Maven Marketing with Brandon Welch

The Real Reason Your Salespeople Aren’t Closing (3 Fixable Mistakes)

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Sales isn’t the problem. Focus is.

If your sales team is following the process but still missing the mark, this episode will hit home.

Brandon sits down with sales coach Ian Nix to uncover why most salespeople lose deals, and how to fix it without becoming “that” pushy salesperson.

They unpack three quiet killers of sales performance that cost businesses thousands every month and how to replace them with simple, customer-first conversations that close more deals with less pressure. Inside this episode:

  • Quoting before understanding
  • Pushing the quote
  • Quoting and hoping

If your marketing’s working but your closing ratio isn’t, this episode might change everything.

For entrepreneurs wanting to grow without wasting money, join the Maven Marketing Mastermind → https://www.mavenmethodtraining.com

Our Website: https://frankandmaven.com/
Instagram: /frankandmavenmarketing
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LinkedIn: /frank-and-maven
Host: Brandon Welch
Co-Host: Kyle DeVries
Executive Producer: Carter Breaux
Audio/Video Producer: Nate the Camera Guy

 #SalesTraining #SalesProcess #ClosingRate #SmallBusinessGrowth #MarketingPodcast #CustomerExperience #MavenMethod

Do you have a marketing problem you'd like us to help solve? Send it to MavenMonday@FrankandMaven.com!

Get a copy of our Best-Selling Book, The Maven Marketer Here: https://a.co/d/1clpm8a

Ian Nix:

Process is not the enemy. Self-focus is probably the enemy. If your process is all about focusing on the customer, then you're fine. Use the process. If your process is making people worry about the next thing that they need to say, then the focus is on them. It's on the company rather than on the customer. And that's the surest way you've got to lose that customer.

Brandon Welch:

Welcome to the Maven Marketing Podcast. Today is Maven Monday. I'm your host, Brandon Welch, and I'm joined by a very special guest today, Mr. Ian Nix.

Ian Nix:

Glad to be here, Brandon.

Brandon Welch:

Well, you're going to learn about Ian in just a second, but just as a reminder, uh, this is a little bit off of uh our normal topic. Um, we're talking more about sales today than we are marketing. Uh, but the reason we're doing that is that this is the place where we eliminate waste in advertising. That is our number one thing that we do here inside uh our agency. Uh we are on a we are on an internal mission to do more with less um so that you can grow your business and so you can ultimately do the things in life. We call it the big dream that you want to do. Like we're not just here to work to produce money. There are there are consequences to big dreams and consequences to the things we do in our business. And so we're just to the moon excited about doing that for owner operators. And so often uh when you're doing the marketing things right, and if you've been listening to this podcast, Ian, you are doing the marketing things right. Oh, I'm killing it. Ian is. Ian's killing it, he's doing all the right things in marketing. Uh, but it's really not that that takes it to the finish line. It's when you hand that off to the sales process. And I would say at least half of the time when we are diagnosing some you know lackluster result in a in a marketing equation, they ask about the media, they ask about the money being spent, and we hold that uh accountable all the way down to the salesperson. And very often a five or ten percent difference in the salesperson can change the profitability of the entire investment. And so um I'm so glad you're here. Uh personal story. Uh I I actually I'm actually a little bit allergic to sales trainers because I've I've worked with or in around in or around them, and I've seen clients waste a lot of money uh on them over the years.

Ian Nix:

And there's so that's why you were avoiding my call. Yeah, that's right. Yes.

Brandon Welch:

Yeah, you know what? Honestly, the the person that Ian was helping was a dear friend of mine, and somebody whose opinion I hold in very high regard. And so that's probably that's probably why like it took three months instead of you know 12 to get together. Um, not that I'm that important, but just that um there's a lot of times I get those calls of like you gotta meet this salesperson, and there's just a you know, probably 10 or 15 emails a day of somebody trying to do that because we are connected to a lot of business owners. And this one that um like connected me to Ian, uh, not only do I have a very high opinion of he is like the exact opposite of somebody who would ever hire a coach or a consultant in in that form. And so when he said you gotta talk to this guy, I'm like, what's going on? So um I saw Ian take a very, very profitable, well-trained, well-tuned sales team and and be extremely additive to it. And and close rates, I've seen him, you know, 20, 30% increase what a what an already good sales team has been able to do. And so uh when I when I saw that for myself, I knew he had to be here. And so um you're gonna learn his brilliance uh by the end of this uh podcast. But I said, hey, what will we talk about? And uh I was like, what what are the biggest reasons people are failing? And he's he spat out three reasons I'm like, people need to hear that. So that's why you're here today. And um, what do you have to say for yourself?

