Overcoming Objections in Your Sales Conversations - Part 2

Welcome to the second part of Overcoming Objections in your Sales Conversations! If you missed Part 1, then take a moment to catch the goodness that I shared with you last week. 

Just to recap, in this series, I’m talking about objections we get in our sales conversations and how it handle them. I started with how we have our own objections that we wrestle with and how to look at what comes up for us in the way of resistance. When we do, this helps us be more proficient at handling our potential clients' objections! It’s really a win/win situation and can be so helpful for us and them! 

The most objections we get come in 3 categories: money, time, and checking in with someone else. So let’s jump back in…

One of the best ways to diffuse an objection is to agree with them. No one needs everything you offer. Listen first to the outcome they want, then show them how you can get them to that, or a better outcome. 

 One of the best ways to handle most objections is with a process that I learned a while ago, and I can’t seem to find the reference for who started it; however, I learned it from Alan Berg. And it’s so simple yet so effective. 

There are 3 parts to it: Feel, Felt, Found 

1. You want to feel: empathize with their situation
2. Felt - show them that others, just like them, have had this same thought
3. Found - is what you wanted to say to overcome the objection, but doing that right away would be confrontational.

Now what does that mean? This is what we're looking to create with your buyers. And I’ll show you in a bit how the Feel, Felt, Found comes into how we respond to the objections that come up.

Have you ever had that moment when you're meeting with somebody and they say, “Oh, this is great. I'm all in and I'll sign tomorrow” and then they float away and they ghost you. Well. What I want to do is show you how to not have that experience because where you are is in a moment of truth with somebody, not where they're in resistance. 

Remember last week, I said the one thing I have learned is to be prepared and positively expect resistance to show up when I meet with potential clients? AND to not be surprised when it does come up?

So, I know now that I get to choose what I do when these moments arise. 

In my own way, I’ve been able to to start to decide what is or is not a priority for me. It’s a freeing feeling when we can choose, this is not an investment for me. I simply say no, if it’s a no.

Here’s a great example: Several years ago, I got a call to see if I would be interested in bidding to open a flower shop in a luxury hotel in DC. At first, I thought my friends were punking me…Then I quickly realized that it wasn’t a joke! There was a bid process and I was one of 20 they asked from the research they had done of florists in the area that they would like to represent the hotel. So, I talked about it with my husband. And, at first, I started to have resistance…my mind wandered....what if I couldn’t do it? Would I have enough money? What if I don’t write a good bid proposal for it? 

Then my husband brought me back into the conversation when he said, What do you have to lose? You’re at a great position with the shop now and you’ve got a great team going here. You don’t have to have the exact cash, but why couldn’t you do this? My business side kicked in and was like…I get to step into this without knowing and take this opportunity. Keep my mind open and ready to receive. 

It ended up that I made it to the final 3 for them to decide and they chose me! AND, I made it happen. AND, the money came. 

Here’s another opportunity though…a few years later, I got another request to bid to have my shop inside the Pentagon. Again, I was faced with some questions. This time, though, I went through those questions differently. The resistance I felt was like it wasn’t going to be a good opportunity for me. The numbers didn’t line up. And, I said no. It felt good and I didn’t second guess myself. Here's what happened. I made a decision. I made it a priority. I stepped into action. And everything I needed showed up. 

This is what you start to give to your potential clients when you get on a call and you hear, “But I don't have the money.” And why I told it as a story is because you’re going to do the same thing. 

So, here's your first assignment…

I want you to write down two examples that you're going to bring to every single consult or client meeting when you hear someone say, “I'd love to, Jane, but I don't have the money.”

Story number one is a time where you didn't have the money. But you said yes. And the money showed up. I promise you all have one of these stories. It may have been for a little amount or a large amount, it doesn't matter. But it was that moment where you step forward first, and then suddenly the money showed up.  

The second place I want you to find this story is a client or customer who purchased from you when on paper they did not have the money in the bank and it didn't make any sense. They said yes, first. The money showed up – second, because ladies and gents that's the only way that it actually works. Now I am not a proponent of being willy nilly wild and crazy. Go rack up credit cards and not actually have the money. What I'm talking about is when the thing that you know will completely serve you shows up and you are aligned with the service with the person with all the pieces and you step into commitment. And by stepping into commitment, you take action first. 

It is nearly impossible for the money not to show up. Now. Here's my asterisk, my one caveat and this will save you a lot of headache when you are talking with people – is to know – is this resistance or is this legit that they are struggling to survive. 

