Overcoming Objections in Your Sales Conversations - Part 3

Welcome to Part 3 of Overcoming Objections! To recap real quick, in this series, I’m talking about objections we get in our sales conversations and how to handle them. If you missed Parts 1 & 2, then take a moment to catch the goodness that I shared with you last two weeks. 

Click here to read Part 1

Click here to read Part 2

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!

And in the 2nd Part, I talked about the biggest objections we get around money! The most objections we get come in 3 categories: money, time, and checking in with someone else. And in the Part 2 of this series, I talked about the biggest objections we get around money! 

So let’s jump back in and talk about the “checking in with someone else” objections we often get…

Okay, here’s a second objection that comes up: I need to talk to my partner, spouse, family member, etc. This one is one of my favorites because another way this presents itself is with anyone who sells to corporate contracts. A lot of times when you are dealing with multiple buyers, this shows up even if it's not a partnership-type moment. For instance, I'm currently in talks with a company where I'm talking with the director of marketing. The CEO is the person who's going to actually be making the purchase, and I'm not even talking with her. So I need to empower the person I am speaking to to have a frank and honest conversation with the person who is actually holding the purse strings. So back to the whole “how I do handle this objection myself” question – let’s talk about how to help other people through it. 

First and foremost I’ve decided not to use those objections/excuses myself. Meaning my husband and I have a great deal of trust. We run different businesses. I do often involve him in the conversation about it, and I don't let him make a choice for me, because the truth of the matter is he's not in my business. So it's not his choice to make on that. I know a lot of times I work with clients who possibly aren’t making any money in their business and their partner does need to make the payment. 

Here’s the key though, you want to be in command of the sales conversation.

So what I want for you to do is remember that while you're in that conversation, if somebody is not 100% "Yes", and they go talk with somebody else then often the protector shows up. Here’s what I mean, it’s like the inside of our subconscious mind that says, “This is change. Don't do it.” This is what I mean about your protector showing up. And I always like to tell the story of one of my beloved clients, her first time purchasing coaching, she bought a $5,000 offer and she went to her husband, she was like, I'm struggling. I need this. It's gonna solve everything. I'm doing it. And he said, Yeah, you need to do it. AND she hadn’t made any money in her business yet. He said, "take something out of our 401k, and just go ahead with it". 

Then later, she was offered an invitation for another package (another vendor completely) to grow her business, and it was about a $30,000 investment. This time she went to him and said, I think this is what I need. Because I need to figure this out. And he goes, “Nope, that's a bad choice. I don't think you should do that”. She came away thinking that he said that because it was 30k and the one was FIVE. And come to find out, it wasn’t about the money. It was about her certainty. When she came to him the first time, she was 100% this was for her and it lined up for him to say, yes go do it. The second time, she wasn't 100% certain. She was still trying to figure out if it was the way she should go. That’s why he said no. He was the protector of her resistance. 

So here's how I coach my clients through the “I need to talk with somebody else” objection. I say, “Before you go and invite another person into your decision process. You need to be 100% Yes, or 100% No.” And then I give them an exercise to help them get to 100% Yes. 

After doing this exercise, when they are at 100% Yes, then you go to the energy of discussion versus permission with the partner. Now, here's the other thing. When I am selling to somebody, and I know they need a different person's approval, I find out who the third person is and I coach them through how to describe the services I’m offering to the other person. So some people need to buy because they feel confident, they feel good about it, and they don't need specifics. 

And, also I've had clients for large events where each person got a copy of the proposal AND I’ve had coaching clients where I shared a PowerPoint for them to share with their partner so they could see the practical facts on paper. And as soon as I started doing that, they started to feel empowered when they were saying, here's what I'm going to do and here's how it's going to work. You simply need to know what that partner person is going to say. 

And then here's the key. This is the one that makes it work. Because you need to know if this Is resistance or is this an objection? Are they going to buy or not going to buy when somebody needs to speak to another person, business partner, spouse or anybody? 

So I say,  “Great. Let's set two appointments. Appointment number one is when are you going to talk with this person.” Then I guide them through having that schedule-based conversation. For instance, if this is a romantic partner - don't do it at a time with the kids and everyone's all over the place and you're exhausted. You have your natural set time to talk. AND, if you're going to talk with the CEO of a business you know that you need to get on their appointment calendar, and Thursdays perhaps are their worst days. Don't talk to them on a Thursday. I walk them through making the time/appointment and how to have that conversation. And then I say, “The second appointment we’re going to make is when you and I reconnect.”  This way, instead of having this be a flyaway “Oops, I talked to so and so and I didn't get what I needed.” lost opportunity, I get to have a second call scheduled so we can get to that “yes” conversation. 