Ian Nix:

Well, uh, I'm just uh really grateful that you would have me on here. Um Franken Maven's uh big name in marketing, uh and uh it's it's an honor to be here, man.

Brandon Welch:

Yeah. Well, this is the uncomfortable time where I get to look you in the eyes and tell the world about you.

Ian Nix:

Yeah.

Brandon Welch:

So who is Ann Nix? What it says here on this paper is that uh you have two decades of experience in uh leading sales teams. Is that true?

Ian Nix:

Yes.

Brandon Welch:

Uh leading sales teams shaping organizational culture and helping owner operators unlock the next level of growth through more productive conversations and deeper alignment.

Ian Nix:

Wow, that was nice.

Brandon Welch:

Sounds fancy, doesn't it? We have some good writers around here. Um outside of work, Ian's story is as compelling as his professional track record. He once convinced a beautiful woman to move from Barcelona, Spain to Bolivar, Missouri and marry him.

Ian Nix:

I did. And she's still with me.

Brandon Welch:

Wow. That's how you that's how you know he's practicing what he preaches. Uh they have three beautiful children. On weekends, you're a soccer coach, aren't you? Yeah. You'll find Ian um coaching soccer, riding horses, or gently serenading his wife at the piano.

Ian Nix:

That's good. I like that.

Brandon Welch:

Uh we'll ask Jenny about that. But um, so Ian is a master of many things, and today he's gonna help us um inject some wisdom into our sales teams that are just gonna leverage that advertising dollar we're spending. And so um if I asked you, like, what is the biggest reason sales teams are not closing deals? What's the first one that comes to mind?

Ian Nix:

Well, if I could just take a step back for one second, um your clients are already and and listeners to this podcast um are already doing a great job making sales, they've got great sales teams. Um I'm not here uh to tell those people how to do their jobs. Um I'm here as a guy who suffered for a lot of years in sales. Um and I feel like I found through all that suffering and no pressure path um that started making me a lot more money. So um now coming to your question, I think number one of those three things is quoting and hoping. So um if I could, I'll tell a story around that for you. We love stories. So there's a while back I was working with a guy who did deck restoration. Um so people call him, he shows up, he uh takes a look at the problems, builds a quote, and sends a quote over to the prospect. I mean, pretty familiar process. Yeah. Um and so sometimes he'd win the project, a lot of the times he wouldn't. When we looked at the process together, he realized he could win a lot more if he'd dig a little deeper. Um so he started asking more questions, uh, starting with one that's so big and obvious uh he hadn't even thought of it before. Hey man, this deck is in decent shape. Um why wouldn't you just handle this yourself? Because the prospect can in many cases, right? Um like he could go to the hardware store and and knock it out over a weekend.

Brandon Welch:

Yeah. Yeah. Well, same thing in um in marketing. Hey, you're a smart business owner, right? Why wouldn't you just why wouldn't you just do your own marketing advertising? And they certainly could. Right. Especially if they're listening to the podcast, right?

Ian Nix:

Yeah, and so and sometimes the prospect is gonna answer that question like, you know what? Yeah, maybe I am maybe I should do that. And that's the fear. Right.

Brandon Welch:

Yeah. That's counterintuitive, right? Because we want to we want them to think, well, they called us here because they need us and they have to need us for our identity to be secure in what we're doing, right?

Ian Nix:

Yeah, and and by the way, the fear is well founded. Sometimes the prospect is gonna say that. Um the thing is, what you're likely to find way more often is the prospect is going to say something along the lines of listen, I was supposed to be I was supposed to have done this like three months ago, and my wife's family is coming to visit, and she is not happy, and I need it done now, which is what this guy started to see. When he would say something that was uh counterintuitive to say, which is uh gosh, like you could probably handle this. People started arguing with him and going, No, I can't. This is why I need you.

Brandon Welch:

Yeah. Yeah. So for some of our window guys, that could be, well, these windows don't look that bad. What what's got you wanting to replace them, right? Exactly. That that's totally counterintuitive because you're what you're really doing though is you're giving them maybe safety and and exposing their real pain. Would you would you agree with that? Yeah, exactly.

