What do you do when you know you're not the right fit?
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Brooke Greening: But what do you do when you know you're not the right fit? For a sales professional to ask that question. That is a hard question to ask because our whole goal a lot of the time is to never say no.
Like we're always trying to figure out how can we make this work. But if we're honest with ourselves, there are times that we are not the right fit and we know that in our gut.
So how do we handle a conversation like that where we know we're not the right fit without making them feel bad, without shutting everything down?
The best way. To build trust with someone is being honest with them all the way through.
What it does is it helps them to trust you because now they're like, you didn't do what I thought everybody was going to do. You didn't try to convince me to buy something that I didn't want or that I didn't need.
It means, okay, that sale's not going to happen, but it doesn't mean that multiple other sales aren't going to come in its place.
Scott Greening: Hey everyone. Thanks for being here for another episode of Sipping Matcha and helping you make more sales right at the beginning. We wanna invite you once again into the conversation by submitting your anonymous sales question, and you can do that at buildingmomentum.info/matcha, we'd love to hear from you, hear the questions that you're having and your most creative pseudonym.
So let's bring Brooke into the conversation today and talk about today's question.
Brooke Greening: Hello! Nice to see you.
Scott Greening: Hello. It's been. Minutes since we've seen one another. So here we go. Here's today's question, Brooke. I already have it on the screen. What do you do when you know you are not the right fit?
So this question came from a conference that you were at recently down in Florida at one of the Margaritaville resorts and you were a speaker at the conference there, and one of the questions that came up in a session we thought we'd pull into here.
Brooke Greening: Yeah, no. This is what I love because as we started this podcast, it's been more like a dear Abby and let people ask their questions and then we just started realizing.
People ask me questions all the time, and if they're asking me that question, then other people are probably trying to wonder the same thing. So we're bringing in all the questions that I'm asked, whether it's anonymously or not. So they were asking, they said, okay, this has been great. Really appreciated all the things that you've been talking about at this conference.
But what do you do when you know you're not the right fit? For a sales professional to ask that question. That is a hard question to ask because our whole goal a lot of the time is to never say no. Like we're always trying to figure out how can we make this work. But if we're honest with ourselves, there are times that we are not the right fit and we know that in our gut.
Some of those examples could be when I was in senior living, I, we were a private pay community, meaning you were paying month by month between eight to 10 to $12,000 a month to receive the care and be in our communities. If you do not have that, or if you had some certain government funding called Medicaid, we were not going to be the right fit.
There was, we could not accept Medicaid. It was just private pay. You have to pay by cash eight to $12,000 a month for however long you decide to stay here. It could become pretty apparent if someone did not have that, and you would know, okay, that is not, that's not going to be the right fit. No amount of what we're saying, no amount of how much they want to do this is going to actually work.
Another example could be they're coming to you and what they need is something you do not offer and you know you don't offer it. That's another time when we know in our gut this is not the right fit. So what do we do? Because we don't believe in min manipulation. We don't think we should be over promising.
So how do we handle a conversation like that where we know we're not the right fit without making them feel bad, without shutting everything down? How does this work? And the very first thing I would encourage is that we set the expectations from the very beginning of what this sales conversation is going to look like.
We would just say something in regards to, I'm really glad to be able to meet with you today. I appreciate you taking the time. I just like the whole purpose of this conversation is just to start figuring out what are some of the problems you're facing and if I can help you, if I can, that's awesome.
I'm going to talk about what we can do to move forward next, and if I can't, I wanna be able to give you some resources to help you along the way. We set the expectations early to help them understand. We're truly here to understand if we can be a support to them or not.
Scott Greening: I had a question that came up and sorry if this de derails your train here, but there is, there, there is a a matter of qualifying customers so you're not necessarily saying.
Don't think at all, like just go through the wholesale, invest hours or however long and talk, and then you like get to the end and find out, oh wait, they can't, they're a Medicaid family or they're, whatever the circumstances are for you, that they're obviously not a good fit and we could have found that out.
Early in the conversation. So is that I know we're gonna talk about like how through the discovery process you find out, oh, we thought we might be a good fit, we're not. Let's talk about that. Is there a way that we can help people that we know, like we either find out for, jump from Jump Street at the beginning or like very quickly, like we know okay, we're in the ballpark here.
Brooke Greening: That is a great question. I do think sometimes if we're just looking at our sales qual, our sales conversations to just qualify, that's a little bit different. Like you could just have a qualifying call and then that's where you're just like, Hey, I just wanna see if one, we might be a good fit for each other and what that would look like.
So I'm just gonna ask you a couple of clarifying questions if that's okay. And if you know exactly what that is and okay. If the answer to this is no. Okay, we're done. Then you can absolutely do that. In the service based industry, there's usually a little bit more discovery that's going on. I also think there's customers are very savvy, so by the time they're even having a conversation with us, they've probably done quite a bit of homework at that point.
