Episode 129 | Confidently Handle Objections and More - Nicole Spiegel-Gotsch

In this episode, I sit down with Nicole Spiegel Gotsch, founder and CEO of Hello Maven, a consultancy dedicated to helping women entrepreneurs master their marketing strategies. Nicole shares insights from her journey through the corporate world, nonprofits, and entrepreneurship since 2007. We dive into the power of listening in sales, how to confidently handle objections, and why dialing in on your ideal customer (or “moose” as I like to say!) is essential for growth.

Nicole also opens up about balancing business ownership while managing chronic health challenges—and how being real and authentic helps her connect with clients on a deeper level.

If you're ready to sharpen your sales, marketing, and mindset skills with actionable advice, you’re going to love this conversation!

About Nicole:

Nicole Spiegel-Gotsch is the founder and CEO of HelloMavyn®, a consultancy dedicated to empowering women entrepreneurs by helping them master their marketing strategies. Her career began during the tech boom of the 1990s at a new media nonprofit, after which she transitioned to advertising and promotion at a major publishing house. In 2007, Nicole left the corporate world to pursue entrepreneurship, simultaneously earning a Master of Arts in Graphic Communications Management & Technology from New York University, where she focused her capstone project on barriers to women's entrepreneurship. 

Reach Nicole:

LinkedIn

HelloMavyn

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Transcript

Speaker 1 00:00:00  Welcome to UN Copyable Women in Business. I'm your host, Kay Miller, also known as Muffler Mama. Stay tuned as I, along with my guests, give you marketing, sales, and personal branding strategies that will give you an unstoppable advantage. Today I'm here with Nicole Spiegel, and Nicole is the founder and CEO of Hello Maven, a consultancy dedicated to empowering women entrepreneurs by helping them master their marketing strategies. Nicole has experience in the corporate world, the nonprofit world and since 2007, entrepreneurship. Nicole, welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 2 00:00:45  Okay, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 00:00:47  It's been fun talking to you before. We are officially on air, and I'd like to have you start talking about what we've started out with. And that is when you're coaching Clients. One of the things that might seem so obvious to others isn't really. People don't actually do one of the most important things. And what would you say that is listening?
Speaker 2 00:01:10  Without a doubt, it is listening. I can't stress enough, especially for those early customer discovery conversations or sales conversations where you're trying to understand your market and what they're looking for.
Speaker 2 00:01:23  And this is something you talk a lot about in your book, which I loved. It really resonated for me is just the power of really actively listening to the person on the other side of the conversation.
Speaker 1 00:01:36  Right. And you know what? We just Steve and I had an issue with our furnace and it was making a weird sound. So I had three different companies come out because I wasn't totally happy with any of them. So the third company sent out a salesman and he was a dude. So I'm going to say salesman. And he talked and talked and are you kidding me? And we were trapped because we were at home. He was here for almost two hours and I don't think he did any listening. So even though it just totally makes sense, I think we have to really almost just be disciplined and making ourselves listen to the other person. So I love that. So what do you deal with when you're working with clients or the people that you consult with?
Speaker 2 00:02:22  I think in terms of one of the biggest things we deal with is how to run those initial demo calls or pitch calls effectively, how to really understand the needs of the person you're talking to, and how to frame the story of your product or service in a way that aligns or resonates with the person on the other side.
Speaker 2 00:02:45  So it's this notion of a little mix of the marketing hat and the sales hat, which I think happens a lot in the early stages of a startup or a new business.
Speaker 1 00:02:58  Right. And one of the things that you mentioned was, dialing in on your exact mousse. And I think we're going to talk about that, too. but as we said before, the the show, marketing and sales is really the lifeblood of a business, even though a lot of people have a bad feeling about impression of sales. Wouldn't you say? Why? Why do you think people run from sales?
Speaker 2 00:03:25  I think people run from sales because they have this sort of stereotype of of what you were saying before the used car salesman, where the guy will show up at your house with a stay there for two hours with a huge packet of materials. And that's the opposite of what you really want to be doing as an ideal. Sales is getting across what your business or service is about and showing the potential client how it matches with their needs.
Speaker 2 00:03:53  Support. Something they're trying to do helps them improve something. Whatever it is that you're providing has to really have value and benefit to the person you're talking to. And the only way you can find that out is to have the conversation. So it's not so much a pushy kind of, oh, I'm going to be salesy and ram this down the client's throat and try and get them to buy. It's more, okay, let's have a conversation. You tell me what you're looking for and I'll tell you what I've got, and we'll see where it matches up.
