Mastering Confidence in the Face of Objections: Insights from Nancy Bleeke

Hello, my friend, and welcome to another exciting episode of Negotiate Anything. Thanks for joining us today. With over 10 million downloads and listeners from more than 180 different countries, it's dedicated listeners just like you who have made Negotiate Anything the number one negotiation podcast in the world. I'm your host, Kwame Christian. I'm a business lawyer, mediator, author, and the proud CEO of of the American Negotiation Institute. Now, before we get into today's insightful conversation, I have a golden opportunity for those of you who recognize the power of negotiation in your professional lives. Have you ever found yourself wishing that you could navigate those high stakes conversations with more confidence? Or perhaps you're looking to empower your team with the art of persuasion and conflict resolution? At the American Negotiation Institute, we've crafted specialized keynotes and workshops tailored for those very needs. We've transformed the negotiation skills of professionals worldwide, and we're eager to do the same for you. We believe the best things in life are on the other side of difficult conversations. And our goal is to help you improve your lives and the lives of those around you one difficult conversation at a time. Don't let another challenging conversation leave you second guessing. Click the link in the description to discover how we can help you find confidence in conflict, negotiate better deals, and have stronger relationships. Because in the world of business, every conversation counts. And now, without further ado, let's jump into the interview.

So, Nancy, thanks for joining us today.

I'm so glad to be here.

Kwame, we're glad to have you. So how about you just get us started by telling us a little bit about yourself?

Well, I'm a sales growth consultant, and I help companies, more specifically the people within them, become more competent and confident in all of their sales conversations.

That is the most succinct response we've ever had. Well, I could go on and on.

But for your audience, isn't that what they want to know? I mean, I got the stories I'll tell you, but maybe we'll get into those later.

Oh, for sure. Oh, we will. This is going to be good. I'm very excited because this is going to be the first episode where we actually dig deep into a specific skill. And I know you are the perfect person to talk to about this one. So how about you tell the audience a bit about this skill that you're going to teach us?

Well, I am going to teach the stop, drop, and roll technique for responding to objections.

Very nice. So let's get deeper into that. So what exactly is the stop, drop, and roll technique? And how or when do we use it?

Well, let's start with, you know, when we use it. So in sales conversations, that's really what I focus on. My book is Conversations that Sell. And it is about that human conversation that needs to happen often for people to make a decision or to take an action on something that we need them to do next, to move them along the process for buying our product or service, which I call our solution. So I don't have to keep saying product and service. We use solution. And along that conversation, no matter how good we are, no matter how effectively we are at collaborating through all the pieces of data gathering and presenting what we can do, typically there's a concern or objection that might be voiced or might be silent. And so it's in that moment that that happens. What do we do? What needs to come out of our mouth to preserve all the hard work up to that point in that sales opportunity? Because, Kwame, you probably have seen this. A lot of people blow it right at that moment.

That's absolutely true a few times, myself included.

Yeah, me too. Right. Because at that moment, we're so invested, and maybe we have what we call happy ears. We really think this is going great and we're going to get that decision and walk away with it, that order or that, you know, buy. And all of a sudden, now there's a barrier, and right then there's the fight or flight reaction that kicks in for us. And for that, let's call them the buyer, the prospect. Because there's an interruption. It's a disruption to this conversation now because maybe they're afraid to bring up something, you know, that they don't know how we're going to react to. Because people as buyers are pretty conditioned that if I raise this, I'm now going to get a hard sell. Like someone's going to really jump on me and try to talk me out of it or talk me into something. So they've got this, you know, adrenaline flowing. And the sales professional, they've got that fight or flight reaction going, too. Because we're wired as humans that when we feel we're in danger, we need to fight or flee. So we need to bypass that in the moment that we hear that objection. Because with that adrenaline going, the likelihood of us being able to work through that objection is very, very low. And I think that's one of the keys. This is about working through the objection with another person. It is not about handling objections. It is not about overcoming objections, because nobody wants to be handled or overcome in My view now, as a lawyer, you might, you know, have a different approach to that.

That is funny.

But most people don't, right?

Right.

