Episode 059 - Overcome The Common Sales Objections

If they don't have the money, they don't have the money. That's, that's a really hard thing to, to overcome. So really what you got to look at is, are you willing to, you know, spread those payments out and make it a little easier for them to buy that product or service over the course of 2 or 3 months? Or are you willing to offer them a discount? A lot of times, you know, those prices in programs are very much inflated and a vanity value. All right, today's episode, we're going to be flying solo. Jodi's under the weather this week, so you got just me here on the show. We're going to be talking about overcoming objections in sales. Now, I know when you hear that word sales and selling, for a lot of people that provides a lot of discomfort. I know for myself, I consider myself not a salesperson. I'm in marketing, I'm a people person, I like working with people, I like hearing their stories, I like helping them overcome objections or challenges that they have. But when it comes to when you think of like traditional sales, you think of this pushy salesperson that is trying to, to make somebody buy something even if they're not ready to do that. And I don't like that feeling. And you may be in that exact same boat. Now my goal by the end of this episode is for you to understand some of the common objections that people would have in the sales process and maybe take home a tidbit or two of knowledge that you'll be able to incorporate in your own sales process to help you close more deals and grow your business. So we want to talk about overcoming objections in sales. Now, I was looking up a statistic before I, I recorded this episode, and it said about 36% of salespeople state closing as the hardest thing to do. Okay, now what we mean by closing is that point where your prospect or that person that you are trying to sell to makes that commitment. You know, it's the point where they say yes or they purchase, you know. And a lot of times, you know, they may do it online where you send them a contract and they have to sign electronically and make a deposit. You know, that's really the close. I mean, the soft close part of it would be them saying yes, send it to me. But the deal's not closed until they actually put that pen to paper or that money in your bank. So there's a lot of things that may come up along the line, and you have to make sure that you have proper systems and proper follow-ups, you know. And I like to give you an idea of what you consider scripts. Now, I'd say not going word for word and reading from like a written script, but role-playing and understanding if some of these objections come up, how do you position to overcome those in your business? Now for us as a marketing company, a lot of times we do initial free consults with people 'cause we wanna identify the challenges, hurdles, or obstacles that they're facing. What are those pain points that they have? And that's gonna be a key leveraging point because in most cases, and probably in your business, you will help somebody overcome something with the product or service that you sell. And if you don't know what that thing is initially, it's hard to leverage that and play it back in the close or the end of the sales process. So let's go through some of the common objections that you may come up with in your business when you're doing some sales. Number 1 being financial concerns. So your prospect, you know, maybe you've got a $3,000 product or a program or whatever and the person is kind of like, well, I don't know if I've got the cash flow for that right now and things like that. Well, if they don't have the money, they don't have the money. That's a really hard thing to overcome. So really what you gotta look at is, are you willing to spread those payments out and make it a little easier for them to buy that product or service over the course of 2 or 3 months? Or are you willing to offer them a discount? A lot of times, those prices in programs are very much inflated and a vanity value. Why a $3,000 program has already been built, you probably could sell it for $1,000. Okay, and it's how you position that that may be able to help you close that sale. If you feel that that person's gonna be a good long-term client, then you might be willing to take a little bit of a cut or loss off the top end by showing some good faith and reducing that price and making it affordable to them. A lot of times if they say, I don't think I have the cash flow for that, you know, coming back with, well, what kind of investment would you be willing to put forth to get this outcome? And then just be quiet and let them tell you what they think they could do. The next thing that you may overcome or may come up against is somebody seeing a lack of features. Now, you've probably done your best job to come with the features in your products or in your, your programs. And if there's just a lack that they think, okay, well, I think it should have this, and I think it should have that, in my opinion, it's not a fit, right? Don't go down and try to keep pushing for that sale because they're always going to feel that it's just not good enough or there's not enough features for them in the sale. And in that case you can say, well, you know, those are some great ideas and maybe we'll look at putting those in in the future but right now this is the program or the product and where it stands today, okay? And leave it like that. What