Now, let’s talk about the time and timing objections.

These two objections go together. What I like to do is talk about internal urgency. When you can activate the internal urgency within someone then that is how timing becomes irrelevant. You will legit not be this person again to buy what you are buying right now. I want you to go back to your own time resistance. When was there a time that you said, “This isn't the right time for this.” Or “This just isn't the right timing. I've got too much on my plate right now.” 

I always give this example. Going back to a few years ago when I had this lovely conversation with a woman who was going to do some PR for me, it was great. I was all in. However, she didn't take my credit card over the phone right then. And it was right around the holidays. So I said, just follow up with me and then we got off the phone. And you know what happened? Between that two weeks before she reached out again, I was invited to do something else in my business and I shifted my decision by the time she followed up. I wasn't a yes to buy from her anymore. I literally became a different person in that space. 

So what do you do when you line up with someone and they have a timing issue?

Here's all you need to do. It’s the same thing as I said before, grab a story from a time where you knew, I gotta jump into this now, timing. Where you were overwhelmed. There was too much on your plate. It didn't make any sense. But you said yes to something, made it the priority and helped you step into what you needed. 

And then, one of the times it worked for your clients. So I remember one of my past clients. She never showed up live for anything in a six month program we were doing. She was commuting and doing lots of stuff. All she would do was listen to the recordings of everything and she would send me an email question and I would answer it live. And she listened to the recordings later. She had some of the best results I've ever seen on any of my clients. Why did it work? Because it was a priority for her. Now I've used the word priority quite a few times over the last few blogs and I want you to introduce this into your own vocabulary and also to your clients. 

There's a way to talk about priority that kind of hurts my heart a little. AND I'm going to say it because it's a really powerful one. So if any of you are parents and you have a child who shows up and needs something from you and you're like, “I'm busy right now, I'm busy right now.” I want you to practice saying something: “Honey, you are not my priority”. Does reading that gut you like it does me? Think about it. Maybe that's happened to you before where you've needed something. And then somebody said,  “Oh, not now. Not now”. What they're saying is, “it's not my priority”. 

Why do I want you to do this? (and please don't actually do that to your children) I want you to retrain yourself to say what is actually true. It's okay if something is not your priority, but when we use phrases like, “I don't have the money”,” it's not the right time”. “I need to talk with somebody else”. Anytime we use those objections or resistance. What we're doing is we're actually blocking the things that we want. Here’s the best thing: when you step into saying a true no, all of a sudden, you line up for everything you want. 

So if there is something that you are trying to make a decision on, if you've been invited into something and you're like, should I or shouldn't I? When you stay in the land of indecision, basically you have no reason to get the things that you want. A great example is, you know how I said in an earlier episode, where I make the decision, the money shows up. Have you ever had a moment where you are given an invitation to something and you're like, gotta wait for the money, gotta wait for the money, and then the money doesn't ever show up? Why? What's the difference? The difference is the decision point. When you make the decision, the resources have to show up. And here's the best part. I said decision, not a yes. You can say no and still get the results and here's how. 

If something is truly not a fit for you and you say no. All of a sudden other opportunities are gonna pop up that will be the right one. So I want you to pay close attention to helping people and remembering what is your role in a sales conversation. Your role is to guide someone to a decision. My sales process is called, “Getting to YES in 5 Steps'' and that's what my goal is. AND I want each of you when you are doing your sales conversations to be able to get somebody to a yes, AND more importantly though, you get them to a decision. “No” is powerful. Because “no” allows the next thing to show up. A Yes, it's fantastic. AND if it's a real yes, we need to go all the way through the resistance, all the way through the objections, and have somebody in a place of solid-knowing “Yes”. 

So my invitation to you is instead of dragging someone over the threshold, instead of forcing, instead of being worried, "what if?" -- going forward, on every single sales conversation you have, you get to step in the position of saying, “how can I help you get there?”. 

Let me know if you’ve found some nuggets in these tools I’ve been sharing with you. I’d love to hear your stories of how you’ve gotten through resistance with your clients!