Ian Nix:

So you're digging a little deeper than just saying, oh yeah, obviously this uh this deck has a lot of problems. Boy, I'm gonna go build this quote and I'm gonna send the quote and they're gonna love it. You're digging a little deeper and going, well, why why me? Why now?

Brandon Welch:

Yeah. In that process, he found out the real pain was speed and hassle. That's it. And not having the project drawn out for you know, six months with junk everywhere that the in-laws were gonna see, right?

Ian Nix:

That's it. And and a little bonus there, right? Um the guy goes, you know, my my wife's family's coming in and this guy I'm working with, he goes, Well, you're not trying to get me to handle this before they arrive, are you? Because I mean, I'm booking out six weeks, and now you can see just margins going up. As as he's saying something like that, margins going up for him. This guy's like, I gotta, I gotta have you. Can what what is it gonna take?

Brandon Welch:

Yeah. Permission to charge a premium. Yeah, yeah.

Ian Nix:

So moral of the story, just asking a few more questions to understand what your prospects' real problems are, it's gonna save you time and it's gonna make you a lot more money.

Brandon Welch:

Yeah, the yeah, the problem, the presenting problem is never the problem so often.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Brandon Welch:

Uh that's any line of consulting. But if you're trying to train your sales team to be consultants, it's not well, what features do you want in your XYZ? It's that's a great question. Why are you doing this all together? Right. Love that. So um what happened as a result of that?

Ian Nix:

I mean, yeah, he started making a lot more money. Winning more quotes, um, going the opposite way of what prospects expected him to go. Um winning more quotes at a higher margin.

Brandon Welch:

So I want to I want to talk about that higher margin because it doesn't um it's not just on the top line sales that you get. It's um that like that's probably anybody can wish and and and you know imagine what happens when you uh get a higher sales close rate cut. So anybody can feel a higher profit margin when you get a higher sales close rate, right? That just feels better. Uh and what you're just saying is you know, they're uncovering pain that they can sort of build margin with, that's great too. Um but I think some one of the un most underrealized um gains when sales improves, like the efficiency of it, is time and energy that gets to be spent on the other things. That's it. And so when you've got a guy who's psychologically being drained because of 30% of his people are saying yes and 70% are saying no, that guy becomes relatively like useless for other tasks and follow through and administrative stuff. And I see a lot of a lot of our guys who have you'll have a really talented salesperson, but they you know they suck at some of that other that other stuff.

Ian Nix:

So the higher win rate uh it uh produces so much uh benefit beyond just the the salesperson making more money, the business making more money.

Brandon Welch:

So that's quoting before understanding. That's it. That's your first answer.

Ian Nix:

Yeah. So number two, uh pushing the quote. So um, and another little story view for you. Um when my wife and I moved into the house uh that we're in a few years ago, uh, we came in knowing the roof needed to be replaced. Um and we waited on a hail storm and God sent the hail, and thank God. Um so guy comes out, he gets up on the roof, comes back down to show me and my wife pictures, and then he launches into his whole sales-y thing. Okay. Um, here's all the happy customers we have. Why do you think they chose us? He's got pictures of them, he's got a folder. Folders aren't bad, pictures aren't bad. Okay. Um, but he's trying to, you know, what he's trying to do in that moment is push us into a sale with all of his wonderful social proof. Okay. Um, then he goes, you know, I'd like for you to go ahead and sign this right here. Uh states that uh if you decide to go with us, we'll be able to work with your insurance. That's called a trial close, right? If I sign that right there, I'm more likely, and you've seen this in car dealerships too, right? Yeah, if I get that number that you just said and take it to my manager and he approves it, are you gonna sign right here that you're gonna sign? Yeah. Trial close. Okay. Um, but uh, but here's the kicker. He goes, at the end of all that, he goes, I'm gonna give you some homework. I want you to call one of these people and you ask them why they decided to go with us. It's just like, dude. Meanwhile, you know, the guy reeked of cigarettes. Um, he hadn't asked permission to get in our personal space like that. And we're sitting there going, like, this is you know, what do you think? The first thing I did, that guy leaves the house. What do you think the first thing my wife and I did was? Thank God he's gone. High-fived. And call the next roofer. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that's it. Um, so you know, the moral of the story there is you gotta stop pushing people into the sale. Um, it'll work sometimes. You'll you'll find people who are willing to be pushed. They're probably not gonna be repeat customers.