Okay. So in that moment, we can train ourselves to use stop, drop, and roll. Now, this isn't the stop, drop and roll we learned, you know, when we were in. What do you call it?

Grade schoolers? Kindergarten.

School. Kindergarten, yeah. Way back when where we're rolling on the floor. This is mental and verbal rolling. So the first thing we do is we hear an objection and we have to just stop. And that is train our brain. Stop, stop, pause and listen. Hear that person out. Don't interrupt. Because that's what people do. They want to interrupt and start giving them more information. Stop, pause and listen. Then we have to again, mentally drop our assumptions, our agenda, our emotions, and our ego. Then we can open our mouths and roll with acknowledge, ask and answer. So the first words out of our mouth are an acknowledgment. Not that we are agreeing, not that we're going to do anything, simply an acknowledgement that, I hear you, it's safe, and you have permission to, you know, go on. I'm not going to fight or flee. So it lessens the reaction on their end because that's not what they're expecting. We need to acknowledge, you know, that I understand, you know, what you're telling me, or here's what I hear. And we paraphrase back. And there's a big difference between paraphrasing and repeating back word for word. It's been found psychologically when people have something repeated back to them word for word, they start feeling manipulated. So we need to show that we're understanding with a paraphrase versus a word for word repeat. So we acknowledge what we're hearing. Then we segue into asking for more information about what they've just told us. Because many people, it's a stall or it's a easy concern that they first raised, and we've got to dig in and find out more about what's coming behind that. So take, for example, the pricing objection. If somebody says, well, that's just way more than we're willing to spend. You don't know why that's what they're willing to spend. So too often people will jump into starting to offer price concessions or different terms when they don't even know why, that's an objection. So they're offering concessions prior to knowing that that's what's going to be needed to work through it. So we have to ask to get more information to Understand what that objection really is from that person's viewpoint and very specifically keep them talking, which is opposite. I think, in some people's world of persuasion, where we need to persuade through our words, we want to persuade through our questions, because the more that they can discover and talk themselves through it, the easier it's going to be to work through it to a successful outcome. So we acknowledge, we ask, then once we have the information from our ask now we can answer. And in our answer, we can then give them suggestions, we can give them hope with ways that we've worked through that with other people. But that then sets the stage then for moving forward in a collaborative way and often coming up with the right solutions, solution together. So it's that simple. In theory. It's disciplining ourselves to follow that in that first. Those first moments.

This is really great information. And I have a lot of questions for you based on this, because I want to dig deep into this. And so early on, you said that sometimes the objections are silent objections. How do we know when we've experienced the silent objection if they haven't said anything?

So I propose that in our conversation, we need to ask for objections. We have to have a place, and we do it after we've presented our solution, that we need to ask for and work through objections, because often people won't raise them. So we have to give them the opportunity. You know, typically around this point, Kwame, this is when people might have some questions about what, you know, we've just laid out for you. So we're not saying, what's your objection to this? We're giving them an opportunity to ask questions which often then can come out as a concern or an objection. So we give them that opportunity to. And then, of course, you have to watch their body language when people start becoming disengaged, or you can tell that they're not focused or they're fidgeting or they're, you know, when you're with more than one person through, they're like, looking at each other. That's a great opportunity to say, you know, I'm sensing that you might have a question about what we're discussing. You know, feel free. We have to leave that door open and make that door open for them.

This is really interesting, and I really like this technique because, like you said earlier, it runs counter to what most people think would be the typical sales approach, because you are essentially seeding a little bit of control to the other side in order to give them the feeling of comfort and. And security. And trust to share their objections or concerns with you.

It differentiates you so much from everybody else that they're probably talking to. Right, because you're continuing in our whole philosophy in any sales conversation is the more that you make it about them, the more attached they are to the conversation and to the process and the more comfortable they are in making a.

Decision right now, for our listeners out there who are not in the classic sales role where they're giving pitches per se, how can they use that in interpersonal situations at work or even at home?

