Interview with Marla Koupal
In this episode, we will uncover 3 keys:
- The Importance of Genuine Connection
- Effective Communication Strategies
- Overcoming Sales Challenges
A Podcast Transcription
Episode 32: Unleash your sales potential through elevated human connection & quality communication~Marla Koupal
Intro
Odiva Vasell: (00:00)
Welcome, fabulous Fempreneurs! I have an exciting person here with me today, and I want you to know that you are going to gain a wealth of knowledge today. So go ahead, grab that pen and paper, we are ready to jump in and get started. I am here with Marla Koupal. Welcome, welcome, Marla.
Marla Koupal: (00:29)
Yes, thank you for having me. This is a delightful group, and I love what you’re messaging. So I’m looking forward to today.
Odiva Vasell: (00:38)
Yes. And I am looking forward to really learning from you. I am just going to put the track in front of you and let you go ahead and run with it. Marla teaches people how to sell, and I think that is a great missing piece that a lot of us Fempreneurs need in our business but have not really nurtured and mastered the skill. So let’s start with how you got started in selling, Marla. Tell us a little bit about that.
Marla Koupal: (01:17)
Well, I think I was not born to be a salesperson, but I didn’t have any trouble talking to people. I was raised in a family environment with grandparents and everybody around a business, so I just learned to talk to people without knowing what I was doing. But I would say I was 19 when I was in college, and this is a long time ago, but then they had private dorms for women and for men, so you didn’t have mixed genders in a building. And I became a resident assistant and a leasing agent for that to pay for my room and board. What was interesting is every fall and every spring when the parents would show up with their daughters to find them a place, the parents are interested in safety and food and how they are going to be nurtured and cared for. And of course, the girls are wanting to have all the fun. So right then and there, whether it was intuitive or I already knew this, who knows? It was like, okay, you’re having two sales conversations with this small family pod, and I did very well at it. The fun part of it was I went to school in Santa Barbara, and so an hour north was an engineering school. The guys would come down every weekend because there were very few girls at that school at that time. They would come into our fancy lobby and see all the buildings are locked, the doors are locked. These are the days when there’s not all the freedom we have now. They would look for blind dates. So I would interview each one of them, understand what they did and what they were like, and did they have a sense of humor just because I was open enough. It wasn’t like they thought they were getting interviewed, but they had to have a conversation with me first, like I was the gatekeeper. Then they’d go sit down at the other end of the lobby where I asked them to go sit. Then I get on the phone to the intercoms, to the rooms, and I’m telling everybody, okay, so I have these guys down here. Is anybody really looking to go out? Are you doing your nails? You have your hair up. What do you want? Then they would grill me. I’d have to describe who they were, how I thought, who would match with whom, and it was really kind of fun.
Odiva Vasell: (03:30)
Love it!
The Importance of Genuine Connection
Marla Koupal: (03:31)
But I got really good at interpreting human behaviors. There are two things that I always share when I’m sharing with people about selling skills. I share with them there are only two things you need to know about people. They have a pace; they’re fast decision-makers, they’re fast action, or they’re methodical or they’re very task-focused or people-focused, relationship-focused. We can all pick up those two qualities. If you have a relationship-focused person who’s fast-paced, you’re going to get a storyteller like me. If you get someone who’s fast-paced, task-focused, this person, you’re going to get that overachiever, driver kind of person. They only want to know what they want to know. Don’t give them too much. If you’ve got the methodical, task-focused person, you’ve got that more sciency kind of person. They’ve got to know, “why” about everything, whether it’s important or not. And you have to learn to deal with that and accept them just as easily as you would your favorite kind of a buyer. Then the last one is the person who’s, I call them a “champion” because they champion everybody else before they champion themselves. They like to have they’re relationship-oriented, and they’re very methodical. But if you actually say to this person, how do you feel? They can’t unless it’s related to another person. So I sold for years in my later life because I’ve sold a lot of health products, and I love to do trade shows. That’s my fun time. That’s really my hobby. You asked me earlier what my hobby was. If I could work a trade show, that’s my hobby and show other people how to do it and have fun. That’s a hobby for me. But they come up, and they’re asking you what you have, and you’re sharing, and you say, “So, what do you need?” Well, I think my friend could use this. Okay. Right then and there, I talked with their friend through them. That’s the point at which they are comfortable.
