I have, have less than maybe 40 hours. I like, went all in because I was, like, somebody noticed a difference in the way I’m presenting.
Kathy (host):
What did that do to your sales career going forward? I mean, I would think there would almost be, like, a night and day difference.
Nikki (guest):
It definitely made a difference. Now, I was having success, but I will say I became the top producing rep in North America for one of the largest companies in the world at the time that I was working for, and it has continued to propel even even now, clients that I worked with back in my corporate career still show up and now ask me to train their sales teams on how to sell effectively. Now, of course, this is what my business is, but they’re, you know, they could choose anybody from around the world, like these people have access to any and every kind of sales training you’d want, but they’re like, “We want you.” So it’s just been this tremendous difference in the way that my business has grown, and the people that show up and want to actually learn from me, and it was all learning about how to communicate in a way that was more effective.
Kathy (host):
And I don’t know if I ever told you this, but one of the reasons why I decided to work with you was because of your NLP experience, because I knew something about it already, actually, before Nikki and I started talking, I shared with her that I used to have a career coach, like many, many years ago, and they were using some NLP, though that was my first, I guess, glimpse of what NLP can do. So when I saw Nikki that you were doing it, I was like, “Oh, that’s what I need. That’s a salesperson that can actually teach me how to use this in the sales conversations. I’m sold.”
Nikki (guest):
Oh, I love that. Thank you for sharing that.
Kathy (host):
When you are training sales people like, when someone is asking you to train those sales people like, what? How does that entail? Because I would think that, you know, there’s this is such a vast field, and you can apply it in so many different ways. The program that you have that business owners put their sales people through, how long does that last? I mean, when do you start to see results? I mean, does it take a couple months? Like, how does that work even?
Nikki (guest):
Well, it really kind of comes down to how well are people implementing what it is that they’re learning. It’s not uncommon, I will say, for somebody to hire me and immediately see results like in the next conversation that they have, they’re like, “Oh, I just learned this thing. I took it into my sales conversation, and I immediately closed this deal that I was nervous about, or I’ve never closed on a first time call with a client before.” That happens, actually, pretty regularly with my clients, so and then I have other clients that you know it’s like time release learning. I don’t know if you know that term before, but sometimes you’ll learn something and you don’t implement it right away, and then something will happen, and it will give you this recall of like, “Oh, I remember this.” And maybe you go dig a little bit, and you maybe read up, or maybe you look back at the workbook, and then you put it into practice, and it’s like, ah, it didn’t feel that natural. So maybe you don’t do it as much, but then you go back to it again and again. And then pretty soon, you know, I have clients that will show up a year, two years later and be like “Nikki, I’ve just now started implementing pre-framing on the start of my sales calls, and I can’t believe the response I’m getting.” Or like “Nikki, I’ve just now learned how to get the I statements out of my emails, and people are responding in a very different way.” So it does come down to the implementer of the person who’s learning, and are they ready to implement? And usually, if I can get somebody to implement one thing immediately, as a result of us working together, they will get a result from it, and then they’re ready for the next thing. Right? It’s like, “What else do you have now? Like, that worked. What else is there for me?”
Kathy (host):
You were talking about the I statements. I have become very sensitive to how many I statements I put in emails from now on. And another thing that Nikki taught me is every email needs to start with a question. And for someone who’s very tries to be very efficient and is very, you know, analytical and finance driven, I generally do not start my emails with “How are you,” but that is what she taught me, and now every single email starts with, “How are you?”
Nikki (guest):
Yes, you got to engage the brain of the reader. So by asking them a question, it allows for their brain to want to answer. And there’s actually a term for this. It’s called instinctive elaboration. When our brains get asked a question, it immediately wants to answer. Like, that’s just natural. It’s kind of like Google. If you go to Google, you type something in Google’s trying to give you an answer—doesn’t always get it right. And sometimes, you know, you go like, “Come on Google. You can do better than this.” But when you ask somebody and you start with a question, you immediately engage their brain, even if they choose not to type the answer and respond, their brain has already started to answer your first question.
