How to Increase Conversion on Your Sales Calls – In Just 7 Minutes with Nicole Cramer

Resources/Links:

• Want to find out how to convert your discovery call into a guaranteed sale? Click here: healthystepswithnicole.com/questions

Summary

Do you want to learn how to stop the sales struggle and start converting your conversations into promising leads?

Sales aren’t actually all about transactions, it’s also about building relationships. It is crucial to understand the importance and the influence of curiosity and confidence in increasing your sales.

Nicole Cramer is a sales coach, speaker, and corporate sales trainer. She empowers women entrepreneurs and sales professionals with impactful conversations for more sales, clients, and global influence. She is also a former 7-year corporate sales superstar.

Make sure you’re all ears as Nicole talks about how to actually increase conversion on your discovery calls by shifting focus from building transactions to building relationships. She also gives the secret of how you can make selling fun by asking the right questions.

Check out these episode highlights:

• 01:39 – Nicole’s ideal client: My ideal client is a sales professional or entrepreneur who wants to make more sales and understand how to have the conversations that are going to get them there. I think my belief is sales is very relational, and it’s not transactional.
• 02:13 – The problem she helps solve: That’s where the feeling of “salesyness” comes from. And salesyness isn’t even a real word, but a lot of people use that as the way they describe how they feel when they’re selling.
• 03:09 – The symptoms of the problem: Some of the symptoms, again, are they’re feeling salesy, and they’re losing sales. And they have a lack of confidence because of the circumstances when really what they sell.
• 04:26 – Clients’ common mistakes before consulting Nicole: I would say they try to push the features and the benefits, rather than actually focusing on the potential client’s pain points and needs. And that comes down to asking good questions and listening vs “Here’s what it really is”.
• 06:15 – Nicole’s Valuable Free Action (VFA): I would say the number one thing is to stay curious. Be curious in every conversation because it touches on what you just said, Tom. People coming as advice monsters.
• 07:24 – Nicole’s Valuable Free Resource (VFR): Want to find out how to convert your discovery call into a guaranteed sale? Click here: healthystepswithnicole.com/questions
• 07:51 – Q: What inspired me to leave a full-time job and go in doing coaching and speaking full-time? A: A very bold one! You know, I was inspired to help others.

Tweetable Takeaways from this Episode:

“Sales are very relational, and it's not transactional.” -Nicole Cramer Share on X

Transcript
(Note, this was transcribed using a transcription software and may not reflect the exact words used in the podcast)

Tom Poland 00:10
Greetings, everyone, and a warm welcome to another edition of Marketing the Invisible. I’m Tom Poland beaming out to you from Sunshine Coast here in Australia, joined today by Nicole C. Cramer, locally known as Nick. Nick, good day from Down Under. Where are you hanging out?

Nicole Cramer 00:24
I am currently in Nashville, Tennessee!

Tom Poland 00:27
Pretty warm?

Nicole Cramer 00:28
It is! It’s very warm, very humid.

Tom Poland 00:30
I heard there was a heat wave going through there every summer this year. Folks, Nicole is a sales coach. She’s a speaker. She’s a corporate sales trainer. So she works with teams of salespeople as well as individuals. She has a real passion around- these are my words, but it’s evident- around empowering women entrepreneurs and sales professionals, kind of developing impactful conversations. So rather than trying to direct a sales process to get her or get her client’s prospects engaged in a meaningful, impactful, motivational conversation. End result is more sales, more clients, and just a little bit of global influence. She’s a former 7-year corporate sales superstar. She’s gone out of her own and is now helping individuals, just like you, to make it all happen. Nicole, thanks for being on the show! It’s a pleasure to have you here. Our subject today is, “How to Increase Conversions When You’re Having Those Sales Conversations”. Our seven minutes is going to start now. Nicole, question number one, who’s your ideal client?

Nicole Cramer 01:39
My ideal client is a sales professional or entrepreneur who wants to make more sales and understand how to have the conversations that are going to get them there. I think my belief is sales is very relational, and it’s not transactional. So my ideal client is a person who believes that their relationships are what produced the opportunities.

Tom Poland 01:58
Thank you for that! Question two is what’s the problem you solve? And I sense in this already that one of the problems or mistakes that people are making is going into these sales conversations with an objective in mind to get the sale, transactional, rather than develop the relationship. Tell us a bit. Unpack that problem, if you would.

Nicole Cramer 02:13
Well, that’s where the feeling of “salesyness” comes from. And salesyness isn’t even a real word, but a lot of people use that as the way they describe how they feel when they’re selling. And that is because exactly what you said– they’re rushing too much to the finish line. They’re trying to create an outcome that hasn’t quite had its gestation period to be created. So the problem that I solve is helping people feel good about selling and really making selling into serving people and helping people, right? It’s a double blessing. And I think that so often, people don’t want to make it transactional, but they do out of fear, out of a need, out of a rush to try to get to the finish line.

Tom Poland 02:51
Right. Thank you for that! Question three, when you get a new client on board, and they talk to you about what was going on in their business or their sales conversations prior to working with you, what are they saying? What is sort of some of the symptoms that someone listening to this gives them a heads up that they need to find out more about your work.

