Sales Experts Reveal How to Become Objection-Proof w/ Bob Burg & Jeff West

They say this, you say that. Just that idea sets up a conflict. So what are they going to do? Well, the ego takes over. They're going to resist. They give you an objection, but it's not the real objection. They don't know exactly what the issue is. So what do they do? They default to the your price is too high. I've got to talk it over with so and so I'll think about it. I'll get back with, you know, the whole thing. If you do the. Well, if they say this, if they say the price is too high, then you say, well, you may give the perfect, absolute, well-rehearsed, exceptional answer to the wrong objection.

Welcome back to the Profit Your Knowledge Podcast. Today's, today's guests, plural, uh, are gonna be awesome today. Uh, we have Jeff West and we have Bob Burg. So two powerhouses in the, uh, the personal development space. And, um, just, you know, really smart guys. And I'm super honored to be here cuz, you know, I, I've known about, um, Bob Burg, he co-authored the book The Go-Giver with John David Mann. It's been, Uh, just a huge pillar in my business and, you know, uh, Jeff West, the first time I get to meet him, but I was reading their new book that's out. It's called Streetwise to Saleswise: How to Become Objection Proof. And, um, I got sucked into the first 2 free chapters, so I'm gonna read the entire book cuz I'm really invested in the characters and it's just a beautiful parable about, uh, you know, how to grow in, uh, in your business. So I'm really excited about this. How you guys doing today?

Doing great.

Great. Yeah. What a joy to be with you, James. Thanks for having us.

Yeah, absolutely. So I want to hear, you know, my first real question, uh, with The Go-Giver, for example, was it's a parable. It's a story that you're telling about these different characters and this one character really, and how he meets these different characters and the lessons learned in terms of, uh, developing goodwill and good business and that kind of stuff. And, uh, this book too is a parable as well. It's a story. And I just kind of want to know, like, how did you guys meet together and put your heads together and say, like, let's write this book and then kind of construct this beautiful story and all the lessons? It's just so intricate to me.

Well, you know, it's kind of interesting. Bob and I now have known each other for a long time, 20-plus years, been friends and, uh, always had a lot of respect for each other. Bob— I learned so much about sales from Bob that made my career take off. In the insurance industry. And so we just became friends over the years. And I had written a couple of other parables. The Unexpected Tour Guide was in 2014, and then Said the Lady with the Blue Hair, co-authored with Lisa Wilbur, who is a direct sales legend, crazy big producer. And she and I did Said the Lady with the Blue Hair last year. And about fourth quarter last year, Bob and I, we were— we communicate all the time anyway. And he had sent me an email about something, and I read it and His last little sentence in the email was, oh, by the way, keep this. It was about a particular sales conversation. Said, keep this information. It may make it be great to refer back to when we do our parable. And I said to Bob, I replied back to his email that I said, by the way, if you're serious. Oh yeah, we're in. I'm doing that. I love it because I've always loved parables. The Go-Giver is one— is obviously one of my very favorites. And so I love stories and I love to teach with that.

Yeah, I think, you know, parables being stories, they connect on a, on a real heart-to-heart level that a how-to book— now I've read, you know, hundreds if not thousands of how-to books, and I love them, and I learn from all of them, and most of the books I've written have been how-to books, uh, but I've always enjoyed parables. I, I enjoyed it from the first time I read, uh, Og Mandino's Greatest Salesman in the World 40 years ago when I began in sales. I think stories like anything else, again, they connect on a deep heart-to-heart level and we take in and we receive information a lot easier that way. And I think it's stickier that way. So when you find somebody like a John David Mann with the Go-Giver series, when you find somebody like a Jeff West who can just— a guy who was— and this guy was a big, big not only salesperson but sales leader. With a huge insurance company, internationally known, and he had a remarkable career. And then he just kind of morphed into— he decided he wanted to be a writer. And he is a storyteller. He's one of these down-home country storytelling kind of guys anyway. So that— but he studied it. He's worked at it and became a great writer. And so, so yeah, I absolutely, you know, I wanted to kind of bring this objection-proof thing to the, to the forefront because objections have been a bane to salespeople, probably from as long as there's been selling.

