—>>https://www.askmecoach.com/
Your sales call doesn’t fall apart at the price; it falls apart the moment you stop listening.
Renee Hribar shares the story of a client she calls Lisa, a skilled consultant who ran great discovery conversations right up until it was time to make the offer. That’s when she stopped listening, started reciting every package, call, and deliverable she had, and turned a warm conversation into a Cheesecake Factory menu of options. Renee explains why the fix isn’t a better pitch, a lower price, or sharper objection handling. It’s a simple bridge between listening and recommending: reflecting the client’s situation back in their own words, then asking, “Is that the full picture, or is there more?”
Renee closes with three questions to help you spot where you check out of your own sales conversations. When a potential client feels fully heard, your recommendation stops sounding like a pitch and starts sounding like the solution they came for.
Transcript
And then something happens. You realize almost in a glimmer of fear, like, ah, that kind of fear, that it's about the right time to make an offer, and then you're not listening anymore. You're in your own head. should I tell them about the six-month package? Should I talk about the intensive?
hey get? Because it's a lot, [:And then poof, the person sitting across from you literally, like, disappears in your mind. Now you're like, "Uh-huh, mm-hmm." Like you're performance, right? Like, you can't see them through the spotlight that you have imagined yourself being shown on stage. Like, you're on stage, you're starting to sweat, right?
Your feet are starting to tingle. And this is the point where you turn into the type of salesperson that you hate, and you stopped making them feel heard at exactly the moment they needed to know you understood them. See how at this point right here, it's not about the offer or the offer timeline or the price?
t to share with you. Welcome [:But build it and they will come. Mm-kay. if you figure that one out, give me a call. I'll pay you lots of money. Um, what I do is I help you package up, sell, and deliver your expertise in a way that goes way beyond just making money. We set out to protect your time and completely shift the entire, quote-unquote, "selling part of your business," formerly known as the thing you avoid at all costs.
n of sand in the flywheel of [:So, you know I love stories. I got lots of stories. I've been selling for a long time. I've been teaching online for the last decade, which is like 1,000 years in real life. And so, I'ma tell you a story, and this story We're gonna call this woman Lisa, right? Not her real name, obviously. I'm blending some of the details because we have no secrets around here except other people's personal business.
y in the first seven minutes.[:hits were jingles from the:Anyway. So Lisa reached out to me because she knew something wasn't clicking. She had been listening to the podcast for a while. Very, very nice. Thank you very much. And she kept hearing these little stories like I'm telling you now. And she realized that she could make her sales calls even better. So she went to my askmecoach.com page.
he had been on a call with a [:And Lisa was like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah," right? Checking it off in her mind. And, you know, I mean, this client was like, "Here's what I wish was happening instead." And again, Lisa is taking notes like a champ. The conversation is good. You know those conversations where you're already, like, mentally moving them into your client folder?
Yeah, that. And then they get to the point in the conversation where Lisa knows that it's time to talk about working together, and Lisa becomes a completely different human being. She's like, "Well, I have a six-month package, but I also do intensives. And then normally we start here, although we could customize it.
was about the person sitting [:It's like the Cheesecake Factory menu, but for Lisa's consulting services. And eventually Lisa says, "I'll send you everything," and closes her laptop in despair. And then she almost immediately starts to spiral, and she's like, "Maybe I said too much. Maybe it costs too much. Uh, maybe I didn't explain it well enough.
Should I send a video? Should I send a slide deck? Maybe she needs another option. Well, should I follow up tomorrow? What about... Oh, no, no, tomorrow's too soon. Friday, Friday. No, no, no, Friday feels desperate. Monday, Monday. Yes." Do you know this movie? I know you've seen it. We've all seen this movie, right?
ready done the hardest part. [:The problem was that Lisa stopped listening at exactly the point she needed to prove she'd been listening. That's a very different problem, because your potential client does not need another presentation. So if you're getting on sales calls to make a presentation, please stop doing that. If you could just record it and send it different and separately, beforehand, after, whatever.