Speaker 1 00:04:28  I love that description of sales. I like to even say you're helping, not selling, because what you just described, if you can help somebody get what they want and show them the transformation as they say that they'll experience, that is not pushy and aggressive, it's you're helping them get ahead. So that's huge.
Speaker 2 00:04:50  I think also a lot of times tell me if you see this too. I think people are afraid of handling objections in the conversation, or a handling things that might seem like friction or thorny spots.
Speaker 2 00:05:02  And the more we practice that, the better or more easeful that those parts of the conversation will be. For example, price is a big one, big friction, spot timing, and those things are really more not now rather than a no. And even hearing no isn't the end of the world. It's okay. No, that's fine. If we can drop our egos almost a little bit and be open to receiving what's on the other side, it takes a lot of that scariness or tension out of the conversation. It's just a matter of fact, it's business.
Speaker 1 00:05:39  Right? And fear is one of the big things that salespeople deal with, which is all really in our minds. But when you think about it, you're not going to die. Maybe they'll say no, and maybe it's a not yet, and maybe they truly aren't a fit. We can't be everything to all people. You said that's one of the big things we talk about. Two in our book. Your moose, how do you dial in or how do you help your clients dial in on their.
Speaker 1 00:06:05  You call it ICP, which is what is what did you say ICP? Ideal customer profile.
Speaker 2 00:06:10  Yeah. Their ideal customer or their ideal client profile. One of the ways I help them dial in is, is first, to understand that a really general definition is a good could be a good starting point, but it's not going to really help them narrow down to who their real customer is. So if you just say, okay, my customer is our, you know, our millennials or Gen Z, that's like trying to boil the ocean. You want to really understand in your parlance, who your mousse is. What do they like to eat? Where do they like to hang out? What time of day are they awake like and and similarly, when it's your prospective client, how are their buying decisions made? What's important to them? What do they need to see in terms of results? To feel confident in your product or service and buy from you again? All these sort of little nuances and details that get lost in just a really broad brush definition.
Speaker 1 00:07:10  And one thing that I think of too is can you talk to the decision maker. So like you said is can you talk to the right person the decision maker. That's key. Although some people you're going to have to sell the team. When I had a client like that and he said, you know what, they're paying me to vet companies, so you still might have to present your case to someone else in a way that they're so excited about that they want to sell it to the actual decision maker. Do you have you listed some specific questions that you ask? You just go ahead and go out, ask like you just said, or do you have any other things that you add to get the the prospect thinking?
Speaker 2 00:07:52  Usually I tailor it to. So if I'm working with a client, I'll tell her what kind of questions they ask to whoever they're going after. And even there's a discovery process I go through with clients when I'm working with them, especially over the long term, about their business, their value proposition, their mission, all the sort of information they might already have.
Speaker 2 00:08:14  And then we build on that. And sometimes I'll sit in on sales conversations to be that impartial observer and listen for the things that my client may might be missing. And from there, we build an inventory of the types of questions they can ask, and also what works with my clients style in their language. So it's both in the client's language to the prospective person they're talking to.
Speaker 1 00:08:42  Yeah, languages is key. And speaking of language, you mentioned price objections. Like you said. That's probably number one. First of all, I was going to ask how many people you have working for you in your company. And then I'd like to see how you recommend dealing with the price objections. So tell me a little bit more. How many people do you have that are selling on your team? Is it smaller? Is it big?
Speaker 2 00:09:04  It is small. It is just me. I'm a solopreneur and part of that, it's not hugely scalable. I'm okay with being small because I like that personal touch and that high touch.
Speaker 2 00:09:15  In terms of pricing objection, I think the way to handle it is to again, know who your mousse is. First of all, you have to be going after mousse that it's helpful that they already understand your value or not necessarily your specific value, but the value that someone like you provides, whether that's an a service or a product. Otherwise, you're going to have a double hurdle. First, you have the hurdle of convincing them that you're even worth what worth talking to, and then you have the hurdle of the price objection. So that's another reason why it's important to have the right mousse. The right mousse will have will be prepared or have alignment in terms of what that range or budget is going to look like. The second thing is to go in with your value. What are you going to deliver? How are you going to benefit from benefit the person on the other or company on the other side? And the better that you can articulate that, the less of an objection price becomes, because you're establishing that it's worth the price before you even get to that part of the conversation.