Oh yeah.

And it doesn't have to be. And I knew that Jeff was the guy who could take the story. And Jeff, there's a lot of— it's not just like it's my stuff and Jeff wrote it at all. I mean, this is like a— Jeff still wrote all of it, but a lot of it's Jeff's wisdom. And so, yeah, it just seemed like this would be the right medium to put out this story and bring something to the marketplace that, you know, it seemed people would be ready for.

Yeah. No, I love it. And it's like I said, I was reading the two chapters and I was just getting so sucked into the characters. I do want to touch on this because this has become really important to me. I've noticed in helping my business just grow, not quite nearly as big as you guys, but, you know, I've grown a lot in the last year. And a big part of it, I think, has been because of story. And just incorporating more stories in my business, whether it is being on a sales call, you know, and sharing a certain story at a certain time that just really, it sells the person on working with me. Cause they're like, that's where I was at and that's what I want to do. I read the book Expert Secrets by Russell Brunson. I was in Sweden for 2 weeks and I just took a book with me in my luggage and it was awesome. And he talks so much about stories. I think it's a really great skill for experts to develop. Cause like you said, stories stick, our points can stick better. It also just captivates people. They retain, the information longer, they want to stay in it. So what advice do you guys kind of have— you pick whoever wants to go first— um, for the listener to develop and start sharing more and better stories?

Uh, Jeff, this is your, your wheelhouse, my friend.

Okay, well, you know, there's a process that happens in the brain when we hear stories and all that, and it's a process— when you get further on in the book, we talk about this a little bit. I branded it years ago as fusion points. But it's basically when our emotional center of the brain connects with the logical center of the brain. When those two things combine, it produces some interesting results. Every emotion, immediately the brain sends a somatic marker down into your body and you start to feel something different. Now, if it's a negative emotion, you want to run away from it. But if it's a positive emotion, you're comfortable going toward it, moving forward toward it. And so I talk about fusion points being that moment in time where logic and positive emotion merge and ignite. And when it happens, it creates commitment, it creates acceleration, it creates energy. It does so many things that are helpful in any business, regardless of what the industry, regardless of whether it's sales or it's not. But in particular, in the sales process with a story, what happens is if your story elicits, as they're hearing that, mentally, it's going to create images in their mind, and it's going to create an emotion. And your stories are either going to create something that makes them want to go toward that, or maybe it creates an emotion where there's something else going on that you're helping them solve, so they want to get away from that and go toward you. So it all works the same. And the story process is the thing that makes that happen. And without the connection of the emotion and the logic, they're not going to make a decision. So your story is what makes that happen.

Yeah, that's beautiful. Do you have like a, um, a certain framework that you like to follow? And can you give some— I mean, we can't go too deep into the whole thing, it could be a whole masterclass, but just kind of like some touch points for people to follow if they're going to kind of create their own signature story or anything like that?

Well, it depends on, of course, the length that they're doing, but if they're talking about something they're sending out to their followers or something they're maybe going to use on a stage or something like that, The story should always set the scene for the— what's the issue that's going on that you're going to help them with? Like when I'm one of my— every morning I get Bob's Daily Impact email series and you can just kind of watch the format. He's talking about some different things. He sets it up in a story and then he'll offer some suggestions. I do the same in my email series that goes out. But if you start with a story, even if it's a short story with an arc, It's got a hero's journey where we see somebody we kind of like. We don't know yet, but we, we, as, as our, our mutual friend John David Mann says, we get the hero up in the tree, we throw rocks at them, we want them, we want them to be struggling, and then we want to get them down from the tree. And that's a pretty good story arc for just about everything.

Yeah, that's awesome. So when it comes to, you know, you guys talk— I haven't read the entire book yet, but I'm definitely picking it up as soon as we're done here. Because I thought, I thought it was still coming out. But, uh, becoming objection-proof, what does that really mean?