Kathy (host):
Interesting. How about the I statements? I know the way how I think about the I statement is no one really wants to know about you. They’re interested about themselves. So when it comes to I statements, like when do you know you’re using too many and is there such a thing as not using enough?
Nikki (guest):
Yes, yes, I love this question. Okay, so first and foremost, the reason to get your I statements out of your emails, or at least the majority of them, is because we have a thought. We think it, we type it, so we think from our perspective, and then we type and write from our perspective. But the reader who’s getting that message from you, they read from their perspective. If they don’t already have a lot of rapport with you, your perspective isn’t interesting to them, because most of us think the whole world revolves around us, right? The whole world revolves around me. Everything that happens is happening for me, to me or against me, and a perfect example of this is if you are headed somewhere and it just happens to be a day where traffic is super heavy and you’re thinking like, “What are all these people doing out on the road, like it’s Saturday? Shouldn’t they be like, at home enjoying—like, get out of my way.” And you’re kind of annoyed at all the traffic in front of you. But how often have you thought about there’s 20 cars behind you that are annoyed that you’re on the road, because, to them, you are traffic. But we don’t think like that. We just think about what’s in our way, what’s right. And so it’s the same for your prospective clients. They’re interested in, how does this benefit me? What is—how is this for me? Is this to me? Against me? Whatever. Right? So getting some of your I statements out, and I statements are things like, “I hope you’re having a great day.” Well, that sounds nice, but actually that doesn’t engage the brain, because that’s just talking about what you hope—that’s not interesting to somebody. So instead, if you say, “How’s your day going,” that’s a very different engagement from the reader. So the rule of thumb is, and for anybody who’s listening to this and like, “I don’t know about this,” go look at your last five emails that you’ve written to prospective clients, if there’s a sales component to your business, or just five emails that you’ve sent to clients, right? And count the number of sentences in that email message. So let’s say you count it and you go, there are ten sentences here. Now count how many times you write an I statement. So “I hope this,” “I want this for you,” “I look forward to talking to you,” right, and you count them up. Chances are you have more I statements than you do sentences. That’s pretty common when I start working with clients, and my suggestion is you follow the 80/20 rule. You want to get 80% of the message should be more you statements to the reader, so it should be for their benefit, either asking them a question and/or making a you statement. Like “You can find the information by clicking this link,” versus “I’ve attached this link for you to find this information.” See the difference? So 80/20—so 80% of the message should be you statements. So in that particular case, 10 sentences—two I statements is more than plenty, and it takes a little bit of work. I know you and I, we’ve gone round and round and back and forth about messaging and you know, sometimes for people, this is hard at first, but it gets easier, and now right you have this awareness around it. You start to write differently. You start to ask questions versus making statements, because statements are usually I statements, and you engage people to want to actually respond when you do that. So if you’re going to spend the time to send an email to somebody and you actually want to engage with them, then get those I statements out of there. And it’s unrealistic too—like, don’t walk around patting yourself on the back going, like, “I wrote a 10 email, sent a 10 sentence email, and there are no I statements in it.” I’m not saying I statements are bad and you should never use them. I’m just saying we should limit them.
Kathy (host):
And is there sometimes I’m sneaking in I statements where it’s not actually an I statement? I’ll give you an example. For example, if I say “I wanted to,” we can just say “wanted to” and drop the I. Does that still count as an I statement?
Nikki (guest):
No, it doesn’t count. You’re walking the fine line. I will say I end almost every email because I want people to respond. I end every email with “Looking forward to your response.” Now, I do that for a couple reasons, and there’s very NLP here. One, I take out the “I’m looking forward to you responding,” right? Because that doesn’t sound the same. So “Looking forward to your response” is also an embedded command, this is very NLP—an embedded command which says to them, yeah, I’m expecting a response, but in a nice way, so people are more likely to respond when you have “Looking forward to your response” versus like, you know, “let me know what you think.” They’re not going to let you know because that’s not as interesting to them. “Looking forward to your response” is about them and them doing something. “Let me know what you think” is about me. “Let me know something”—that’s not interesting to the reader.