It's the sales call, the actual point, is not about presenting. It's about listening. So the potential client needs to know that the recommendation you're about to make from what they just told you actually aligns, actually makes sense, actually tracks. sorry, you know I have a teenage child, and some of his wording is, like, getting into my mind, like lock in.
just roll back in his head. [:Bridges of conversations. Bridges are built with questions. Not like they're under a heat lamp or you're peppering them, right? Like da-da-da-da-da-da. Well, this right here, this is a bridge. There's a bridge between listening and recommending. So you've asked your questions, they've shared what their problems are,you've done your due diligence, and now it's time to transition to a recommendation, AKA a proposal, an offer, an invitation.
Breathe. Because it's right here, too many women sprint right over it because they're nervous about making the offer, right? It's just like when... You know, I've got three brothers. I remember my one brother when he made his proposal to his now current wife of 15 years. Um, he was like, "I'm so nervous."
at me using my teenage son, [:So let me say this again. Because you're nervous about making the offer, you move too fast So Lisa and I started working together in my Permission to Sell program, right? And here is the Voxer message she sent me, if I can spit the words out. She sent me the first, Thursday. So every Thursday I do revenue labs, which is all about people in your pipeline.
e woman," I forgot her name, [:She seems amazing." That was a total sidebar, and I loved it. Um, " For the call she was having for her consulting deal for $9,000, you had her repeat back what she was hearing, and a light bulb went off. That's the part I was missing." Right? So that's what Lisa sent me after the first Thursday inside Permission to Sell.
So once Lisa had seen that, she felt calmer, right? She didn't feel like she had to suddenly turn into a cold-calling agent at an insurance company with a headset, a quota, and a CRM her manager was cross-checking at the end of every shift. AKA, I know what that feels like. It's not a place you wanna be. She could stay in the same conversation she'd already been having, and her recommendation became clearer because it was connected to what the potential buyer had actually said they wanted.
t's the big shift I want you [:It's about becoming present. And yes, I am bringing a little bit of Yoga Rene into this conversation here. I have spent hundreds of hours on a yoga mat, but the real practice is when we aren't in a serene, calm place, and we still are able to summon the focus to be present. So let me tell you why this is so important, okay?
. Like, remember back in the [:As soon as you start thinking about what's next versus what is happening Your body might still be there, right? Like, you're smiling, you're nodding, but your brain has already gone into, "How do I get them to buy?" And... Sorry. I'm laughing at myself, because I do it, too. I have the tendency to do it, but I check myself, and I know when it's happening, and it's not about it happening.
eating conversations instead [:Because the conversation isn't just how the client gets into your world. That is where it starts. The quality of the conversation is what helps them decide whether they trust you enough to keep going. The trust is not built by dumping more information on them. We do need to give them the right information at the right time, curated.
It's built when they think about it like this: "Oh, she gets it." Right? "Oh, she gets it." Think about it. When you have been listened to, like I know I love talking to my good friends, right? Because they actually listen. They don't just talk over me. They actually care, and then they ask more questions. One of my best friends, amazingly,
We've been friends since we [:I love her so much. Okay, so here's the bridge I want you to really think about, right? So there's this moment before the recommendation when you're on the call where instead of launching into your proposal, I want you to give the person back the picture you've assembled based on what they told you, right?
Maybe it sounds like, "Okay, let me make sure I have this right." Right? like literally, like that's the transition, and then you reflect the situation back to them. Not like you're reading a police transcript, "In the night in question, Your Honor." Do you remember that? Not word for word, right? You're not literally just reading your notes.
you're losing them when you [:You've been trying to solve that by doing more marketing, joining summits, a 30-day posting challenge, which is eating five to six hours a week, but it hasn't changed the number of paying clients coming in, and what you really want is a reliable way to start conversations with people already paying attention without spending your whole life becoming a content creator," 'cause that's not what she does for a living, right?