Yeah, so that's such a great question. Um, objection-proof is both a philosophy and a methodology that allows the sales professional to work effectively within the objections aspect of the sales process, both before and during the actual sales conversation. So rather than trying to overcome an objection, which, by the way, is pretty much an impossibility—

why?

Because to overcome, which, by the way, has a similar Latin root as the word convince, convincere, and convince means to conquer. Now, James, I got to tell you, I don't know about you, but Jeff and I have discussed this often. We have never met a prospective customer or client who wanted to be overcome by theirselves. Now, someone might want to be overcome with love, but that's usually their, you know, thing that they initiate, right? They don't want to be overcome by it. So, so what happens is in sales training 101 or within the company training or books, and again, this is not to diss any kind of training in any book. There's wonderful training out there and wonderful books. But you have sometimes that, that, well, your job is if you hear the objection that, you know, they say this, you say that. They say this, you say that. Well, there's a couple challenges. One is just that idea sets up a conflict. That sets up, as Jeff would call it, a collision point, you know, instead of a fusion point, right? And so, and they don't like, so what are they going to do? Well, the ego takes over. They're going to resist. You know, very few people ever, you know, ever say, oh yeah, I was wrong. You just go, no, they don't want to be overcome. So it sets up that collision. It's what we call push, push. And nobody wins in that. Now, instead, and the other thing is a lot of times they give you an objection, but it's not the real objection. I'm not saying they're lying. Okay, that's a difference. If they are, then this is a trust issue and you've got to start all over again and over. I need that. It's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is because we as salespeople know our product or service process, the whole thing, well, you know, we're very comfortable with it. But they, it might be depending upon what it is you sell, this may be their, you know, once or twice or 5 times in their lives are they ever going to have to. So they don't know. They don't know what to expect. They don't know the questions to ask. They don't know if the question they want to ask is a silly question and they don't want to. So what happens is they don't know exactly what the issue is, but they know there's like the old Spider man cartoon, you know, the Spidey sense. They, they sense there's something that just isn't. So what do they do? They default to the. Your price is too high. I've got to talk it over with so and so I'll think about it. I'll get back with, you know, the whole thing. So if you do the. Well, if they say this, if they say the price is too high, then you say well, You may give the perfect, absolute, well-rehearsed, exceptional answer to the wrong objection. Okay? So what objection-proof allows us to do is rather than try to overcome it or overcome anything, we instead work effectively within the actual— we work with the prospective customer in order to determine the actual the root of the objection, the real cause of the objection, then together as partners, we can work together to advance the sale.

Love it.

Do you guys think that story is a great tool to use in helping overcome objections?

It becomes important at a certain part. You know, in the book, we use the characters to illustrate the Objection Proof process that Bob's been teaching for decades. And, you know, we teach, we teach it in a story fashion to do that so they'll retain the lesson. And basically, though, being objection-proof is so focused on how you as the salesperson can really help that person solve a need. And it's not about whether you want them to buy or not. If they've got a need and you're focused on what it means to them, how their life gets better, after you're working together, then if they do have an issue that comes up that they voice, you can work with them sitting almost side by side emotionally with them to do that. A little bit of a story kind of might come in on the objection-proof process when you get to the point where you really understand the solution and you start to, or you understand their objection and you start to reframe their thought process just a little bit. And you can, you'll often use a story in that where you're showing them there's another way we could look at this. And would this work in your scenario? Can you see this making that a livable situation? That it's in the solution. And then a little bit in the social proof part that you might have a little bit of story coming up in there.