Kathy (host):
That’s really interesting. I knew that there were techniques like this, but I didn’t know that that is why you do that. That’s a new thing for me. Is there anything else that you use that’s almost like an embedded command in a nice way?
Nikki (guest):
Yes. So another embedded command is using the word “now” in your messaging. So instead of saying like, “click the link,” I’ll say, “click the link now.” Because “now” is like, make a decision, right? And our brains are overloaded with decisions, and if we don’t have to make one, we oftentimes won’t. We’ll postpone it, because we have decision fatigue. So if you can make it easy for someone to make a decision, which essentially saying, like, go ahead and do it now, versus trying to do it later, they’re more likely to do so. “Now” is another super easy embedded command that you can put in there. The other one is, if I’m asking somebody to make a decision, like, you ready to work together or not, I might say “Now, based on these three options, which option is the best fit for you right now?” Now, notice I didn’t emphasize the “now,” but I said it—it’s essentially saying, “Go ahead and pick, go ahead and make a decision.”
Kathy (host):
How about ending the emails? I know a lot of people put things like “Thanks.” I use “Thanks.” I use exclamation points, which Nikki and I have gone back and forth about, but I am too generous with my exclamation points.
Nikki (guest):
You love an exclamation point, which I do too. It’s just sometimes not—well again, because I’m thinking about it like my job when I work with you, is to do everything I can possibly give you, anything and everything I can possibly give you that is going to make a difference in a positive way to your bottom line. So I, as a sales coach, I actually am not thinking about you. I mean, I am, but I’m mostly thinking about how is this going to be received by the person who’s getting this message. So I’m always thinking about them, because they’re ultimately the person that’s gonna say yes, pay you money. So my focus is usually on them, because I don’t know this person, so I don’t know, are they somebody who loves a bunch of exclamation points, or are they not? Now I get that Kathy loves exclamation points. And when you send me messages that are just to me, you can riddle it with exclamation points, because I love you and I want you to do what feels comfortable. But I don’t know what your reader—how they feel about exclamation points, so I’m gonna limit them so as to not trigger somebody who’s like, “Is she yelling at me?”
Kathy (host):
Interesting. So you think that using exclamation points can actually come out as yelling? I think of it more as coming out as excitement, but that is my assumption.
Nikki (guest):
Well see, that’s the thing—we all make assumptions about what they mean, and I’m gonna limit as much as possible letting somebody else make an assumption about what you mean by getting some of those out of there. Because some people might take exclamation points as yelling. Some people might take it as like, “Wow, this person is coming on really strong.” Or they might take it as like, “Why is she so excited? What’s going on?” You know, it’s kind of like, if you’ve ever met somebody who’s like, a super high energy and if that’s not your style, and somebody’s like, “Oh my gosh, Kathy, so great to see you! I’m so excited to get this time with you!” And you might be like, “Oh, too strong,” right? So for the reader with the exclamation points, I don’t want them to have the impression that that is the way that you’re coming across, because I don’t know if they would respond well to that. Now, if your client or prospect sends you back a message and it’s riddled with exclamation points, match and mirror—you can send them as many exclamation points or emojis as you want, because that feels like you’re speaking their language now. But until we know what their language is, I want you to set yourself and them up for success to continue the conversation.
Kathy (host):
That’s a good point. And going back to that, what would you suggest is a good closing for the email? “Best,” “Thanks,” “Regards,” “Looking forward to talk”—like, what would be your go-to for closing an email?