And then... Does that sound familiar? That's something I might say, but it's definitely what I said to her. Build the bridge and ask a question. Build bridges. The building blocks of bridges are questions. So something like, "Is that the full picture or is there more?" Because here's the part that's so easy to just skip over.
. This is a huge difference, [:Because the people that you've been on calls with, even if they don't become clients now, those are your best and warmest leads for the next time you have an opening. So you're never, ever gonna force the next step. You're not trying to convince someone that your beautiful brick of gold is obviously what she should buy.
ona, like the boring regular [:even like just everybody. We have private health insurance so that we can select English-speaking doctors. Why? Because being heard and understood is very important when you're vulnerable, and especially when you're in pain. That is what your potential clients are when they come to you. They're in pain.
They're needing something, and they're vulnerable, and your job is not to drag them toward the prescription you need to sell, right? Like, we've all heard about those doctors that are, like, just prescription writers. Like, they just get paid by these drug companies. I mean, I think so. I don't know. To just sell these drugs.
, but don't try to figure it [:Like, don't try to fit a square peg into a round hole, you know what I'm talking about? Like, pay attention to what's actually happening. Listen. Notice. Respond. And by the way, that is why I built my business this way. I don't teach sales because I think everybody needs to become obsessed with sales. I teach sales because knowing how to find, connect with, and secure mutually beneficial client relationships gives you choices.
You get money. You get your time back. You have control. You have freedom, the ability to go for an evening sail with your family instead of checking your phone, wondering what next month's clients are going to magically appear from, right? Like, that's the point. Like, this is what I'm doing. This is what I've done.
you need to create a better [:They don't even understand the relationship between their problem and that offer, but you're leading with the price. I'm not saying hide the price. I'm just saying the price is not the best part. They don't even understand what they're looking at, right? But it's different if you've been shopping for, let's say, eggs, and you see a really good deal.
You're like, "Oh, that's a good price on eggs." But you're talking to somebody who doesn't even look at eggs, doesn't even eat eggs, doesn't ever buy eggs, and you're like, "This is the, the eggs are only this much." And you're... They're like, "Uh, cool. I haven't... Really no context for that." You know what I'm saying?
option, another explanation, [:You're trying to reduce their uncertainty, but you're doing it by adding more, talking more, giving more. But sometimes all you're doing is broadcasting your uncertainty, and they can feel that, right? Like, niche keet, not good. Your expertise isn't your ability to do the work. Let me say that again. Your expertise is not your ability to do the work.
It's your ability to hear a messy, blundering situation and say, "Here's what I see That is incredibly valuable, and it's also why I don't want you racing through this part of the conversation just to get to the offer. The offer is not the main event. Understanding them is. All right, so how do you apply this to your own conversations?
the week. I want you to ask [:Then I want you to ask yourself, if your potential client repeated your recommendation, and this is a good one, to their board, their business partner, or their best friend tonight, would they describe a package you sell, or would they describe a solution that felt like it was made for them based on what they shared with you?
re a lot of smart people get [:the only way I can really explain this is you either say too little, and you leave the buyer wondering what to do, 'cause that often happens, too. There's no close. I hear this when I work with people. I'm like, "You're not actu- there's no close there. That's why they didn't close." Or they say way too much, and suddenly we're back at the Cheesecake Factory with the 42-page menu, right?
But there is a middle, and there is a way to move from, "I understand what's happening," to, "Here's what I recommend," without changing personalities halfway through. And when you learn to do that, sales starts feeling a whole lot less like something gross you have to do because you know, you have a business.
hang out after this podcast.[:Until next time, listen a little longer than it feels comfortable. You might be surprised at what you hear. And if I can ask you a favor, please leave a review wherever you're listening. It's free for you, and it allows me to continue to produce this content for you. Remember that TV ad for wine coolers back in the '80s?
"Thank you for your support." Just like Bartles & Jaymes. Kinda like that. See you soon.