Odiva Vasell: (05:47)
Interesting.
Marla Koupal: (05:47)
And these are just behaviors that if we become observant of others, we learn how detrimental a selling script is to us because a selling script is us trying to be the star of the show. We are not the star of a sales call. You have to understand your buyer’s narrative. You have to understand their story. You, in a way, are only a facilitator. You have to learn to be really good with questions. You cannot be a tell-assertive person when you start out a conversation. Those are the subtleties I try to get people to shift. So the first thing I ask people to do if they work with me is burn your script.
Odiva Vasell: (06:41)
Okay.
Marla Koupal: (06:43)
Go ahead. It’s like taking away the binky.
Odiva Vasell: (06:48)
Baby’s binky. Okay. I love that. I love that. Burn the script and really get into the person. I mean, if you talked about selling that way, everybody would say, “Yeah, I can sell,” because most coaches and entrepreneurs get into this industry because they want to be with people, connect with people.
Marla Koupal: (07:13)
Yeah, they do. Which is really great. However, that in itself has not built the skill. It’s not the skill of conversation, questioning when to be quiet, how to really read what their hesitation means, or ask. You don’t read it; you don’t guess. So the other thing is to help everybody stop assuming what some other person’s behavior means. Here’s my favorite question or statement. It’s just a tug. So I might ask a question to someone and say, “Well, what prompted you to contact me today around whatever my product was, right?” And I want to hear what’s top of mind today. They didn’t contact me yesterday; they didn’t contact me tomorrow. They contacted me today. So what’s top of mind today, right? And then when they kind of give me enough, but there’s no hook in it for me, there’s not enough gas in the gas tank to move the conversation forward, you just say, “Tell me more,” or “Tell me more.” And now you get more of the story.
Odiva Vasell: (08:23)
Okay.
Marla Koupal: (08:25)
And then sometimes you summarize that a little bit, and then you might ask another question. So what people don’t know is when is it appropriate to start talking about what I have? Well, you don’t. You don’t until they give you the indicators that you are even going to be a fit. So our first job is, does this buyer fit with me? Just because they showed up in my space does not mean they’re my buyer. And that takes stamina and that takes resilience for you to say, but you can’t be rude either. Like, “Well, you don’t fit, bye, bye! Time!” Which I have seen people do. I’ve trained thousands of people in sales, and I got to tell you, that’s just one of the crazy things you see people do, and you go, “Oh, what box did they just come out of?”
Odiva Vasell: (09:22)
Yeah, that’s kind of a lack of respect because they might have that friend that needs your service.
Marla Koupal: (09:29)
Right. They might have five friends. So you look at every person as your golden apple. So here’s what’s happening. I feel in the world, and interrupt me anytime because if you notice, there’s no problem with me coming up with ideas.
Odiva Vasell: (09:46)
That’s right. I’m laying out a racetrack. Go for it.
Marla Koupal: (09:50)
But we’ve been culturized for years… “Culturized” is a favorite word of mine. We’ve been culturized in the selling process. It says you have to handle objections. You have to be prepared. Well, that’s like getting your shields up. Get ready for battle. And so most sales books that you read, they’re all about being the dominant party, the dominant person, the leader. Let’s talk about a leader. Let’s not talk about dominant. Salespeople are leaders. And most leaders, quality leaders, they’re not huffing and puffing. They’re asking questions. And they’re letting you bring it to them. Bring me your narrative, and then I will help work with you. Bring me your narrative. So that’s what they’re opening up. There’s no book out there that shows you how to do that. Even Napoleon Hill talks about using a pitch. The words that do not exist in any of my training language are pitch, empowerment, and objections. Those three are banned in my conversation because they totally take you over into a carnival barker, throw something at people, hope it sticks kind of thing. And then, oh, well, if they don’t agree with what you just gave them, we’ll just tell them more, pitch more. And then that’s where people get all uptight about being pushy.
Odiva Vasell: (11:22)
I want to hear that again. Bring me your…?