Nikki (guest):
Well, I’ll tell you the one that I use, which is “Kind regards.” And the reason I use “Kind regards” is one, “kind” is a key word for me personally. Like, when I think about what are my core values in my business, I want to ensure the goal is that when people work with me, they go, “Nikki is kind and she is credible.” So I use “Kind regards” because it fits my language, so I don’t necessarily have a specific like, “Oh, definitely say this or that”—it needs to resonate with you, because, again, we want to attract the clients that are the right fit. So if somebody is turned off by like, “I don’t want a kind sales coach, like, I want to be beaten down,” you know, like, “knock me down five times and then help me stand up six”—like I’m not the kind of coach that knocks people down. I’m gonna encourage you and I’m gonna lift you, but I will never punch you and knock you to the ground and be like, “get better.” That’s just not who I am. And so again, I want to attract people who want a coach that is gonna be supportive, is gonna say hard things, but is never gonna feel like it’s a slap or a knock down. But that doesn’t resonate with everybody. Like, some people are like, “I want a coach who’s gonna just pound me and correct me every step of the way,” and essentially knock somebody down to build them back up. That’s just not my style. I’m going to take you where you are, and I’m going to continue to build you and refine you and build you up so that your confidence just continues to grow. That’s who I am, so that should show in your response. If you think “I would never write ‘kind regards'”—don’t. If “Thanks” is appropriate, or some people write “Blessings,” whatever resonates with you, that’s fine.
Kathy (host):
And I want to go back to what you mentioned in our conversations before—you mentioned pre-framing. And I know what pre-framing is, but that is such an important part of every sales conversation that I have now, thanks to you. But for listeners who are not familiar with this concept, can you walk us through what pre-framing is?
Nikki (guest):
Yeah, so pre-framing does come from my background in NLP. So there’s a presupposition in NLP that says pre-framing is worth a ton of reframing. So instead of trying to fix something after it’s gone wrong, if you can pre-frame it, it sets the stage for success. So the idea of pre-framing at the start of your sales calls—the number one reason that you pre-frame the start of your call, there’s multiple reasons, but the number one reason is to create safety for the other person in the conversation. Because even though you might be thinking like, “Well, I’m the one who feels nervous, why should they feel nervous?” But realistically, your prospect could be nervous about talking to you—one, because maybe they’re afraid you’re just gonna hard sell them the whole time. Maybe they don’t know what you know, and they feel intimidated by you—we don’t know what’s going on for them.
Nikki (guest):
So our job is to create safety in the very beginning, and pre-framing sets the stage of what’s going to happen. So an example—pre-framing is essentially creating safety and letting the person know what is the point of this call and what’s going to happen. Example of a pre-frame at the start of a sales call, and this is what I teach, and of course, you know you have to adjust it to your particular application. But typically, my format that I give people to start is to say something like, “Thank you so much for taking the time to meet with me today. The purpose of our call is to chat about what’s going on for you and see if what I offer would be a good fit.” So that’s getting the purpose out. Then I say “We’re scheduled to chat for about X number of minutes. Does that still work for you?”
Nikki (guest):
Now, the reason you say X number of minutes is because I want to set this person up for success, to be focused in the call. If I can have any influence over them being focused in the call, and if they’re thinking to themselves like, “How long is she going to be talking for?” or “I have a meeting in 25 minutes,” it gives them the opportunity to say, “I only have 25 minutes,” or “We need to wrap this up in about 20 minutes.” Whatever that is, because then it gets that timing out of the way. So it creates safety for them, so they know you’re going to honor their time, and it also sets you up for success. So this is not a “pick my brain” session—we’re not going to be on the call for two hours just chatting, that’s not what this is for.
Nikki (guest):
So once I get confirmation that that time still works for them, then I’m going to ask permission to lead the call. And the way I do that is I say, “Now, in order for this time to be meaningful and productive for you”—notice there’s no I statement in there—”in order for this time to be meaningful and productive for you, is it okay if I start with a couple quick questions?” That’s me asking permission from you for your benefit, for me to lead the sales call, because if I let the prospect lead the call, it could go off the rails. It could go who knows where. And your job is to earn their business, and the way you’re gonna earn their business is to follow your process. So pre-framing creates safety for them, and it allows for you to get permission to lead.
Kathy (host):
You know, sometimes this can be challenging in practice, because I have had sales conversations when the prospect tries to wrangle the control over the meeting, and they just went straight into it. And it was interesting, like trying to put it back into the pre-framing situation. So if you ever get into a situation where the prospect just goes straight into the conversation without any pre-framing from you, how do you bring that back into “No, this is where we’re going to start with the pre-framing?”