Yeah. Yeah. The reason I ask is, you know, in Expert Secrets, Russell Brunson made a great point about how everything is a story that we have in our mind, which is based off some sort of experience that we had. You know, if I bit the dog or a dog bit me when I was a kid, then I have a story inside my mind that I can't pet dogs because they're gonna bite me. But then if, if someone shows me a new experience and a new story of their own life of like, look, it's not true, then I start to believe in a new opportunity or a new story that, okay, maybe it's not going to actually harm me. And that's kind of like what I think about when I'm on a sales call too, in terms of stories. When I'm talking with people, I help people build online courses, digital programs, and that sort of stuff. And I've been able to create passive income in my business by doing that, which is amazing. And that's where a lot of people are curious about how they can do in their life. And they'll share like, yeah, I wish I could just like travel and stuff. When I mentioned earlier, I read the book Expert Secrets, went on this trip to Sweden for 2 weeks. I made the decision that I wasn't going to make any money. I wasn't going to— no, I wanted to make money. I didn't want to do any work while I was on the trip because every time as an entrepreneur, I'd always take my work with me, my, um, my laptop. I'd still do meetings and I have a ton of family out there, so I just wanted to be with my family. And we went out 2 weeks. I scheduled things. I was just hanging out and, um, I ended up making $8,000 on that trip and I just read my book because everything else was taken care of and I made sure of that. So when I share that story with people, they start to see the opportunity and be like, oh, maybe I can do something like that too. And then it's like, let's do it. Cause I've done it and I can help you.

Exactly. Um, that's a wonderful story. I, I— that's a perfect example. Uh, Zig Ziglar told a story about 45 or 50 years ago in one of his books and in tapes. That's how long ago it was. Jeff and I always joke about how, you know, we both have the gray hair, we're both long in the tooth. I think I'm a year older than he is, but we, we're both like from that old, you know, the old days where it was cassette tapes, right? Which most of the kids listening to—

what are those? Yeah, right, I'm kidding.

Exactly, you know. And we used to call them cassette tape albums, right? But so he told the story about his son Tom. First of all, a customer had told them that the price of Zig's product was too high. And Zig asked if he was— when he says the price is too high, are you talking about the price or the cost? And the person said, well, what's the difference? And Zig said, well, price is a one-time thing. Cost is a lifetime thing. And, and let me give you an example. And he told the person this story about how his son, little Tommy Ziegler, who, by the way, Tom Ziegler now, a great guy who's carrying on his dad's legacy and one of the great teachers and trainers and speakers of today. But he was like 10 years old. And so he— Tom wanted a bike. And so, so they went to the Schwinn store where it was like $100. And then they, they too much for a 10-year-old kid. $100 too much. Let's go to a discount bike store where they got a bike for like $40. And so, uh, in the— within the first month, there was a breakdown of this. They had to take it back and it was $20. And another breakdown, it was $10. And then there was one more breakdown within 6 months and they just threw in the towel. And, and he bought Tommy a $100 Schwinn bike. Okay, so they used the Schwinn bike for about 10 years. The last few years, Tom was play riding it, but basically, uh, the price of the one bike was $100. The price of the other was $40. But the price of the $100— the cost of the $100 bike was $10 a year because it was $100. They had no, you know, no problems with it. The other one, which they got for $40, and there was, you know, $30 of this and $10 of this, ended up being, you know, $90 a year if they had, you know, continued. So the cost was $90 a year. As opposed to $10 price and cost. And that painted a picture with a story that, you know, his prospective customer could tell, you know, who had kids and he could understand, right? So by telling this in the form of a story, it wasn't like he just said, well, if you get my product, then maybe the price is higher, but the cost will be lower. Instead, he told them the bicycle story and that painted a picture and a fusion point as Jeff talks about, that, that ended up having the sale take place.

Yeah, that's so powerful. And like you were talking about earlier, Jeff, of like the emotion, because as we know and we hear all the time, it's like that's what sells people ultimately is that it's emotional and then it's backed by the logic piece. So stories are such a great way to articulate that. I'd love to ask you guys, you know, there's a lot of people who listen to this podcast and they want to, they want to get started building a business. They're like, I know I have something great inside of me. I just need to I need to get it out there and I don't know how. So I want to hear from, from you guys each. What advice would you give to someone who's thinking about starting, starting an online business in like the knowledge sort of space?

Hey, Jeff, you or me first?

Go ahead if you'd like, Bob. Okay.