Speaker 1 00:10:20  All right. I like talking about price versus cost, because what is this going to cost you down the road if you don't make a decision or if you do make the wrong decision and you might pay a higher price for a bigger value and that that's okay. And one of my presentations recently, I used the example of when someone goes on vacation, some people stay in a motel six and some people stay at the Four Seasons. So if you know what your customer is looking for and in some cases we talk about don't lead with price or don't tell them how much they're going to want to know right away. How much does this cost? We don't want to tell them until we build some kind of rapport and establish value. But there are exceptions. One of the gals I interviewed on the podcast sells high end RVs, and when I say high end up to $1 million. So they're super high, high, high end. And she really does when she gets into the conversation, asks their budget because she doesn't want them to buy something that they can't afford.
Speaker 1 00:11:32  So you really have to take into the fact that everyone's different. Bottom line. Right.
Speaker 2 00:11:38  And to your point, it's knowing your market. What's the tolerance there? What do they normally expect to pay for your type of product or service if you're pricing in that manner, and also talking about it as an investment If you're delivering the kind of benefit and value that that you say you are, then that's really an investment. It's not a cost. It is an investment in their business or to get something that they need. In the case of these luxury RVs, maybe that's like a dream experience that they want to have in this luxury RV on some kind of road trip, and that experience is worth it. They don't consider that a cost. They consider that something that they're going to have for the rest of their life, that they're going to cherish or live back on, or have family with them or party, whatever. It's all about understanding what the person on the again, understand what the person on the other side is looking for, what's important to them.
Speaker 1 00:12:36  One thing we talk about in the book, and thank you for recommending the book and copyable you, and it's about personal branding. Create a personal brand that gets people to know trust, and we add one more. Remember you because when you are selling someone, I like to think of it like you're talking about giving them all the information and making your recommendations so that they're the ones making the decision. But you are part of what they're buying. And I have so many examples of people who buy something at a higher price, and not it even might not be the very best quality product. But if you as a sales person and we talked about this, really everything comes down to sales in the end. But if you as a sales person say something like, you know what, I'm going to keep track of every warranty. I'm going to work with the company, the factory, the manufacturer to make sure that you get your orders on time. Whatever one of the branding promises I love is no one will work harder for you than I will.
Speaker 1 00:13:41  No one, no one can match that. So you really are part of the process. So talk to me a little bit more about your coaching clients and you how you guide them to the direction they should go.
Speaker 2 00:13:57  Most of them are early stage startups doing mission driven work, so that's for social impact in areas like mental health, maternal health, sustainability. They're very visionary. And so I think what I bring to them is that practical marketing and business savvy to help them bring their vision to life and actually create a business from their vision. Right. The vision can be way up here. It's really abstract. But what does that look like day to day? What are the logistics of actually making that a business? Reaching, creating an audience for, creating a market for it and delivering on whatever the promises of your business or service. So we go.
Speaker 1 00:14:46  Ahead, but you help them think through all of that. And of course you are an expert in your industry. But even I always think two heads are better than one.
Speaker 1 00:14:56  It's just really hard to form your own vision without feedback from someone else. And you mentioned that a lot of your coaching or when you work with clients, it becomes the kind of coaching where you are supporting them and just helping them refine their vision. How would you describe that coaching process that you help people with? I want to take a quick break to ask you a question. Does your personal brand set you apart and make you unforgettable? If you're not 100% sure you need my free email series, five steps to a Profitable Personal Brand, sign up and get a daily email for five days, plus a bonus a list of personal branding shortcuts that will give you an unstoppable advantage. Go to B and copyable.com. Slash the number five dash emails.
Speaker 2 00:15:56  The methodology. It's usually several steps. So the first one is always discovery which is learning about them in their business and how they've arrived to the point they're at figuring out their goals. Putting those to a timeline, a budget, a map, roadmap, there's all these very executional steps.