So this is the question I ask, (and this is a writer-downer moment - so grab your pen and paper). If somebody says to me, "Christi, I'd love to but I don't have the money". I stop and I say, “I understand how you feel about this. Let me ask you a question because I want to do a check-in here before we go any further – Which is true for you: Do you not see the money in your account to maybe make the second payment or you don't know how you would pay for the entire thing? Or are you right now struggling to meet basic needs? And what I'm talking about with basic needs is, I mean a roof over your head, food in your stomach, taking care of your family”?” Then I stop and let them answer…

Did you see where the first thing I said was that I could understand how they FEEL about this? I’m bringing in the FEEL part of this conversation. This is a conversation with them, not some one-sided sales job! And here’s the thing, I believe that the transaction transforms people.  

I still remember when I had the opportunity to buy my first retail flower shop. I had been working out of my mom’s basement for 10 years and was dying to have my own shop. AND, I remember reaching out to my grandfather for the loan to buy the shop. He said no. Not because he didn’t have it, but because he wanted me to experience this and do it on my own. It was devastating to me. I thought he didn’t believe in me and yet, it was the best thing that ever happened. Because I suddenly took full responsibility, I did what I needed to do and I took it upon myself to be completely personally responsible and go find the path. 

Now, if they answer that they can’t even meet basic needs, then here’s what I do. And I recommend that you choose what is right for you to say. I say, “Here's what I want you to do. Instead of saying yes, I want you to go get yourself shored up with your basic needs.” then I will give them a point in the direction of a free resource or someone/something that can help them. You see, I need them not to be so struggling to survive that they don't have enough energy to work with me and to grow with the work that we would be doing. 

Now, if it comes down to somebody simply not knowing how to gather the money, well, this is my favorite thing. (And this one's another writer downer because you're going to see a pattern so we're gonna go through all these objections). I say, “I’ve been in this situation before and I’ve felt exactly this way too. Would you like me to help you find a way?” 

There, did you see that I’ve used the word FELT in this part of the conversation? Think about this for a second. Have you ever been in a sales conversation where there's a thing that you know will solve all your problems, get you exactly to your vision, and you look in your bank account and you're like, I don't know how I can do this. You know it's the thing that will change your life and it’s what you want and you cannot figure out how to say yes. You don't want to leave that sales conversation and be like, “I can't even have that or do this”. What if that person who was selling to you would say, “Would you like to talk about how we can do this?” You would want that, right? So when you get to be that for another person, it is a game changer.  

Now, these are my two tools that I use this way:

1. Again, I tell the story of the other people so that they can see that somebody else has done what they're about to do. When somebody else sees it's possible for someone else, they start to believe even deeper for themselves. And this is the “found” part. I’ve found that one of my client’s had this situation, and you go into their story. Or, I’ve found when I’ve come up against this, I had to do this…and tell my story. 
2. The second thing is I give a little assignment. So here's my “go get some money assignment” and I tell the story. (This is a great tool and I highly recommend you use it.) “So, I’d love for you to play this game with me. It's a fun little game, and it's a game that should be done with speed and I put one more rule to it. You can't censor yourself. And once we do it, you need to take action on all of them. Okay? Now, I want you to write down 25 ways you can come up with the money to do what we just talked about.” Now here's why it's 25 and you can use whatever number you like. I just like to go more than 10, sometimes more than 15. Because the human brain is such an interesting thing. We have the ability to almost become a magnet for all the good that we want. We can also become a magnet for all the crap that we don't want but when we start to ask the question, “How can I?” 

Here's what happens in our brains. We literally become like a little machine of finding the way to get what we desire. So by sitting down to do an exercise of say, “How can I come up with the money” simply by asking yourself, how can I? 25 times turns you into a Resource Finder. Have you ever had that moment when you start to think like there's got to be a way for me to do something and you go take one little step and all sudden the doorway opens and you're like, oh wait, I know how to do that. I know how to do that and suddenly you're on your path. That's what happens. So I ask them to write down 25 ways they can come up with the money. 

Now the reason why it's so many is because the first couple of ones are going to be very logical straight lines. Remember how I said no censoring? Sometimes when I write down this list, I write down: take a nap or take a walk. I write down what comes up with my stream of consciousness as fast as I possibly can. And again, the rule is to go take action on this. If you want to know if this works and you want to make a little extra money in the next couple of days for yourself. I would recommend that you try this exercise yourself for fun. Put a number that is really important to you in a circle, and then write out all the ways; and then you start taking action on them. 

The way that I like to start taking action is this...

I pick the two on the list, one that feels like oh my goodness, I don't want to do that – I am resistant. There's no way I want to do that. And then I pick the one that seems the easiest. And I go do both of those first. And by doing that, it usually propels me forward to my goal. I'm also going to tell you this, nine times out of 10 I don't have to do all 25 to get to my outcome. 