Marla Koupal: (11:26)
Bring me your story. Bring me your narrative. What’s going on? Do you know that there are 15 things that could be going on in your buyer’s head when you’re talking to them? Okay, first of all, so I wrote these down just so we could talk about it a little bit. Buying experience. Who did they work with last? As a salesperson, that person’s image is in their mind. Now, you don’t know who that was, how they behaved, what their response was to them. But they’re either coming to you totally open, which is highly unlikely, or they’re coming to you with their barriers up because their last experience was pretty crappy. So you got to expect them to be defensive. You don’t know this. This is why you ease them in with open-ended questions. You don’t just start spamming them information. Brand perception. They may have a perception that your brand is too expensive, or the other one’s more expensive. Yours is cheaper. What’s wrong with yours? Now, they don’t come up and say that to you, but in how you open your conversation, you’re going to discover that. And then emotional triggers. I was in a homeowner’s association meeting the other day. One of the people was asking a question of the property manager and the president, and all of a sudden, this person just went off on both of them like they were demeaning; they were derogatory to her. And it was like none of that had gone on. There were 50 other people in the room, and none of us even got a hint that there was anything derogatory going on. Okay. But that’s the message she received. So we have to be alert to okay. What triggered them? Or do they have a… you know we don’t know. We can’t be defensive about it, but we have to be cool when it happens. It’s like, oh, I am so sorry. I misunderstood. Please get me back on track. Meaning? Tell me what you want me to know and deal with it. Don’t interrupt them.
Odiva Vasell: (13:34)
Wow.
Marla Koupal: (13:35)
Because that’s really the time at which you build trust. And then value expectations. People come in with different values that they want handled here, or they want a high-priced item for a low cost or cost isn’t the thing or the fact that they want quality workmanship; they want longevity. What are those value expectations? And so, it goes on from there. And so you don’t know what kind of social influence they’ve had. It’s just so varied. And I try to knock through that in my trainings and evolving more and more into longer-term masterminds because you don’t learn sales overnight. I have years and years of experience. I trained my staff years ago when I owned my own business. I’ve trained insurance agents. I used to cold sell a keynote speaker. So it’s one of those things that you acquire experience. The more you acquire experience, you acquire your savvy.
Odiva Vasell: (14:58)
And what I’m getting from you is that it’s so intricate. It’s an intricate tapestry of events present, past, and future that this person is experiencing during the conversation. And one of the things I like because you broke it down into several categories. How many categories was that? Was that eight?
Marla Koupal: (15:22)
Well, I gave you about four, but I have a list of 15.
Odiva Vasell: (15:27)
Oh, wow. And I know that in my experience, I want to be heard when I go into a sales call. That is one of the things that I recognize over a period of time is that I want them to hear how passionate I am about my need or my work, my business. And how that matches with what they have to offer. And I remember going into calls where the person would ask a lot of questions, which seemed like, so I’m like, wait a minute. Am I doing this wrong? I’m doing all of this talking. Here I am giving them all of this information, and then at the end, they just turn off and give me the script.
Marla Koupal: (16:26)
Oh, that’s sad. Well, that’s like they know how to be a stage actor, but they only learned one half of the script. You asked me before we started, and I never thought about it, about if I had a hobby. I would say I have fascination. And my fascination is people. So when I was a child, my mom worked for my grandfather, and he had a John Deere implement business. And I was four and five, and I got to sit on the counter and talk to all the farmers. And I just saw cranky old men. I saw men who love to have humor and jokes and stuff, and I don’t know how that evolved, but I find people fascinating. They’re all different, but some of them were gruff, but I knew they were a marshmallow. So I learned not to take everybody’s behavior as the real person.
Odiva Vasell: (17:28)
Get off the counter, little girl. I’ve had a bad day.