This applies everywhere. Now, the one caveat is it doesn't work great with teenagers or toddlers. But you know, in most situations, you know, when somebody is like, for example, say that you're planning on where you're going from dinner tonight, right? And you want to go out for Italian and your wife wants Chinese, but she's not saying, you know, she's just saying, I don't know, I don't know. I'm not really in the mood for Italian. I'm not sure, you know, that's when you can say, well, you know, tell me more about what you're, you know, hungry for tonight. And because she's got an objection to Italian and she'll say, well, you know, Italian, we always go to, you know, Tony's. And you know, I just am not. I don't like his chairs. They're uncomfortable, whatever the reason. And right then you can just say, oh, you know what? I guess I never thought about Tony's chairs being uncomfortable. I'm glad that you shared that. You know, tell me more about the type of atmosphere, you know, you'd like to go to where I can also get Italian food, you know, and now you've given her permission to give you more information about where she's coming from and then you can go from there.

I like it. I'm really excited about this because now I know how to handle that conversation better when it comes up. And I really like the way that you ask that question too, because you used an open ended statement. Tell me more about blank. And I think that's an underutilized way of asking a question because it doesn't end in a question mark. But asking questions in that way makes people feel more comfortable because it seems less accusatory because Kwame, when he's hangry. For our international listeners, hangry is hungry plus angry. When I'm hangry, my questions might come off like, what is wrong with Tony's, you know, why? Exactly why? And why can come off as Kind of aggressive at times, right?

Well, don't you lawyers use that all the time?

We love why.

Yes, we love. So right. So open ended our questions, you know, what, when, how. But there was those statements like you said and actually the publisher and I, way back when I was writing the book had this big debate that, you know, help me understand or tell me more about aren't questions or actually requests for information? So you can't, you know, you can't call them a question but like you said, they're a statement asking for information.

Exactly. Yeah. And what's interesting too, and I think this is what can be a challenge to some people that are new to this, is that our goal is to find out why. But the best way to ask the question that leads us to why doesn't start with why.

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Yeah, it could be, well what made you think this or well, not that seems kind of aggressive too. But going the route of the open ended statements or using how, how is another way to get around it that seems a little bit less aggressive. But the goal is to find why. But often asking why in that straightforward method could come off as too aggressive.

You know, recently I had a group of salespeople really challenge me on some of like the universal go tos that you can have ready at the ready, you know, in any situation. And I said, you know, one of the best ones is tell me more about. You can use that in most situations. Just tell me more about, you know, what you just said. Tell me more about the pricing, you know, situation. Tell me more about how the timing will impact this. You know, tell me more about those uncomfortable chairs and what else in the environment. Whatever it is, it's something again that you're really, if you're. And so much of it has to do with your tone and, and if your approach is really seeking to understand or whether you're trying to gather information to corner them in some way to then sell at them. There's a big difference in approach. So that's why, I mean, for me, objections, the more we think of them as, hey, if I get someone telling me an objection, it's a huge opportunity. It's an opportunity to find out where they're really coming from. Because once it's out on the table, we can work with that information and I'm not going to be chasing this afterward without really knowing where it stands. It's an opportunity often to uncover additional ways that they might need your help. Because depending on who you're selling to in a business to business situation, often the objections are about now what that person might need to do internally to get something through. And so you might find out about other decision makers that didn't, you know, come out earlier. You might find out more about the process that they're going to take to make that decision. You don't know what you can uncover unless you take that approach. That I need to learn more because the biggest trap, and we do, we, I listen to recorded sales calls for some clients, you know, to give them feedback and you know, through our training and such. In this situation, as much as people say, well, I don't really answer, I do do this, this is what I do. I want more information. And then you know what, in real time, they jump right to answer. A person says something that they're concerned about or that they object to, and right away that person tries to set the record straight on why they're wrong or gives that those concessions immediately. And both of those either, you know, damage your profitability and the viability of that sale going forward or, you know, shuts it down right then.

Exactly. And when you make the mistake of trying to answer without fully understanding the situation, you end up solving problems that might not even exist. And so to the point you made before, they might just start making monetary concessions when that really isn't the issue, thus hurting their margins.

Exactly.