I'll tell you a story of how this worked for one of my clients. So I met this wonderful woman, she was in a space in her business where she had pivoted and almost nothing was working and she was getting to that dire place. Some of us had been there before where the clients are coming and the bills are starting to go up. And she came to me and she's like, “Christi, I know we need to work together. I know we have a solid relationship here. And she's like, I'm in a spot. I don't know what to do”. So, I said, “Let me give you this exercise. I want you to go do it. I want you to take 10 days, and then let's get on a call and see how it goes”. 

So she wrote out all of her things. And one of the things she wrote out was to go to the bank and get a loan. And she's like, “Christi, there's no way any bank is gonna give me a loan. I'm a single mom going through a divorce. I have a mortgage on my house. She gave all of her list and I said, “Remember what we're supposed to do. We get to take action on all the things”. So she went and talked to the person at the bank. They denied her loan, of course. And then right before she was about to leave, they said well, there's something strange on your account. We need to check something out real quick. Do you know you have a home equity line of credit that you've had for seven years that you've never touched? 

So when they originally went to file the papers for their house, they also set up a home equity line of credit and she had tons of equity in the house. And there was all this money sitting there that she didn't know she had any access to. Now the fun part – she didn't even need to use all of it. She took a tiny tiny little portion and stepped into motion to get herself rolling again. AND here's the key – had she not gone to the bank, she wouldn’t have found out about that line of credit just sitting waiting for her. It's the other thing of sometimes when you get into motion, it puts you in the path to meet other people. 

Here’s another one, years ago, I had a venue as a prospect for my event business. I reached out to them and invited them onto a call in the efforts and hopes that we'll get into a working relationship that we both benefit from. And we get on the call and guess what, it’s a no. And at the end of the call, they said oh but you should talk to this person I know. They could really use your services. I talked to that person. And not only did that person become my client, they became some of my best referring clients. Can you see that when you walk in the direction of what you want, it comes with you to all your sales conversations. And, you get to do the same thing when you walk your clients through their resistance. 

Okay, how do you know if I don't have money as a true objection and you can walk them through the resistance or if they are simply saying the thing that they know you are okay hearing because here's the thing about sales. Does anyone here like to say no on a sales call? Probably not. You don't feel good when somebody goes through the whole process and they're like, here it is, and it can change your life and you're like no. Unless you’re really, really are a hard no, you're probably going to say something like, “You know what, let me look at my numbers and I’ll get back with you” or it’s just “a little this or that kinda thing” and let me get back to you because you don't like the feeling of actually presenting a “no”. So how do I know if somebody is blowing me off? Or if they are simply needing to be walkthrough resistance is all about specifics. 

Here's what I mean. When someone says to me, I just need to go check my accounts, I think fantastic. Do you need to go to the bank or is this online? Is this something you can do tonight right after our call? I asked for specifics. If somebody gives me specifics, they are legitimate and that's what they are going to do and then they are going to purchase. If somebody is vague or they can't nail down openly “I just need to look at my stuff”. That person is giving you the “I want to leave the sales conversation and I am not going to buy” and then I simply allow that relief. 

Here’s another one that often comes up and most often it’s more about the money too. “I’ve talked to another vendor and they’ve given me a better price”. This is where you can use the FEEL< FELT< FOUND conversation again. When your potential clients come back to you and say, “We found a lower price with another person.” What they really are saying to you is “We want to book with you, but this lower price is making me confused.” Think about it. If they had found everything they wanted with the other vendor, AND at a lower price, why didn’t they book them? Because they really want to work with YOU! At this point, it’s not about matching their price. AND, please don’t get offended at them, they obviously want to work with you or they wouldn’t have even come back to talk to you.  You get to remind them of the value that you are providing and what they will get by choosing you. Here’s where you can use the FEEL-Felt-Found. And feel free to use this verbiage or adjust it to what feels comfortable to you.

“I understand how you feel and thanks so much for coming back to me to discuss it. I had a client the other day  who also looked around and found an offer for a lower price to work with them. What my client found is that a lower price point isn’t hard to find. Which made her realize that it’s really not about the price for her, it’s the person that she gets to work with that makes all the difference. And that’s why she came back and started working with me. Are you ready to book with me now? We can get going on this today.” 

It doesn’t matter what business you offer, this type of reply would apply to every one of them. You each have a moment where someone was on the fence and chose you. Use that story to win them and help them see the value of working and growing with you. 

 I hope you’ve been finding this series helpful! Tell me what you think about the tools I’m suggesting for you to use. Are you willing to step out of your comfort zone and use them to gain new clients and grow your business?