Well, first, you know, James, in the online space, they need to get with you because you're the expert in that, in that arena. So, you know, and that, that kind of goes to step number one. Well, actually, before step number one, there's a concept. There's three steps to this surrounded by two concepts. The first concept is know your desire. You know, all, all great accomplishment begins with desire according to Napoleon Hill, right? And I think there's something there. So what is it that you want to do? What is that desire? Have that in line. Now, the first step is seek out the information or learn the system. This is where someone like you comes in. Now, what is a system? I define a system as simply the process of predictably achieving a goal based on a logical and specific set of how-to principles. If it's been proven that by doing A, you'll get the desired result of B, then you know all you need to do is A and continue to do A, and you'll get the desired result of B. To do that, find someone who's already done it. That would be you. Okay, so find someone. Seek out, find the system. Number 2, take action, right? Action without knowledge is the same as not having any knowledge. So don't wait until you're perfect at it because you ain't going to be even when you get good at it. Okay, so apply the information immediately. Step 3 is outlast the no. Be persistent or outlast the nos. Understand that discouragement, nos, failures is going to be part of the journey. Now, you know, Jeff and I have talked about this and we both agree that what What knocks a lot of really great potential sales stars, entrepreneurial stars out of their business, what makes them quit too soon, okay, is not getting the nos. It's thinking they're the only ones getting the nos.

Right?

They see people on, you know, on stage and the trophies in the office or on the wall or the pictures on wherever and, and oh, that person just they just got in the business, everything. Well, we know that's not true. And as, as you know, one of the mentors in the story, Andre, tells Thaddeus, the protégé, you know, he says it takes a 5-gallon barrel of nos to get a quart of yeses, but the quart of yeses will set you free. All right. So be willing to get past nos. One of the best books on that topic is by our friends Andrea Waltz and Richard Fenton called Go for No. Where they totally reframe the word no. And it's— they do an absolutely magnificent job at it. Go4no.com. It's fantastic. So step number 3, outlast the nos. And then the other asterisk, the other concept is belief. Belief in your mission, your vision, your purpose and what you're doing, and belief in yourself that you have what it takes to make this happen. And I think when you combine all of those, you've really got a great formula for success.

Yeah, that's beautiful. The only thing I would add to that, because that's exactly the formula for success that has worked in every business, if someone's going to build it, great. And it's what Bob's been teaching for so long. And the only thing I would add to that is the idea of fusion points isn't just about making a connection with a client. Sometimes it's about making our connection with our own persistence, with our own success. And, uh, for me, that was that process when I finally got that. Of course, my strongest emotional centers are around my daughters. They have been since the day they were born. I tell everybody I fell hopelessly and helplessly in love with two girls the first time I met them, the day they were born. And so that emotional context there is the strongest I ever had. So what I did is I created my own personal fusion point because every time I was getting ready to walk in the door, give them the logic of why they needed to do business with me, I also looked at my pictures of my girls, which to quote— I'm giving my age away here— but which was hard copy in my Daytimer, not on my phone where I could just screen through it. And but I would look at that and it would remind me why I was doing it. You know, you'll hear people talk about finding your why. That is what they're doing is they're trying to get you to create your most powerful fusion point for your own personal persistence. And it's that persistence that will later bring you success. So the only thing I would add to the mix is people that are building this, the followers that you have, they need to get personal with themselves and ask themselves the question, what's the one thing in life that will keep me from ever quitting on what I'm doing. And when they find that fusion, that fusion point, it, it keeps them in the game even when days are tough.

Yeah. So powerful. I just, I love the fact that you guys really hit home about the persistence piece and staying in the game long enough to succeed. I remember I thought there was one very pivotal point where I thought about quitting my business And I was in construction work before I started my online business. I went into life coaching and then it went to productivity and evolved into Profit Your Knowledge. And there was a point where I was just like, I'm trying everything. I'm not making any money. I think I should give up and I should just go try and become a firefighter and do something different or go back into construction because I know I can do that. But I thought of that. It just sunk my heart. I was like, I couldn't do it. I was literally on the phone with a friend of mine to even go into the military and considering it. And afterwards I just sat and I asked myself like, what's the work that I can't not do? You know, what's the thing that I just, what do I really want my life to be? And I really just got personal about it and it was doing this stuff. So I decided to stay the path and I think in the next week or two I decided, okay, what can I do? I started planning, I decided I was gonna do this big workshop and I ended up having my first $10,000 day shortly after. Like imagine if I quit, you know, I would've never done it.