Nicole Cramer 03:09
Well, some of the symptoms, again, they’re feeling salesy, and they’re losing sales. And they have a lack of confidence because of the circumstances when really what they sell, and what they do is tremendous for the right people, but they’re starting to lose that confidence in it because they’re not handling their conversations in a way that creates opportunities. So they feel like, “Nobody wants to buy what I have. Nobody’s interested. My price is too-“. They start making up stories in their head about what’s actually going on. When really, if you just had better conversations and you knew how to create the relationship and build the rapport that created the opportunities, then you wouldn’t be feeling that way. So I would say the symptoms are they feel salesy. They lack confidence. It can be frustrating to be rejected over and over again. So they start to get a little bit frustrated.

Tom Poland 03:51
That’s very damaging to self-esteem, which is almost like a downward cycle, isn’t it? When people are feeling worse about the situation, that nervousness often comes across in that conversation. Thank you for that again. Question four, we’re talking about growth-orientated individuals here. We’re talking about teams of salespeople, entrepreneurs. They want to make things happen. So they’re going to be trying stuff. Even though they’re failing, they’re going to get back up on the hole, so to speak, dust themselves off. What would you say are some of the common mistakes that people commit in trying to solve the sales problem?

Nicole Cramer 04:26
Well, I would say they try to push the features and the benefits, rather than actually focusing on the potential client’s pain points and needs. And that comes down to asking good questions and listening vs “Here’s what it really is”. People are trying to sell something, instead of helping someone make a decision. If you take the time to get to know the person, become relatable and see their needs, then really you’re just helping them make a decision about what they’d like to do vs trying to sell them features of the thing that you think that they need.

Tom Poland 04:56
Right, and that makes good sense. Would you say that, as a sequence issue, people are getting to the features and benefits before they’ve gotten through the pain points and listened to them, and empathized with the client’s needs? In other words, they’re preparing a proposition.

Nicole Cramer 05:11
Correct! It would be like going into a doctor’s office and the doctor telling you what you need before the doctors even listen to what’s going on, or what some of your symptoms are. And so we don’t want to, prescription before diagnosis is malpractice. Right? And it’s the same thing in the sales conversation. So, we want to listen to the other person and make sure that what we are recommending, what the features and benefits are that we are talking about, are actually needed by that person, or else it’s just noise.

Tom Poland 05:33
And I guess, too. I’m thinking it’s true, even if we think we know, we need to demonstrate to the prospect that we’re listening, right? That we need to let them talk. And we’ve all been told that it’s a really good idea to speak less as the salesperson. But, boy, how often do we commit the sin of doing all the talking?

Nicole Cramer 05:52
Correct! And when you can find a way to have a conversation so that it feels like their decision, you’re gonna make a lot more sales vs trying to tell them.

Tom Poland 06:01
Thank you! So let’s go to that. We’ve got two and a quarter minutes left, so back a lot of time. What’s a top tip you can give folks? They’re probably going to need to reach out to you to learn a lot more about what you do, but this might just get them started off in the right direction.

Nicole Cramer 06:15
Well, I would say the number one thing is to stay curious. Be curious in every conversation because it touches on what you just said, Tom. People coming as advice monsters. They’re coming with the answers, instead of coming with a good set of ears for listening and asking good questions, and staying curious. So ultimately, when you stay curious and ask questions, you’re allowing the person to share. you’re allowing them to feel seen and heard. They feel cared about. And they’re going to end up sharing things that are going to point in the direction of why they need what you have. So it’s really staying curious, asking good questions, and showing them that you care– it’s going to lead you towards basically recommending a solution that’s gonna work for them.

Tom Poland 06:52
Because, essentially, what’s happening is the prospect is, they’re almost selling themselves because they’re reinforcing what they need. So it sounds very, like a very authentic process, a much more relaxed process. People aren’t going to feel salesy. They’re going to feel like they’re actually registering genuine interest and curiosity in the prospect situation, whether or not they can help them. Sounds good to me! One minute to go. A valuable free resource. Where can people go to opt into something that’s going to give them a lot more information about this?

Nicole Cramer 07:24
Well, because I’ve just emphasized how important it is to ask good questions, I want to provide the listeners with a resource that will give them some really great questions to ask. So I put together a list of 10 of my favorite questions to use in sales conversations. And the listeners can go to healthystepswithnicole.com/questions, and grab those questions for themselves.

Tom Poland 07:45
Got it up in my browser right now. Looks terrific! Thank you, Nicole, for that. 30 seconds left. What’s the one question I should have asked you but didn’t?

Nicole Cramer 07:51
Oh, what inspired me to leave a full-time job and go in doing coaching and speaking full-time?

Tom Poland 07:58
An already well-paid one, too!

Nicole Cramer 08:01
A very bold one! You know, I was inspired to help others. I started my career as a high school math teacher and I went into being the number one person in sales. And I thought, if I can do it, I want to teach others how to do that so that they can share more of their gifts and make this world a better place.

Tom Poland 08:13
Fabulous! Nick Cramer, thank you so much for your time. Stay cool!

Nicole Cramer 08:16
Thank you!

Tom Poland 08:18
Thanks for checking out our Marketing The Invisible podcast. If you like what we’re doing here please head over to iTunes to subscribe, rate us, and leave us a review. It’s very much appreciated. And if you want to generate five fresh leads in just five hours then check out www.fivehourchallenge.com.