Nikki (guest):
So I might check—because I don’t want to shame them in any way, right? Like, I want to be really respectful of them. So I might say, “You know, I really appreciate how you came in and you have an agenda. Now, because we have a limited amount of time together, let’s ensure that you get the information that you need. And in order to do that, is it okay if I ask you a couple quick questions?” Like, I might just come back with stating the reason why I’m asking to change the format a little bit. And some again, you’re gonna have certain people who are like, they don’t even hear you because they’re not good listeners, or they’ve got their own agenda, and they’re just gonna follow it. And so sometimes you might either decide like, “Okay, I’m going to let them go for a little bit longer and see where this goes,” or you might go, “I can already tell this is not an ideal client for me.” And so if that’s the case, you’re going to bless and release because there’s no point in taking up your time and theirs to essentially say we’re not a good fit. So in that particular case, if somebody’s just completely—I get a sense like they’re not interested in coaching, they’re obviously not coachable, because they can’t even answer a question that I asked them—I might say, “You know, I get a sense that who I am and what I offer is not the right fit for you. So I’m just going to respectfully decline continuing this conversation. I really appreciate your time, and I wish you well,” and then I’m ending the call.
Kathy (host):
Yeah, I love that. It’s very clear, it’s very respectful to both parties. And if you know you don’t want to go into a situation where the client is going to be a pain in the ass, it’s not a good situation. Nikki, you have given us so many good tips and tricks and ideas about NLP. But if someone is listening to this and they’re like, “Oh my goodness, that’s a lot of stuff to implement. I don’t even know where to begin,” what would you tell them is the next small actionable step that they can take in the next week or two to start implementing NLP in their business?
Nikki (guest):
Well, to implement NLP in their business, the thing that I would encourage you to practice first and foremost is pay attention to people’s rate of speech. You can do this when you’re ordering your coffee at Starbucks. Pay attention to the rate of speech of the person that’s talking to you. You can do this with your significant other at home, or your kids—even just start to build this muscle to just pay attention and notice. I’m saying like, pay attention to somebody’s rate of speech. I’m not even saying try to match it right. Just pay attention to their rate of speech. “Oh, this person is a fast talker. This person is a slower talker.” Like, just start to notice, because once you can bring it into your awareness, then you can decide if you want to make any adjustments to yourself. That’s my answer about the NLP, but I will say, of everything I’ve shared today, the one thing that will absolutely make a difference to your sales conversations is the pre-framing. So if you take one thing away from this episode about sales, it’s that pre-frame. I cannot express enough how important it is to pre-frame the start of your sales calls to really set the prospect and yourself up for success.
Kathy (host):
And I can vouch for that as well. Things have started and gotten a lot better with my sales conversations after I started doing the pre-framing. It’s been a night and day difference. So Nikki, thank you so much for being here. Can you please let us know where our listeners can find you?
Nikki (guest):
Well, I’m going to wrap it around a gift, if that’s okay for your listeners. So the easiest way for us to get in touch is I have an ebook. It’s called “Closing the Sale,” and it talks about the last three steps of my signature framework, which is called the Selling Staircase, but it’s about building your confidence in that consult call. So you can get that by going to yoursalesmaven.com/Kathy. So this is for your listeners. So yoursalesmaven.com/Kathy, and then we’ll be connected. And that’s the easiest way for us to get in touch. And obviously, you can always check out the Sales Maven podcast as well.
Kathy (host):
It’s a great podcast. I have it on automatic download as well. So I like listening to Nikki.
Nikki (guest):
Thanks for having me.
Kathy (host):
Thanks, Nikki.
Nikki Rausch integrates her 25+ years of experience selling to such prestigious organizations as The Bill & Melinda Gates 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.
A business degree from the University of Washington and her master certification in Neuro-Linguistic Programming mesh perfectly to create a powerful foundation upon which Nikki built tremendous sales skills and now provides enormous benefits for her clients.
Nikki has received numerous sales awards, shattered sales records across industries, 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. Her robust Sales Maven Society ignites game-changing outcomes for clients. Many of whom have also reaped the benefits of her immersive VIP consultations.