So let's get into the most fun part of this conversation, the part that I have been waiting for this whole time. And this is going to be our role play activity. And so this is the first time that ever on the podcast that we're going to do a role playing activity, because people would say, hey, Kwame, this information is great, but what happens if the other side doesn't play nice? What happens if I run into objections? Those type of things. So you gave a really great example using the interpersonal situation of where stop, drop and roll could work successfully, but maybe we can move into a sales example. And I can be the prospect and you could be the salesperson, and we'll see how it works. If somebody's being a little bit difficult.

I just have to give this caveat. When I agreed to this, I didn't really think it through that you're a lawyer and that this could be like the most challenging thing ever. But no, I'm good. What's the situation?

Okay, so let's say you are selling. Let's just go with widgets as the classic non existent thing. And so I'm a corporation. I want to buy your widgets wholesale so I could retail them.

Okay. So let me just say this. You are a person, not a corporation. So what's your role?

Very nice. And that is an expert level question. So I would be the same in procurement.

Okay. So procurement people are trained to, like, make salespeople sweat. Oh.

So I picked the perfect person.

But I think that that's an important thing to think about when you're thinking about objections or when you're getting ready for them. Is that too often we forget that we're talking with a person. Right. We're not talking with a corporation in that moment. It's a person that we're speaking with.

That is a brilliant point. That. Yeah, that's. That is a quotable. That is quotable, for sure. I like that. Yeah, that's really good. It reminds me of. I think I heard it this morning in a book I was reading. They said sometimes we are so focused on being a high level professional that we become low level humans. Yeah.

Oh, that's profound.

Yeah. So the timing is perfect. I like that.

Okay.

Perfect.

All right. So, so. And then we have to set the stage a little bit more. So this is not like a cold call to you. Right. We've already had a discussion. I've already explained to you maybe what we can do and how we can provide the widgets. And now you've got your objection.

Yep.

All right, so let me go this way. Okay. So, Kwame, you know, as we've discussed, we're going to be able to provide you this palette full of widgets every month as you need for $1200 pallet.

1200?

Yes, it's $1200. I sense some hesitation in that. Tell me more about your thoughts.

Yeah. And you know, here at Kwami Corp, we value providing our loyal customers with the highest value products at the lowest price. And so with 1200, it's just going to be difficult for us to provide that value while still claiming the margin that we would like to have.

All right, well, you know, value, providing value is such a different connotation to different people. And so I understand that, you know, providing that value to your members is why you're in business as a wholesaler. So tell me more about that providing value and the margins that you look for, et cetera.

So we want to keep between, let's say, I don't know, I don't want to give too much proprietary information in this call, but let's just say we want to keep between 15 to 30% margins on our products. But the thing is, we want to make sure that we are only going with industry leaders with the products that we provide for our customers.

Okay, so you're looking for the best quality, as you said, the industry leaders, and maintaining that 15 to 30% profit margin on what your providing.

Right.

Okay. And so for what we're providing with these widgets, you know, what have you done with that in the past? I mean, do you have a similar quality to what we are offering? You know, what have you found your market is looking for?

We've had some situations in the past with our widgets where we were concerned about the quality. And ever since that incident, I don't want to name any names or anything like that, but after that incident, our CEO has been just a stickler on the quality of these widgets. So I know for me, there's a lot of internal pressure to make sure I'm making the right decision because the CFO is going to get on me if the numbers aren't right. But then the CEO is going to get on me if the quality isn't right. So really, I guess my job is to keep the CEO happy first. So quality is the biggest concern. So we're shopping around trying to figure out who is the best in the industry first.

So from what you have been shopping and the quality that you've seen from our widgets, I know you've really dug into all of the specs and such. How does ours stack up to what else you're looking at?

I know I'm trying to say this without giving away the name of the competitors that I'm that I'm talking to, but I would say you are number one or number two.

Okay, well, that's encouraging. That's encouraging. And so, you know, if we are the top quality or even number two in this situation, what value is that for your members? How do you place a value on what they're going to be willing to.

Spend it's a difficult question for this fictional scenario. So what I would say is really, let me put it this way. My customer is the CEO. And whoever can prove to me that they have the highest quality and focuses more on the quality, that's really what would sell me.

Okay. All right. And so, you know, you mentioned that the price, that was what your first reaction was. What you're saying really is the $1,200 a pallet might be more palatable if the quality is of the level that your CEO is looking for.