Brandon Welch:

Yeah, or or probably what happens is they're just they just don't have the energy to go through that with somebody else. And it's like that's kind of especially in home improvement sales, we see that so much. It's the experience that nobody wants uh and they wouldn't wish, you know, on somebody they don't even like. But um why is that still traditional wisdom inside the home improvement sales industry? Really a lot of them.

Ian Nix:

Yeah, honestly, I think people are trained by how they've been sold to. I I think it's uh bad salespeople out there beget bad salespeople. They think they have to be pushy. Um, and you see it in in a lot of other aspects in sales, people don't feel like they can be themselves. They feel so bad about being in sales. They, you know, their their impression, if you if you do word association with them and say, I'm gonna say salesperson. Now you give me the first few words that come to your brain. They're like pushy, sleazy, used car, right? And so they have all of this stuff about how bad it is to be a salesperson. So they think they have to be someone else, or they think they have to be pushy. They've learned by how they've been sold to, and and now they're just kind of perpetuating the problem.

Brandon Welch:

Yeah. Yeah. Same thing happens in advertising. When people go to write an ad, they they think it has to be written like every ad they've ever heard, which is usually bad form, right? Yeah. The same thing. Wow. So I read something the other day, um, I think it was Salesforce, that said 59% of consumers don't feel like their salesperson is tailoring the sale to them. They're like on a pre-written agenda. And I see a lot of uh, frankly, some of our bigger and better clients really like trying to standardize that sales script. And like it's like that's the thing they push. It's like be on the script or you're gonna get fired. Like I have I've I've got a client that like actually listened and recorded calls and had people employed full time just to say you went off script, you're screwing it up. Um, where does that line go? Because business owners that want to scale want control, um, but we know that that's not producing the best result. So to somebody who's wanting to standardize and do sales training like on a weekly basis, um how do they how do they train this this sort of the principles you're talking about while still having some level of standardization?

Ian Nix:

Yeah, absolutely. So I would say um process is not the enemy. Um self-focus is probably the enemy, right? So if your process is your sales process in particular, is all about focusing on the customer, then you're fine. Use the process. Um if your process is making people uh worry about the next thing that they need to say in a given moment, then the focus is on them. It's on the company rather than on the customer. And that's the surest way you've got to lose that customer.

Brandon Welch:

That's a really important distinction. Like train people how to focus on other people, not to train on the actual bullet points and the words said. Okay, so so far we've got quoting before, understanding, and then pushing the quote. What else you got?

Ian Nix:

Yeah, so the the final one is quoting and hoping. So I'll go back to that deck guy. Um, this is kind of what his process was. He was assessing the work to be done, uh, figuring out what labor and materials would be, uh, working up the quote, delivering the quote to the customer, and hoping the customer chose him. So we call that quoting and hoping, or in some circles, smoking hopium.

Brandon Welch:

Um smoking hopium. Yeah.

Ian Nix:

And so and the thing is, everybody does this, especially in the trades. Um, everybody's driving around in a truck that says free estimate on it, or it says it on their social media, and that's fine.

Brandon Welch:

You know, I don't know that it is actually. Oh, okay. Free estimates are fine, but but the amount of people that assume that that's like a good call to action, call for a free estimate.

Ian Nix:

Yeah. So again, I'm not here to tell the people who are doing that that they have to stop that right now. You might be, which is fine. Um uh, but instead of you know, just sending the estimate, I just want uh your listeners to consider one little tweak. Um what if you ask them what their next steps would be once you send the quote over? So instead of I'm gonna go ahead and send this quote to you as soon as I get it worked up, what if you tag something on the end of that where you go once I send this quote over, what's your next step gonna be? You know, so many salespeople out there are just sending the quote and then wondering when the customer is gonna get back in touch with them or if they are going to.

Brandon Welch:

Because they're giving you permission in that answer, right? That's right. That's right. Okay, so I understand that that's great for like people who are gotta go do the work and produce the quote. What about my guys and gals that are like right in the home right there and they're like, cool, this is what it's gonna cost? Um there's there's not like a follow-up moment baked in in the process. What should they do? Then a lot of them are saying, like, well, I gotta talk to my spouse, or okay, I'll call you back. And they're setting up for that quoting and hoping or smoking hopium or hoping smoking or whatever you said. Um, what do those guys do that are they're a little more the end is sort of like evident that they've done their process.