Marla Koupal: (17:32)
No, my mom put me up there, and they all liked it because I got to go through the parts catalogs with them and everything else. But the point is that the exterior is not the interior, and we don’t know the interior until we ask those open-ended questions, and we discover what is. And when we are willing to discover what somebody else is about and what their needs are, then we are respecting them. Now, the challenge we see in the world today is we have marketing. Everybody’s learning online marketing. They’re getting into funnels. And the funnel is a very passive sales process. So a funnel is pitching, and I use them, so there’s nothing wrong with that, but the ideal. So when I post questions, interrogative those engagement questions, like on Facebook, I’ll say something about, do you upsell? Well, people give me their rant and their frustration with reading long funnels. So they don’t even associate a difference between selling and marketing. Selling is person to person event, as far as I’m concerned. So a funnel gets you a ‘kaching’. That is a sale, but there was no relationship. Mmhmm. Sales conversations, get you engaged with the person, get you understanding their needs, get you ready and in position to serve them, or to say, I can’t serve you. This is where people all think. They think every person is somebody I should be selling to. So then they feel bad because they don’t make a sale. Could you just own that? Oh, my product and I did not fit for that person? It did not. It their lifestyle, their life stage, whatever was going on. So now you’ve built a relationship. How do you further that relationship to both parties? Benefits? Well, maybe they just want to stay in touch. Maybe they have friends that they can refer you to. So where everybody stops short is they see a sale as a one-time event. It could be a lifetime relationship.
Odiva Vasell: (19:45)
Wow. Yes. Amazing that continuing of the relationship, the networking and just being open to wherever that relationship takes you. Because, again, where you’re saying is people stop short because they did not sell to that particular person, and they feel bad about it, but they do not realize the relationship or the expanding of the connections that person has. The culture, thor interest. And not only that, but trying to force the issue and getting that person to sign up for something that you can’t really serve them with. Now you’ve only predestined yourself to a bad review. And if they do continue in your program and they’re not happy because it’s not what they wanted, then you’ve kind of stuck yourself into that relationship.
Marla Koupal: (20:54)
You have. It’s just Too many people burn bridges for the wrong reasons. I mean, there’s times where it’s time to sever ties with someone, but you don’t want to always you don’t want to burn the bridge. You always want to leave the doors open a little bit. So even if you don’t make the sale today, just on the simple side of the process, you always say so it sounds like you really want to think about this for the next couple of months. It’s on your agenda to act on now. Do you mind if I contact you in two months? Can I put that on my calendar, get permission. That’s a yes. You just sold the next appointment. So, see, everybody measures this sale in the Kaching. You measure the sale in the next appointment, the next agreement, the next process that they agree to, and you now have a relationship. Or I call it an alliance. That’s better. You have an alliance to come back together and do something. Touchpoints.
Odiva Vasell: (21:51)
Touchpoints. Touchpoints.
Marla Koupal: (21:53)
Right? So everybody calls it follow up. But it’s like, that sounds boring to people or it sounds frustrating. It sounds hard. So the objective of follow up is to always be booking the next contact point because eventually there will be some kind of transaction, whether it’s an introduction to a friend or somebody that they need. Because if you’re top of their mind every so often, they still may never be your buyer, but they may be your referral source.
Odiva Vasell: (22:29)
Exactly.
Marla Koupal: (22:30)
So too many people have a limited point of view of what the selling relationship is all about.
Odiva Vasell: (22:40)
Yeah. And I again come back to what I’ve learned in the years of teaching and having these one-to-one conversations, the first session, and realizing, I don’t really want this person in my course. I don’t want this person in my program. And so many people are like, Well, I’ll hold on. I think it’s like one of those things with age comes wisdom. I’ll hold on to them because they’re going to pay me. And it’s like, no, if that person does not have the right energy, let them go. It’s okay.
Marla Koupal: (23:19)
Yeah. I know Well, you’re very similar to me. I believe. In the sense that we see people’s innate value. We see their potential. But because we can see their potential, if they do not see their potential, we can’t help them. We can only help them at the point they accept and own that they have potential, that we accept and own that they are ready to move forward. So I notice I’ve been observing now because I’ve been playing in the online world since 2020, pretty strongly since 2021, because it was a foreign world to me. So I had to learn It, but where a lot of people like to be gurus, they like to have followers. I am the person who’s going to you’re in my and I won’t even call it a nest, but you’re in my arena, and I want to see you fly away one day. I do not determine my value by how many people are following me. I determine my value by how many people that I help fly away, make more sales, increase their business.
Odiva Vasell: (24:29)
Yes.