And another great story by the way. Way that you just said. Another great story that makes the point much more than just saying to somebody, don't quit. Right. Painted a picture of exactly what it's like being on the brink of quitting, but then not.

Yeah.

And that there was a reason you couldn't.

And the crazy thing about that, the crazy thing about that workshop too, is that I spent so much time promoting it. I had about 50 people registered, which for me was massive at the time. I was like, this is gonna be my biggest online workshop yet. Showed up to the event, nobody showed up, not a soul. And I thought, dang, what am I going to do? Well, I can either stop and go get some lunch or I can push through and just do the workshop anyway. So I did the workshop, was going through it because that's what my mentors taught me. Like, just do it anyway. If it happens, you can practice. And I get about a third of the way through and someone comes into the meeting and I was like, I have a friend now. So I stopped the recording and I just looked at him like, hey, I'm totally fine with restarting about a third of the way through, just super transparent. He was like, Okay, yeah, sure. So I restart and I start going through the whole workshop. At the end, I offered a coaching call with me, strategy session, and he was like, that was amazing. Thank you so much. I'd love to do a coaching call. He booked the call a little while later, a couple of days. We ended up doing our coaching call and it was a great conversation and I ended up offering him my coaching package with that, which at the time was a 1-year, $10,000 paid-in-full coaching program that I used to offer. And he paid in full. So it was just the fact that nobody was there, this guy shows up halfway through and then just loves it and continues to go and sign up. Like, there were so many points where I considered quitting, but I just pushed through.

Well, I love that story.

Again, I'm loving your stories. When, when you have your book out, though, all, all 3 that you've told us during this conversation needs to go in that book.

Yeah, I got plenty more of them too, just stay in the path over the years. So that's awesome. Well, right on, guys. Um, we're gonna come in here for a landing, and I just love to ask, where can people learn more about what you guys are doing and where can they pick up the book, that kind of stuff?

The easiest way to get the book, I recommend, is going to StreetwiseToSaleswise.com. It gives you the synopsis of the book. That's where people can download the first 2 chapters, either in audiobook or in PDF. But that's the easiest place to go, and it'll have book retailer links there that you can go to as well. Uh, I, I, I tend to geek out about books that I like a lot, and I get, I get multiple copies. Like, I get, uh, I'll get the Audible version because I want to hear it. And Bob and I did the Audible for this. And then, uh, but that's the easiest way to go there for me, fusionpoints.com for me. But, uh, I'll let Bob point you in the direction for him.

So, oh yeah, burg.com, and they can subscribe to my daily impact, uh, email if they would like. But yeah, Streetwise to Saleswise is where you're going to get the info on the, on the book.

Awesome. Beautiful. Thank you guys so much for the time. For the listener, I know we talked a lot about, you know, handling objections, not even handling them, just like processing with the person really, and creating that new opportunity for them, using stories to inspire people to really not just tell people like, this is why you should pay for it because it's going to save you money. It's like telling the story of how that how you've actually lived through that and how that's really impacted you. And that's gonna make a way bigger impact and create that emotion and desire for them to push through. And that's been huge in my own business and my own life. Um, so it totally works. It's awesome. And I'd highly recommend checking out, um, Bob and Jeff's book Streetwise to Saleswise. It's awesome. Again, I've read the first few chapters. I went to that same link, which I'll put down in the description, and, um, I got hooked in. So now I'm gonna pick up the official book. And read and listen along. So biggest thing though, I hope this lesson or this episode inspired you. The biggest thing is that you do something with it. Implementation is your only superpower. So take what you learned here, get out there, make something happen. We will see you in the next one.