I've seen sometimes is when you take that stance the person will actually come back and say, you know what, I've looked at other places and other services and I really just wanna work with you. So a lot of times just standing your ground and setting them adrift, they'll come back because they've been impressed with the way that you do business and the way that all your other clients have talked about you. So your reputation is gonna stand that test of time. Skepticism, right? There's another one. They're skeptical about how your product will do what you say it's gonna do. The outcomes of the service that you're going to provide. Now, if you've been doing this product or service or program for quite some time, right, you're probably going to have some social proof. People who have been through the program have given you testimonials. That's a great way to overcome that skepticism. You may not be able to do it right on that sales call, but you may be able to provide that follow-up. You say, you know what, I know you have some concerns about how we actually can get you from A to B or A to Z, We actually have people who have gone through the program and have said exactly how they've been able to do it. What I'm gonna do is after this call, I'm gonna go ahead and I'm gonna send you an email with a couple of those testimonials in it for you to actually see what other people have experienced. Does that sound good? Right, get them to say yes, right? You want them to say yes. Now I wanna interrupt this episode for just a second here. You know what, I've been a small business owner for well over 20 years and I work with hundreds of small business owners over that lifespan here at Blue Cow Marketing. And this month we put together a small business salute. We did it on YouTube in a video format, but the audio is still very relevant to you as a small business owner. So I want to play that for you. It's only 50-some seconds long. Take a listen and we'll get back to the episode.

Running your own business is hard. Those long hours, the doubt, the challenge to meet demands. But you're resilient. Strong. Dedicated. You do all of this for more than profits, success, or money. You do it because you care. You care about the people who shop here, eat there, drink here. You care about your community. You care about your team. Despite all else, you care. No matter what life throws your way, you power through it. With grit and perseverance. You are the epitome of dedication. You are a small business owner. For this reason, Blue Cow Marketing salutes you.

Like I mentioned at the beginning, I love the passion that you bring to your business, the work that you do each and every day. Let's get through 2021. Let's make a great 2022. And now let's hop back into the episode and hear the rest of overcoming sales objections. The next one is you're not speaking to the decision maker. This is huge. When you— if you've ever done any kind of top-end sales training, they want to make sure that you are speaking to the person that has the authority to say yes. A lot of times when you're trying to sell to big businesses or companies, you're going to get the gatekeeper, you're going to get the, the executive assistant, you're going to get the the admin assistant, you're going to get a junior person there that is really kind of doing that initial research and trying to book those initial calls. So it's key in the first phases to say, you know, do you have the authority to move this project forward or to say yes to move this project forward if we deem that it is a fit, right? You want to find that out initially because if you don't, what you're going to do is you're going to waste a lot of time. You're going to go through that whole sales process They're gonna say, this is awesome, this is great, now I gotta get my boss to learn all about this. So now, two things are gonna happen. You're either relying on them to relay all that information that you had told them over and they're not gonna do it the same way that you have done. And then it may not be a great experience and they're probably not gonna say yes. Or, you have to go through this all again with the decision maker. So you wanna make sure you got that decision maker on that call or consult. Timing issues are another one. It's just not the right time. Okay, what I say about that is still get them feeling great about what you can do for them. And if they're adamant about this isn't the right time, have them tell you when the right time would be. Right? I understand this is not the right time for you to enter into this program or to buy this product. But I really think that you would have the benefit of the outcome of this When would be the right time for you to start this or to purchase this or whatever? Right, again, let them tell you and then have a process in place to follow up. So if they say, okay, well, you know, right now recording this, we're in the fall, and they say, well, you know what, probably in the spring. I'm like, okay, so how about I follow up with you in April and then we can rehash this and start discussing how we can make this a reality. Would that be something you're interested in? Yes, perfect, okay, so I'm gonna give you a call on the 1st of April and then we can talk about it then, alright? So then have a process in place that leading up to that April 1st, maybe you're gonna send them a little more information to kinda rehash and really bring out the features again about