Marla Koupal: (24:30)
Now, I have some people that I follow because I get tech skills from them. I get new insights and how to market. Marketing wasn’t my strength. Sales is my strength. And so marketing was like learning another language. As a salesperson, I used to sell what people would market, and if they had over marketed, hyped it, whatever, I not only had to calm down their expectations and still make the sale.
Odiva Vasell: (24:57)
Whoa. I love the division or not the division, but so much the differentiation that you are making between marketing and sales. You get a marketing expert, and they’re the best expert, and they’re doing all this marketing for you. And so you think that you can just sit back and make passive sales? No, you still got to sell.
Effective Communication Strategies
Marla Koupal: (25:19)
You might be able to make massive sales if you had all the money in the world to buy ads. I don’t think that’s in our budgets. I’m a grassroots help. You become that people person you think you are not because here’s the skills you were missing. So I like to help people step into a competency of conversation, of questions, of knowing, timing, of when to be tell assertive, ask assertive when to just assume something like and sort of softly presented instead of going in for the kill, as they say in many sales articles. I just did something on Chat GPT today, and I did a question, and it came up, and I said, okay, so now I want you to not use any aggressive words, and you can’t use pitch, you can’t use this, and you can’t use that. And I told it, and it came out with something very perfect to the way that I speak because I want to change the conversation around selling, and I don’t want people to be defensive like, well, I speak from my heart, I share. We all speak from our hearts. We just have better. So it’s not our intention, it’s our communication skill. What parts of the conversation are you familiar with and how do you bring them in? And how do you develop that patience to listen to someone’s long-winded answer? And when do you stop having an expectation to get all sales calls done in 15 minutes? That’s a joke. We have to master your style. So I help people master their style, and then they aren’t as frustrated with the human buying community, and they actually expand their buyer opportunity.
Odiva Vasell: (27:20)
Yeah, there are some beautiful things. You’ve given a lot of golden nuggets, but one of the beautiful things that you’ve opened up is not the communication number one that hits home. For me, communication is a skill that we need in every facet of our life. But when you said that people, not their appearance or their personality on the surface, that they appear to be when you can go a little bit deeper and find out what is really going on with them. You gave the example of the lady that was triggered, and she said a lot of things happened that no one else saw. It’s like I think in our daily lives, there are so many things that can happen, and we can get offended. And in social media, I just see people bailing it out. Someone does something good. Me, my first reaction is, “Yeah, you did something good. Why all the negative comments?” Because there’s this inner battle going on that they are projecting something out there, and just being able to, all right, you said something even maybe it’s to me, negative. Okay. I can brush that off because I know it’s coming from your experience. It doesn’t actually reflect on me or who I am, so. In that way, that’s when I help women to start getting visible because you are phenomenal, and you don’t have to believe everything that’s come across, everything people have said. But what you’ve opened up is that you’re cracking open the walnut and seeing beyond that negativity shell that person is projecting. And there’s more to it.
Marla Koupal: (29:27)
I mean, people could just have bad days. The best skill you can acquire when you’re in sales is what I call neutral, where you shut down the ticker tape that goes through your head with all your little opinions. Well, they’re a jerk. And you roll your eyes inside or whatever you say. You cannot have the second voice running in the back of your head. If you want to control the sales conversation, we all do it. I talk about it not because I haven’t been there, right. But if you really are tuned in and listening and I did. I did many years of phone sales. I mean, I had clients that I never, ever met, but it was all phone sales that meant I had to read every nuance of the voice, the tone, the hesitation. When they got quiet, I would be quiet for a while, and I say, okay, so you went quiet. Are you thinking, or did I kind of leave you in the dust with my explanation? I’m ready to take the hit, right? And I did it. I have had people say, “Well, you’re going a little too fast for me.” I said, “Okay, I’ll slow down. Tell me where I lost you,” because it’s my responsibility. I lost them. I want to make the sale. I got to come back in. So now they tell me where I was just going too fast with too many examples, whatever I was doing. And then I go, I got my message. I need to slow down. I need to check in more. I wasn’t checking in because we can all go kind of vacant we get so comfortable with what we’re talking about.