And so there are ways to be able to qualify before they even get on the call in regards to what's on your website what are the things that you do help with, what investments look like. Those are good ways to qualify as well. But I would actually push back and say, my job is not to qualify them in the first five minutes, because that's serving me.
That's me deciding am I like, is this a good conversation or am I gonna be wasting my time? And I truly wanna know how can I serve them? So I'm gonna start, I'm gonna ask them some questions and we're gonna talk for a few minutes to start understanding what are the struggles that they're facing. And a lot of times if they're looking for something that we can't do.
That comes up pretty quickly in the conversation. If it's in regards to their finances, that's gonna come up pretty quickly in their conversation. And then we're able to share with them, okay, this is where I can help you, or this is where I can't help you.
Scott Greening: Yeah, I think that's, I think that's really helpful.
And I don't think I derailed the train. So that was good. Let's go back to the original question okay what do we do wherever it happens when we found out like we're not a good fit. And how do we handle that? And how do we deal with yeah. That pressure of what you said no to someone or Yes.
All of that. Yeah.
Brooke Greening: Yeah. No I was just thinking of another. Story. So as another example, when we were in senior living, if someone had Medicaid, if they had government services, then they would, that's something that we could not help with at all. But there were certain sales professionals that would be their very first question and they'd be like, first of all, I'm just gonna understand, do you have Medicaid or do you not?
And for those who did have Medicaid, you were able to move forward. But for those who did not. That was a question that really upset a lot of people because it was like we're trying to like sort cattle and we're like, okay, you qualify for me to talk to you. You don't qualify for me to talk to you. And it just made them into a number and they had taken the time to actually come and sit and talk to us face to face.
Scott Greening: Hey, popping in real quick. It's Scott here from Building Momentum Resources, and if your sales conversations feel like a hamster wheel, lots of energy, not much forward motion, you'll want to check out something that Brooke has made just for you. It's the sales conversation assessment. It's a fast free tool that helps you figure out what's actually stalling your sales chats and how to fix it without guesswork or gimmicks. If you want more insight and less facepalm, head to buildingmomentum.info/assessment to give your strategy a little bit of a tuneup. Now back to the episode, because your next aha moment is probably just around the corner.
Brooke Greening: And so I just wanna encourage, those are not bad questions to ask, but we're not sorting through people like cattle. Especially in our service-based industries, we're there to be able to serve them and to support them. Does that mean we have to have a conversation with them? No, but it doesn't mean we just shoot out one question just to clarify.
Okay, are they gonna be with us or not? Because that will make, will that save you time? Maybe. But for a lot of people, that's gonna turn them off 'cause they're gonna feel like I'm just a number to you and it doesn't matter. And that's not what we wanna be shooting for.
Scott Greening: Yeah, and I think the advantage of doing what you're saying is then even if people aren't
qualified. That doesn't mean that they don't go to church with people that might be good. Like they can become if you treated them with kindness and respect and like they have people in their life that they're connected with, that it might be a great fit for. And so when you are intentional and don't waste time, but you're respectful of people, and acknowledge and value them as people, then that can lead to referral business, that can ref, all sorts of good things that can come from that because you just didn't, sorry.
Brooke Greening: You can't shut 'em down immediately. Yeah. And I know people do that, and that's okay. Like they can choose to do that.
But what I have found is spending a few more minutes as opposed to just shutting it down is not going to make a big difference. And there are ways that you can ask that question in a gracious way that doesn't put people on the defense. And so you can ask questions in regards to as you're looking into these options, what are the plans in regards for you to be able to make these investments?
Or what were your, how did your parents plan towards. This type of support that they needed in regards to senior living in regards to ag lending and things like that, you can say, "What? What were you thinking in regards to how this is going to play out in regards to the investments that are gonna need to be able to be made?"
You can ask questions in a nice, direct way that doesn't make people feel like you are just trying to figure out, can you afford me or can you not?
Scott Greening: I ask myself that question all the time for you. Can I? No, just kidding.
Brooke Greening: That is not nice.
Scott Greening: No, that is not true at all. How you've realized, okay I can't help this person. And maybe it's not a money issue, it's just a I don't do this. I, it's not a right fit. What do I do?
Brooke Greening: That's when you want to be able to have a strong network and know who can you refer them to.
So maybe it has nothing to do with price like that. That's not what we're talking about. They're literally asking you to do something that you don't know how to do, or you're not wanting to bring another person in necessarily and have them do that as part of your business. It's just not something that you offer.
It's not a service that you offer. That's when it's really helpful to have other people in your network that you can be able to refer them to and just say, Hey, you know what, this is not something that I do, but I do know someone that has done this before, and I just wanted to know if it would be helpful if I give you their information and I can connect you with them.