Exactly. You know, if we can prove, if there's something that we can using objective measures that the quality is top notch, I think we can make, I think we would be able to swing 1200. But again, it comes down to that question of quality.

Okay, well, Kwame, you know, the goal of us helping you then is to get that right product to your CEO. And so, you know, object. You said you need objective data. You know, on this. What type of data do we need to pull together that's going to help you make your case internally to him?

Well, first of all, I'd want to see a following because of course we have marketing, we market our to our customers, but we want to bring in products that already has a following that so we could possibly bring in even new clients or new customers to our store just by carrying you. So seeing a social media following would be huge. Seeing growth in your company would be very important as well. And also seeing great reviews. If we can see on various objective websites like let's say Amazon, that your product has a number of sales over four stars, I think that would be sufficient.

All right, well, I know I can pull that information together for you because you're not asking just about the product. It sounds like it's going to be important to show that we as a company are on a growth path and have that presence and branding so that it's easier for your sell through and bringing in new customers.

Exactly. Here at Kwame Corp. We don't associate with losers. So if you could bring me that information, I think we could have a deal.

All right, so we can end this role play. But from there, of course, we would go on to schedule. What's our next follow up? What information exactly I would provide you what's the time frame and possible? I mean, where I would go there is let's get the CEO in on that meeting smart.

And tease that out a little bit more. Why would you want the CEO on the meeting as well?

Because you let me know he's the Real decision maker in this.

Exactly. That's perfect. Yeah, you did a great job and the timing was really great because you weren't rushed. A lot of times when we're under pressure, we rush and that's where we make mistakes. And. Yeah, and the questions were great. You had me on my.

You really came up with some, you know, here's the thing about the whole not being rushed. And that is, as you just said, such an important thing. People will say, well, gosh, if you follow, you know, acknowledge, ask and answer, you're giving up control. And I believe that's how we're taking control is by slowing things down. Because at that point people do rush and that keeps that adrenaline going. It starts causing some mistrust. It's a false sense of rushed. You know, it's slow things down and take control again through your questions, not through what you're telling. You know, you need the right information to share, but you've got to, I say, earn the right to share that information again once you have them engaged back into a conversation. Because it felt like a conversation to me after the first question or two versus a negotiation of some sort.

Right. And you know what's interesting, because I was trying to be Tommy tough guy here, and so you saw my first response was like, what, five. Five words.

Yeah.

And I was trying to try to hold back as much information as possible, but because you asked such great open ended questions and open ended statements, I guess I should say too. And because you paused and gave me time, sometimes I was done saying what I wanted to say, but there was still space that you let me fill with more words. And it came off first, obviously as an objection to price. And I think that's in certain situations there are some default objections we go to. And so as an expert in this, in this field, you realize that most likely wasn't the only issue. And so you kept asking questions and found that it was quality.

Yeah. And very different from Price. Very different than, well, I can cut it to $950 a pallet. Would that work?

Exactly?

Yeah.

Very nice.

That was fun.

Yeah, that was. That was a lot of fun. I was afraid I was running out of imagination toward the end, but we got through it. So before you go, I want you to share or lay down a challenge to our audience. What is one thing that you think they can do in the next week to be more persuasive?

I think it's take the time to prepare, think about the most common objections you hear. There's typically two or three of them that you hear most often and then prepare to maybe get in front of that before it becomes an objection. So if you're always hearing an objection about delivery schedule, for example, what's the reality to those objections and how can you position the information around that earlier to eliminate that objection before it comes? So, you know, the practical thing is really about preparation. Most common objections, you know, when do you hear them? How might you prevent them before they happen? If you hear them, what are those first couple of questions or open statements that you should be prepared to ask to get them telling you more and prepare those out so that you know what? In the moment I watched this happen. I've heard this happen on recorded calls in the moment. Then when that objection comes up, you can just hear the rep just kind of smile like, I got this. Like, I know exactly what to do right now. I'm not surprised. I'm not. Whatever. And they can just kind of like, just settle back again and really take control without it feeling like they're overcoming or handling that person.

Right. This is beautiful. This is really great. Congratulations.

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