Odiva Vasell: (30:57)
Tell me a little bit more about the methodical person.
Marla Koupal: (31:01)
Okay.
Odiva Vasell: (31:02)
Because that rang a bell in my head.
Marla Koupal: (31:07)
Imagine a quadrant like this. There’s only two things that go on in most buying decisions, and we all live this way. In fact, we were hardwired at birth. You can see it in young children. You can see it in babies. So where they’re really fast-acting or they’re more methodical, they think about it. They don’t grab right away for the cup. They look at the cup for two or three minutes, and then they go pick it up. Whereas somebody like me, “Oh, a pretty cup.” And then there’s the ones that are really task-focused. It’s like they like to undo the button. I’m talking babies now. They like to undo the buttons on a shirt. Or they look at all the plugs in the wall or the things like that. They’re curious about those kinds of things. And then there are others that want the attention of every person in the room, whereas there are those that are like, “I don’t need any of you.” Right? And so what we’re looking for when we meet people is not their personality, but we’re looking for their decision-making style. I call it their buying style. And this is what I teach as a core part of my class. So how do you recognize if someone is a faster-paced person? That means they’re probably going to be on the fast decision-making side or are they more methodical? They’re going to ask you a lot of how questions. There’s going to be a lot of hesitation in their speech. They won’t. So I have to slow down for those people, and I know what’s coming, so I’m ready for whatever they give me. And then where are they focused on what they’re going to get done task or how you relate to them. So as an expressive, if you’re a salesperson and you create a good relationship with me and you hear me, you repeat me, you understand me, we get into a jive. We’re telling stories back and forth. I’m highly likely to buy from you. If you’re more a sciency salesperson, you keep wanting to just stick to the facts and just go down the line and get everything done. Because of my experience, I’m going to take you aside and give you some sales coaching.
Odiva Vasell: (33:35)
Okay.
Marla Koupal: (33:37)
But if you’re a typical buyer, like my style, you’re going to go, “Oh, this guy doesn’t get me at all because he’s so focused on what he wants to tell me. He’s so focused on telling me all the features, telling me all the benefits, all the nerdy stuff that they like.”
Odiva Vasell: (33:55)
Okay.
Marla Koupal: (33:56)
Well, I can be a nerd, but I have to want to be a nerd.
Odiva Vasell: (34:04)
That’s why I was asking about the methodical person, is because I find myself going between the two being the relationship person. I want to be heard. I want to build that relationship. I want to know I can trust this person that’s selling me, but I also want to know all the features. So I say that because my background, being in Engineering, I’ve always wanted to know. I have all the why questions that nobody could answer.
Overcoming Sales Challenges
Marla Koupal: (34:33)
Yeah, well, there’s more dynamics to this. And go on. So, let’s say you play on the methodical side of the quadrant. When there’s a quadrant going on, your secondary positions are the one above you or the one to the side. So, see, you filter in. The only part of that quadrant that’s tough for you is your opposite. And. So if you’re already people-focused a lot, you like the relationship, but you also have a sciency mind. You’re pretty much on the methodical side with the ability to flow back and forth between task and people. I can be a high overachiever driver. I ran my own property management business for ten years. We managed 3000 units. I had 50 employees least. I was in full-on driver mode. But I built my business because I had the relationship piece, not just because of what I got done. I mean, I was the one that was the face, so I had to bring in the business. But I was always fast-paced. So I just slowed down for my people that were more methodical. My bookkeepers and the people that just said, “It’s okay, I got it.” I knew what they needed, but I never identified it. It took me a while to start putting this into categories. And so people say personalities and no, I’m looking at behavior. So now as we all mature and depending on how much we’ve been out in the world, we can flow into all of those behaviors in that quadrant. However, when we’re at the point of stress, which is where people are when they’re making a buying decision, then that’s when they’ll revert to that basic neurological wiring they got in the beginning.
Odiva Vasell: (26:19)
Default mode. I got it.