what you're going to discuss, right? It's okay, have that automation in place to do that so that when April comes around, you're able to then speak to them about and continue that conversation about the product or service that you have. Indecisiveness, right? They can't just make a decision, they're on the fence, right? Maybe asking them, you know, what is it about this product or service that you're not sure about, right? And then let them tell you what their objection is. Why are they indecisive? Why can't they make that decision? You know, and it may be just their personality, they just can't make that decision. And for a lot of people, you know, it's a protection barrier. You know, I personally, when I'm on a sales call for something and the salesperson is trying to make me make that decision at that time, and I haven't had the time to do all the research to convince myself they're the right fit, I won't commit to it, right? I'll be indecisive because I, by nature, will wanna take that time to go and research and do all the social proof validation and all that kind of stuff and then come back to them, okay? So you wanna make sure why they're indecisive. Competitor comparisons. Maybe you're in a field where there's a lot of competition and they're trying to compare apples to apples and they wanna know how do you stack up against it and they're gonna probably say, well, this company does this, can you do that? So knowing that that is a potential obstacle, having a competitor comparison chart where you can see where you line up against them in all features and benefits is going to be key in your sales process. So have something like that developed and be able to speak to it and make sure that you're very aware of all the different features of your competitor, even down to the price. You may be more expensive, but there's reasons why you have a higher price point. The next one is they're already under contract. Now I run into this all the time when people are coming to us to help them with web design and they have an existing website and maybe we're building landing pages for things. I'm like, well, you know, can we get access to your website to do that? And we'll hear, well, I'm in a contract with XYZ web company and they control all that. They don't have given me access to it and they feel like they can't get out of it. Okay, that's a viable concern, right? That's something that may happen to you. And in some cases, depending on the contract, you may just have to wait until that's over. So you can ask, when's your contract up? And it could be a year, it could be a couple months. You say, okay, here's what we're gonna do, right? If you're willing to move forward by, you know, 6 months from now, what we'll do is we'll start a month or 2 before so that we can get all the preliminary work done that we need to do so that when you get out of the contract, we can hit the ground running and then get going with that. Does that sound good? Right? Or in some cases, you just have to wait till the contract is done if they're not willing to break it. You know, another concern is maybe they have contract concerns. Maybe you have a contract in place. Where you require them to pay a monthly fee for a whole year. Right? And there has to be a reason why you know exactly why you've put that in there. Right? It's not because you want to hold them into it and gain all that, that revenue from it. You know, when we've created a marketing program, where people pay monthly to work with us to get, you know, their marketing plans figured out, learn how to use the different tools that are out there. We, on purpose, don't say it's just month to month because they would try it for a month and it takes, we know, a couple months for them to get up and running and start to see the return because it takes time for marketing to actually work. Where if we allowed them to just go a month, they could cancel and then they don't see the momentum or the value of it and they feel like we're not providing them what they needed. So we say, okay, anytime we work in a marketing engagement, it's at least a 6-month engagement. Then from there you can go month to month. After that, because we know that after 6 months, the system is up and running, and people are starting to see that return on their investment. So it's very easy for them to continue on and on and on. So understanding those contract concerns— so if you have a contract, and you're the front end person talking to the prospects, make sure you understand 100% every different clause that is in your contract, and why it was put there, so you can speak to it. Now the second last one is brush-offs. Okay, they're just brushing you off. You know, I'm not, I'm not interested. I'm not this, but you know that there's something that they said that you could provide a solution for. Now you've got two ways that you could potentially go with this. You could try to keep pushing to try to get them to understand the value of what it is if you really want to make that sale with them. Or you can go the other way and just let them be. Right? I am more inclined to just let them be because I know if they're going to be that much, you know, that adamant, I guess is the word I'm looking for, to keep brushing you off and not say, well, this isn't the right time. I'm not interested right now. Da da da da, but call me back, call me back, that kind of thing. They're not valuing your time. So when you start to work with