Ian Nix:

Yeah, it's no different. You're still gonna ask, um, you know, what what's gonna be next? What do you think she's likely to say? Um, how do you guys typically make this kind of a decision?

Brandon Welch:

Oh, that's that's really good. Yeah, how do you guys typically make that kind of decision? That's really good. They're gonna give you the wiring, they're gonna give you the script, they're gonna give you what you need to follow up. That's it. Um that is one of the most that's one of the most brilliant things I've heard. Um that one thing, and I'm I'm you know who who you are that I'm talking to you. I've got a guy that uh that has this really big issue right now that's like of you know, the guy's just not getting follow-up calls. Um that one thing, like, how do you typically make this type of decision? That's such an empathetic, really it's a compassionate way to sell too.

Ian Nix:

And it's focused on them, right? Instead of being focused on me, and I've got to make this quote, and boy, I hope I hope they like me enough to do business with me.

Brandon Welch:

Yeah. Yeah. Um, we've known for a long time that people don't buy for the actual product. They very rarely buy for the price. There's some there's some newer data that said like well over 50% of people just buy simply because of the experience. And if they felt good, they're gonna let go of the money. And the logical, the logical reasons, uh Zig Ziglar said people don't buy for logical reasons, they buy for emotional reasons. And the emotional reason can literally be the sales process you just produced. That's and so we we try to make this, and this is to your point, like about us and about this tactical thing I have to do. And it's really just like read the emotions of your person. When you got Jenny to fly over here from Spain, there was no there was nothing logical about that, was there? Not at all. Did you use the did you use this on her? Yeah, I wish I knew that process. How do you typically how do you typically make this type of decision? Right. Um, it must have it must have been your piano playing. So yeah. Um, so we've talked about the difference between um testimonials and social proof. Talked about quoting them before you understand them. We've talked about pushing that pushy quote, and now we've talked about quoting and hoping. A lot of this res re revolves around the moment you force the product in front of them and just taking a little pause and building some glue between that. Would you would you say that's a good bucket to put all of this in?

Ian Nix:

And putting the focus on them. Let the let your focus be the customer and what the customer needs and how you can help them.

Brandon Welch:

Everybody's heard that a million times. Um, what is the thing you're gonna say that's gonna make the difference um to the boss that's pushing the salesperson team? Because they're wanting the things I hear is they want them to be more accountable. They want them to be more active. And maybe those things are fine. Maybe, maybe there's some lazy salespeople out there that got to be, you know, kicked once in a while to get up off the off the uh off the chair. But um, what would you tell the business owner who is maybe part of this problem?

Ian Nix:

I'd say you've got a lifetime of doing it your way. Why not try the counterintuitive thing?

Speaker 1:

Hmm.

Brandon Welch:

Yeah, you've got the you've got the proof. I promise Ian's clients uh to give you some social proof would say that it's working for them. If you've ever not wanted to be the salesy guy or the pushy team, and more importantly, if you just wanted to get more um out of your leads, I think you're gonna have to stand out and just violating that stereotypical uh role comes in, comes just in that moment, that that tiny pause before they're doing the thing you want them to do. It's putting the focus on that other person. So I think that's brilliant. I think if you're able to pull that out and actually embed it into your sales teams, you will be uh calling and begging for Ian's number, but um, you're not gonna have to beg for it because we're gonna we're gonna give you a way um to work with Ian. Um if you want uh just kind of a free assessment of your sales process and how things are going, he has graciously offered to do that uh for three people who reach out just to have a conversation. Um is that true? Yes. Did I you got that? Okay. So um, you know, Ian Ian gets a I happen to know he gets a premium in the marketplace because it's instantly valuable. And imagine what a what even a 5% increase in your sales process would do. And he he delivers on that. Um but first three people that reach out to Ian at Iannix.com, is that right? That's right. Uh he's gonna give you a free audit of your sales process. Um, and you're gonna walk away with like some instant things you can do to put the focus on the customer. Um pair that with these three things, and you're gonna have a very, very profitable 2026 and beyond. Ian, thank you so much for sharing our mission. Thank you so much for sharing the heart to help local and entrepreneurial businesses just get more with less. I know that is what drives you, it's what drives us. It's what drives this podcast. That's why we show up every week uh and just give you our very best uh that we have to offer. And so we will be back here every week, like we have for the last three years, um, answering your real life marketing questions because marketers and salespeople who can't teach you why are just a fancy lie. Thank you so much. Have a great week.