Marla Koupal: (36:25)
And so people talk about these things, and they talk about out. But to me, each of these people has a phrase too. So like the driver overachiever. They might call you for a sales call, and the first thing they’re going to say is, “How much time is this going to take?” Consistently. Consistently. And I just have to laugh because I tell them, “So you’ve got a couple of comebacks for that. It’s like, how much time do you have?” And. So depending on what I used to do, if they called in and said that and they said I have five minutes I said, “Well, I can’t possibly even get you what you need. I need at least a minimum of twelve minutes, and when you buy I need another ten. Do you have that now?” They said no. I better call back. Okay, good. Or they say oh yeah, I got 30 minutes. I say okay, we’re good. Because that person just drives their life by the clock.
Odiva Vasell: (37:24)
Wow.
Marla Koupal: (37:25)
And then there’s somebody like me that I want to know that you hear. I have a sense of humor, I’m playful. Don’t get too serious on me. I’m sharp, I’m intelligent. I’m going to poke you if you don’t give me something. I’ll take care of myself is what I’m trying to say. And then there’s the person who says well my friend could use this or well all my husband told me I needed to do this and find this out. So already you have two people in the conversation. You don’t ignore that other person. You don’t ignore the invisible person in that conversation with that person, And that’s another whole talent that I share. And then the sciency person, they can go on forever with their questions because it’s their job in their head. It’s their job to ask more questions. And so you have to learn how to finesse. So if you’re me the storyteller, right, I don’t dare go too long on an example, because I’ll just give that person the opportunity to come up with ten more questions, because they come up with a question every half sentence, just how they’re wired. And so you I guess the best example I have is years ago, starting out, I was in the leasing industry, running a large apartment complex of 300. Minutes. And this man was so cute. His name was Dan. I’ve never forgotten him. And he would come in and he’d see us every couple of weeks. He was trying to find a new place. He’d lived in his last place ten years. So that was critical to know he wasn’t just making a willy nilly decision. He had a clipboard. And on this clipboard were all the things like refrigerator, dishwasher. He had eight apartments, right? He was looking that he wanted only luxury. And they all had this. Every box was ticked off. Well, nobody knew this. One of the leasing agents got them one time and another one the third time. I said, Dan, you’ve been in here so much, we love you to death. Would you show me your checklist? He showed me his checklist. I said, Well, Dan, everything is the same here. And everybody’s got everything. And price doesn’t seem to bothering you right now because these are all kind of in the same range. What’s the one thing you don’t have on this list that you really want? He couldn’t answer that because he’d have never thought about it that way. And I said, so let’s talk aesthetics. Dan, do you like a sunny apartment or a shady apartment? Do you have plants? Do you have this? I went into all of the stuff that he probably has, but he hasn’t thought about. I sold him, because asked the key question. I went for what He was not measuring.
Odiva Vasell: (40:26)
Yeah, he had security blanket of a checklist.
Marla Koupal: (40:33)
But he wasn’t thinking about his heart. He wasn’t thinking about his space, what was going to feel good? What did you want to come home to? He got the cutest apartment. It was the top studio we had. It looked over the of our three acres of lakes and the fountain went off. And he could sit on his deck and just feel like he was in the Bahamas and. And he was there ten years later. I left probably within a year and a half and bought my business. But he he was there ten years later when I went back.
Odiva Vasell: (41:06)
This is such good information. So I want to just ask you for the fempreneurs that are listening, the entrepreneurs that are listening, and they have such a big heart for working with people, helping people, coaching people, but they have not honed that skill of selling because they feel a conflict between selling something and just sharing your gifts and really being authentic by just giving it away. How do we bring it to their attention that selling Is a key skill that they need to grow.