them, that trait is going to stick around. And do you really want to work with somebody who is doing that. Okay. And what I really meant by brush-offs was you reached out to them to talk, and they were doing something else. And it's not the right time. They're not paying attention. So you go, can you call me back in like an hour? You call back, you don't get them, you get the voicemail, then you're playing phone tag, you finally get them, they're not fully engaged. And like, you know what, I'm not ready now. How about another month? It happens. It happens to me several times. You know, in the run of a year. And what I've learned is I've identified who those type of people are in their traits. And I say, you know what, I'm not even going to follow up. I'm like, how about you give me a call when you're ready? You're not going to hear from them. They're not going to call you. Okay. So that's just my experience with that. And lastly, and the probably the one that I absolutely hate, it's the one that is like nails on a chalkboard for me, are the people who are stuck in the status quo. And what I mean by that is, you tell them about, you know, this is what we can do, this is what our product offers, this kind of, you know, helps you, you know, innovate your process or whatever it is, right? Your business is different than my business. And what they say is, well, you know, this is the way that we've been doing things, you know, for X amount of years. And it's, it's, you know, it works for us. Now, The reason I have a problem with this is because they're not willing to change. That's one of the reasons. But two is, especially in our process, people have to come to us because they want a solution to a problem. And if there's a current problem that they don't have the ability to fix with what they are currently doing, and it made them reach out to us to book that consult, and we told them that, hey, this is a great solution to that problem, because X amount of people have been able to do the same thing, overcome it, whatever it is. And they say, well, you know, we've been doing this for so long. What's the reason for you to actually reach out to us? Right? So they're not willing to change. Why are we having this conversation is what I'm saying in my head. So one of the key things that I ask You know, when somebody books a free consult with us, our Keep system will automatically email them back in a couple minutes and say, hey, you know, we're looking forward to our consult together coming up on whatever day. I just want to know so that I'm prepared, what's the biggest thing you hope to achieve or get out of our time together? And have them reply back to us. You know, a lot of times we can put a custom field into the booking form where they have to fill that out, it's required, because we want to know What's their motivation? And we hear things like, you know, I really want to find how I can leverage marketing my business online more effectively, or my website's not working, or I need to start producing some videos to use on YouTube, right? Things like that. And that's why they want to talk to us. So I know that's what I need to speak to in that consult and really give them a solution for achieving that. And that's going to help them get over that. So we covered several different objections that may come up in sales. If you're very new to this and you're starting out in your business, what I'm going to suggest is you start to think of what are all the reasons why somebody could say no, right? What are those problems? I listed several of them. And write them down and come up with all the flips on those and what could you speak to to help them overcome that. And I guarantee, and I'm going to say this, and you're going to experience this at some point, you're gonna be like, Shaun was right. There'll be something you never thought of that comes up. And what you have to consciously do is write that down, and then work at adding that to your objection list, and start to figure out how can you with confidence, be able to speak back to it. And there's nothing wrong at the time where if it comes up and you don't have a rebuttal back to it, to be able to say, you know what, that's a really good concern, right? And just acknowledge it. So, you know what, I've never thought of that. That's a really good concern. And you know what, you know what, I can't give you an answer to that right now, but I'm going to follow up and find a solution for that, right? Just be open and honest because people are so well researched now in their process of buying new products and services, that they can smell when you're lying to them. That BS alarm goes off loud and clear in their head. So the ability for you to be able to just be real, honest, and just say, you know what, you know, and sometimes we just can't compete with that. So if they're like, well, this person can do it for, you know, 50% cheaper, can you do that? And we say, no, no, we can't, we can't. This is our price based on these things. We just can't compete with that. By all means, you know, if it's price and that's the reason why you're making a decision today, then by all means you can, you know, go try that other provider. Alright, just see how you make out. If you need us, we're here, but proceed that way. So overcoming those objections in your sales, it's a hard thing to do. It's very uncomfortable if you're not well-versed in it, but the more more you do it, the easier it's going to be.