Speaker 2 00:16:16  But I find that what clients tend to value as much or more is having that sounding board to help take everything that's going on inside their head and prioritize what's important right now. What's the next step at every point along this journey that there aren't? And that is, I was actually surprised at first, to tell you the truth, because I thought that The people who worked with me would really want to what I refer to as those nuts and bolts. So they want a marketing plan, or they want cheat sheets or checklists like deliverables. And very quickly they I saw that they weren't so concerned with that. They really wanted to talk through their ideas, get the benefit of someone else's perspective and experience, and have someone upvote or downvote things, especially when there's a smaller team of founders and they need like a tiebreaker or just an outside perspective, right? For example, you might have a group of really technical founders or engineers who don't have a lot of experience on the marketing or sales side, or vice versa.
Speaker 2 00:17:30  You have founders who are really strong in sales or marketing, but they don't have a lot of technical savvy for what they're building. That's the situation where they pull me in.
Speaker 1 00:17:42  And that the way I would think about that is overwhelm, you know, the clients you're describing. I mean, there are all these options, all these things that you could do and you're saying, what's the next step? And that really makes it more clear. It's how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. And that's old advice that still applies. I do want to mention I have a couple more things I want to make sure we touch on, but I want to mention that you do. You do one on one coaching. And so and you also offer a free discovery call. And then I think a discount for listeners. So do you want to give that a plug before we go into the rest of the show?
Speaker 2 00:18:23  Sure. Listeners, any of your listeners who want to explore working with me, they can go to my site.
Speaker 2 00:18:29  Hello Maven. Com hello, Mavin. Com and sign up for a free strategy session. And then if they decide to work with me, they'll get 25% off their first session.
Speaker 1 00:18:43  That's great. And I will put the links in the show notes, because I know some of this is going to go by quickly. You've had some health challenges, which I can't even believe because you're you're just a baby compared to me. But before we go into your personal story, just please mention the the topic of paid, earned, shared, and owned media.
Speaker 2 00:19:06  Sure. It's so funny. This has come up a lot with everything that's been going on with TikToks. Peso is the acronym peso for paid or and shared owned. It's a framework that was created by Jenny Dietrich, and it just refers to the channels that you're operating in. So a social platform, for example, is going to be shared. You're not necessarily paying for it, but you also don't control it. So any your subject to any changes that happen on that platform, and it creates a lot more accessibility to your audience.
Speaker 2 00:19:37  And you don't have to maintain that platform. But at the same time, if anything changes in terms of regulation or regulation is usually the biggest one. Or even technology, if it's supported in a certain way, you're going to lose potentially that potential connection with your audience. And that's why I tend to emphasize owned and owned is what you own. And that would be things like email or text or direct contact information for your audience, and a direct way to communicate with them that you don't lose it. And that's usually built up through trust. So you'll have people who opt in to your email list, for example, and that's invaluable. It's a big reason why you don't want to lose those subscribers by over emailing them, because their trust is so hard to get that they're letting you into their inbox. So once you lose them, it's going to be hard to get them back. There's also direct mail for businesses where direct mail is still an effective channel. I know people don't think about physical mail anymore, but there are businesses that it is effective for text.
Speaker 2 00:20:45  For sure. Text messaging and its similar rules is to as email. You want to be respectful and be adding value, not spamming or over messaging your people.
Speaker 1 00:20:57  And as far as regulations, I think also I don't know what happens. I know some LinkedIn specialists that get locked out of LinkedIn, Facebook, all of these platforms drive me crazy because they're always making changes. I totally agree about the owned channel of media. We have an email list and it's really that's what you can rely on that no one can take away. That might not be Elon Musk could probably take it away. I don't know.
Speaker 2 00:21:28  Someone gets but the the distinction that we didn't cover, the other two that I don't talk about so much because they're usually self explanatory, paid or paid and earned. So earned is if you get you do something that gets you press coverage, for example, that's earned. You've done something notable that someone else is giving you coverage and pay. It is exactly what it sounds like, whether that's paid search or paid advertising, paid placement, sponsored content.
Speaker 2 00:21:54  So those are the kind of four different buckets. And your best bet is to have them working together and understand how much, how much invested you have in each place and what the return you're getting on is on each of those. Yeah. Go ahead.