Marla Koupal: (42:02)
You know, I’m always having that conversation with myself. I don’t know that I have the exact answer, but I do know that if anybody keeps running around and thinking that sales is pushy, sales is sleazy, that they’re going to have to shift that mind that somehow. So I try to have the conversation with people. How did you pick that up? Are you repeating somebody else? Are you repeating the norm that’s out in the community? Or are you what feels awkward to you? That’s why I try to do Masterminds, because I find it takes a long time for people to shift their filters, their internal filters, to why they have that feeling and to let them go ahead and experience something in a safe environment. Try on this open-ended question. What did it get you? I find everybody’s ready to give a solution and take care of something. But wait a minute. We take people’s power away when we are the only one with the answer. So this is why we can have another whole big discussion on the word empowerment, because it doesn’t fit we it is our job as a salesperson to help people make a powerful choice for themselves. So if we want to help people, we help people when we help them step into their power. Even if they’re buying something. If they’re buying a coaching program, they’re buying a tube of lipstick, whatever it is, by setting up a conversation well enough that somebody feels like I’m making the choice I want to make. See, I don’t have buyers remorse. I’ve sold for enough years that I can honestly tell you I’ve never had buyers remorse. And I never thought about that. But it’s like, sure, somebody can come back, but I make sure my people are really. Ready. So my best clients are those people who have that concern but are willing to give it up. If they want to believe that they are going to be pushy, then I can’t help them. But if they’re willing to give it up, take on these skills. So we’re talking skills. We’re not talking mindset. We’re talking skills. And when you grow these conversational skills, you get a competence. And you and I were talking about this earlier. Competence builds confidence, and confidence builds consistency. So I have consistency because I’ve been at this over 35 years, but the people that are just starting out don’t have too high of expectations of yourself. So that’s the other thing I want to say is don’t have don’t have inappropriate expectations. And so I try to help people measure what’s appropriate to say. Wow. That was a success today.
Odiva Vasell: (44:55)
Okay. So it’s growth. It’s a process of growth. It doesn’t have to be nailed in just a click of a button. We’re not robots.
Marla Koupal: (45:07)
It’s acquired. You’re born with it. I have to tell you, it was rough for me in the beginning. My dad was in sales, but my mom was a guidance counselor, and I watched her listen to people. And I read something once that said, the power in a sales conversation is in the seller’s listening. And so as much as I’m one of those people that I will talk at the drop of a hat, and I want to tell you everything. My first sale, my first big sale when I was 25, and this would be a million-plus sale today, was about $300,000 to a college community. This is in the old days when you’re printing college catalogs. It’s long before the Internet. And my boss was flabbergasted, and he wanted to come with me on the sales call. And I said, you can only come if you keep your mouth shut. I have this deal almost closed. I don’t sell like you do. I don’t push like you do. I’m not going to do a deal. I’ve got them ready to say yes. You just have to sit there and watch. And that was cocky of me. But I knew in my heart of hearts he’d lose the sale. Because I had massaged it. I had worked it. I knew how these guys—I couldn’t have described to you their behavior at that time, but I watched their behaviors, and I knew how fast I could run with it. I knew how slow. I knew when to back off. I knew when to be there. And I closed it. It was about three hundred thousand dollars. Twenty-five made a $300,000 deal. That was like making a $2 million deal.
Odiva Vasell: (46:54)
You brought the best of both worlds. You watched and you listened and you learned.
Marla Koupal:(47:02)
And then I had to manage my boss! You had to manage your boss. And I was surprised he did keep his mouth shut because I think he was surprised somebody asked him to do that.
Odiva Vasell: (47:15)
Excellent. So the keys were competence, confidence, and then consistency. Bringing those three together.
Marla Koupal: (47:25)
Right.
Odiva Vasell: (47:26)
All right. Yeah.
Marla Koupal: (47:28)
I get tickled when I see people marketing. You just need consistency. Well, wait a minute. If you don’t know what you’re doing, what are you supposed to be consistent with? And if you don’t have confidence, you’re going to reinvent every day. This is why people are jumping from class to class to class, because they’re still reinventing.
Odiva Vasell: (47:47)
Interesting. Okay. All right. Well, Marla, I love what you’re talking about, and I know people are going to want to hear more about this, so I will definitely be sharing the information so that they can join and get in touch with you. But I really want to thank you for sharing your knowledge with us today and putting some Fempreneurs on the right path.
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Conclusion
In the world of sales, reaching your full potential comes down to getting really good at connecting with people and communicating effectively. This conversation sheds light on the importance of going beyond just making a sale – it’s about being real, staying true to yourself, and finding the sweet spot between understanding your audience and building a genuine connection. By keeping it authentic and mastering these principles, you’re not just honing your sales skills; you’re building real relationships that can drive your success. Take the advice from this conversation along with you as you navigate the sales journey, knowing that every honest interaction opens up new opportunities for your business.