Scott Greening: Yeah. And I know from experience in that, that you actually set that conversation up early in the conversation. And maybe it'd be helpful for those listening, like how do you set up the possibility that a referral might be an appropriate. Answer or if it's not a good fit, like how we do that from the very beginning.
So then it's, they're expecting it. Like it's part of the deal.
Brooke Greening: Yeah. When we talk about how we're setting the expectations in the beginning of the conversation, we're saying that we're saying, Hey, if. We can work together, that's great. I'm gonna tell you what that investment looks like and the next steps to be able to move forward with me.
But if we find out, hey, this is not a great fit, or I'm not able to offer what you're looking for, then I wanna be able to give you some other resources as well. And so then we just go back to that and say, Hey, I, I told you in the beginning I wanted to be able to give you some other resources. So these are some people I think that could be helpful for you.
Scott Greening: So I know I don't know about this specific person. I didn't come along to Margaritaville with you, but the there is that pressure or that guilt of I never wanna say no to a sale. I ne I, I never want to miss an opportunity. I'm a salesperson. That's what I do. I sell things. This is how I like.
Encourage the people that are asking those questions, like what are the benefits to to making a referral to, to saying that you can't help them.
Brooke Greening: The best way. To build trust with someone is being honest with them all the way through. So what can happen is people can be like, okay, we'll just end the call and we'll say, we'll follow up, or we'll send them some sort of proposal or whatever, but we really don't think we're gonna be able to help them.
That's not serving them. That is not giving them the resources that they need. And so by you being honest and saying, if this is truly what you're looking for, I'm not gonna be able to help you with that today, and I want you to know that. And these are the next things we're gonna do to be able to help you keep moving forward with solving your problem.
What it does is it helps them to trust you because now they're like, you didn't do what I thought everybody was going to do. You didn't try to convince me to buy something that I didn't want or that I didn't need. You didn't try to tell me that actually no. You don't need this. You need this because this is what I sell and this is what's gonna benefit me.
That builds a huge amount of trust and it's always reciprocal, so it doesn't mean that they're gonna just turn around and be like, yep, I'm gonna buy from you now. But they're going to remember that. And so when they have another problem, they're gonna be like I wanna talk to you because either you're gonna tell me yes, you can help me, or you're gonna direct me to other people, and they're gonna talk to other people about the problems that they've had, or they're gonna hear problems that they've faced and they're going to remember.
Yeah, if you wanna talk to someone who could actually really give you support in that, they couldn't help me, but I think they can help you. You should go talk to them. That happened time and time again when we were in senior living, when we've started our own business. All of the times, every time I have told someone, no, it doesn't mean that I don't it.
It means, okay, that sale's not going to happen, but it doesn't mean that multiple other sales aren't going to come in its place.
Scott Greening: Good. And that, that we probably have a different question to explore there. I know our son is angling for a question somewhere around this, but you're not saying oh if a customer has an objection and it seems like they think we might not be a good fit, when actually you can help their needs, like you're not saying just give up at the first no sign of resistance. But
Brooke Greening: No. I didn't say, when they say no, I said when you know that it's not a good
fit.
Scott Greening: Yeah. Yeah. So if you're wondering about objections, you can join my son in trying to clamor for one of those questions, you can share that at buildingmomentum.info/matcha.
But I think was there something else that you wanted to cover or did we get all the notes that you had,
Brooke Greening: I think. What you wanna remember is one, if you left a call and you're like, I told them no, and you feel like, man alive, I just blew it. I blew the sale. You did not. That is not it. If you truly know that I can't help them, and there's like proof behind it, it wasn't an assumption that we made.
But we actually were able to uncover and find out, no this is not going to be a good fit. You did not blow the sale. You made more room for you to be able to continue to help the people that you can. And you built trust with someone else. And so that's really important to know. And this would be an episode, another episode, but there is a difference.
Between us actually knowing that we can't solve their problem and assuming we can't solve the problem, and then acting on that. Those are two totally different things, and so we can absolutely do another episode of how do we make sure that we're actually not the right fit instead of assuming it.
Scott Greening: Yeah. I was thinking about all sorts of questions and things that you've helped me with and that I hear you helping others with in that of, discovering what the real problem is.
Because maybe it starts in one spot and maybe you don't help with that, but as you talk and you discover it, you're like, oh, wait that's really just a symptom of a problem Yes. That I do solve. But I, we'll take notes. We're asking ourselves our own questions, but we won't go down that to that trail today.
And we will, we'll wrap things up today. If you've appreciated Brooke's input, her advice on handling this. We'd love to hear from you to, to get a review on your favorite podcasting platform, to share comments and the social media posts and all those things. We'd love to hear from you and look forward to helping with the next question in our next episode.