Speaker 1 00:22:11  That can really inform your your method of outreach. And you mentioned direct mail. That's one of the things that I recommend and my clients use because nobody's doing that. It's really easy to to stand out with direct mail. Now the the biggest thing you need to consider is the potential. If you have the right mouse that can buy from, you can become a repeat customer that's got a long term value. You can afford to spend a pretty penny, as they say, on something that will totally grab their attention and show you that you show them that you're different. It's it really is powerful. We like to say, Steve and I look at what everyone else is doing and don't do it when they go high, you go low, whatever. So you need to stand out.
Speaker 1 00:22:57  And something like direct mail can be really powerful. And yes, get them over to your email list if you don't have an email list, if you're listening, you B2B, you really need probably B2C too. It's just a great way to stay connected. So I do want to hear a little bit about how you're balancing some health challenges, and you seem like you have a great, positive attitude about it, but I'm sure it is a bit of a struggle. So can you speak to that?
Speaker 2 00:23:26  Yeah, sure. I think it all depends what. One of the things for me is that I deal with things that have a lot of chronic pain, and a lot of what I have is people. It's invisible. Right? It's not as though people can tell. So that is one part of it is being open about it and not hiding it, because it takes a lot more effort to hide it. And that's a personal choice. I'm not saying that people have to do what I'm doing. For me, it was just too much work to try and have a mask on it all the time.
Speaker 2 00:23:57  The other thing is really being intentional about how I structure my work life to make sure that I was prioritizing my health. And again, that's also there's there's a certain amount of a luxury there. but at the end of the day, if I'm not healthy, I can't work.
Speaker 1 00:24:16  Yeah. That's true. That's a problem.
Speaker 2 00:24:18  That's enough. So there is there's this sort of balancing act and a certain amount of acceptance of, okay, this is where I'm at. And that means that I have to structure my day, my week, my life in a certain way, and my business to work with my condition. I think that it's not any different than having a wheelchair ramp for wheelchair access, or it just means a little bit more planning and a little bit more attention.
Speaker 1 00:24:47  Right. And being genuine and authentic is something that everyone talks about, but not everyone does. I think I told you I had a meeting with some of my podcast guests today. Even the most successful women I meet say we have challenges.
Speaker 1 00:25:02  We have imposter syndrome. We're still dealing with fear. So the fact that you are being vulnerable can be part of your branding. It's not something you choose. I told you your name is a great branding tool. CityVille goats I challenge you listening to Spell That. Yeah, until you see it. But also if you are attracting clients or prospects I should say that aren't okay with that. They're not down with that. You don't want to work with them, right.
Speaker 2 00:25:30  And I think it also there's two sides to that coin. There's the one side of attracting clients who are going to be the type of people I want to work with. They're going to have that understanding. And the other side is having challenges makes me very empathetic to meeting my clients where they're at, where there are some a lot of times people are doing their startup while they're still working a full time job. They're bootstrapping and the expectation that they're going to be able to put in. It's not the same expectation as someone who has a pot of funding or a certain amount of runway to go all in 24 over seven.
Speaker 2 00:26:13  It's going to be a different growth rate, it's going to be a different path. And so being able to understand and be flexible and adaptable and work with them where they're at is really important because you have to identify those goals and targets for the business. That makes sense with where they're starting from. Yeah, sure. Everyone wants to ten x ten. You know an X is great. Love it. And if that's the goal, fine. I can help a client work towards that. At the same time, if there's someone who's, look, I just want to build up to a certain amount of revenue so that then I can prove this thing and attract this kind of, this kind of potential investor. That's going to be a different path. And I understand that. And I can help them with that too.
Speaker 1 00:26:57  Yeah. Your challenges help you empathize. And empathy is another thing that I think should be obvious. We get focused on ourselves, maybe because we're just excited about what we're doing, but we need to think about, like you said, where are they in their journey? What are their goals? And so you have more empathy for them because you've dealing you're dealing with challenges.
Speaker 1 00:27:18  To Nicole, it has been a real pleasure talking with you. To you listening, I will put the links to Nicole's website and the opportunity to meet with her to on a discovery call to see if you're a fit for coaching and as she said, a discount if you decide to move forward. So thanks again, Nicole. I really appreciate you being on the podcast.
Speaker 2 00:27:44  Thank you so much, K. It's been a pleasure.
Speaker 1 00:27:48  Thanks for listening to this episode the next time and always remember to be an copyable.