Why Sales Objections Are Actually a Buying Signal
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Brooke Greening: One of the biggest myths in sales is that objections are bad. They're not. Most objections are a sign that someone is seriously considering your offering
So either you hear an objection and sales was taught to just plow through, don't even think about it, just convince them they need to buy it. They don't know what they need is basically what they would teach. Or on the other side, which I think is even worse, let's just manipulate them.
Let's make them feel really bad. Let's ask them questions so we can corner them, so that when objections come in, we're prepared and we can handle them. So we just plow through them, ignore what they're saying, or worse, manipulate them into feeling bad and having to buy. So decent people avoid them at all costs.
If they're not buying from you, they have an objection. If they are not giving you their credit card, if they are not signing the contract, there is an objection.
And so it's a great thing when someone's actually sharing a concern with you because they're, they are telling you in their actions, "I trust you enough to share this with you."
Scott Greening: hey, everyone. Welcome to another episode of Sippin' Matcha and Helping You Make More Sales, where over your matcha break or coffee break, our sales coach, Brooke Greening, gives you some great advice on how to have more effective sales conversations. Because the reality is, if you have to talk to people to make sales, how well you lead those conversations is going to make or break your revenue.
So let's bring Brooke in to the conversation today.
Brooke Greening: Hello.
Scott Greening: It is World Cup season, so we are- Mm-hmm ... enjoying the World Cup, some more than others.
Brooke Greening: By you. You and Asher are having a great time, and I think that's fantastic. I just go to bed early. Yes. So that's a good thing. But we do have a World Cup pasta, because Aldi's had World Cup pasta in the little jersey sizes and soccer balls, and put a little tab on it that said, "World Cup Soccer."
Scott Greening: And so- There we go.
Speaker 3: so- There we go ... that's
Brooke Greening: So- That's what we're having for dinner tonight.
Scott Greening: So we bought it. So we're- We did ... we're excited, and we'll see how well the USA does. Asher started playing soccer this year, so he's all in, which is fun. But- Mm-hmm ... today we're moving on to a new part of the service sales framework. So we've talked about four parts of it so far.
We've talked about setting expectations, talked about establishing rapport, talked about recognizing the problem, verbalizing the value in connection to that. And today we're getting to the part that everyone loves- ... identify objections. And identifying objections is when we understand what's stopping the customer from buying right now.
Brooke Greening: Yes, and I think this is one of the most misunderstood paths of sales.
Scott Greening: All right. I know that this is true. I know you've got a little different take on objections than that. Most people want to run away from them. You encourage something else, but why do you think so many people misunderstand identifying objections, what it is and that?
Brooke Greening: Yeah. So I'm going to put on my little counselor hat for a minute because this is where it really comes into play. We either have objections going on inside of us internally, or we have objections that are going on the outside. But no matter what, what happens is that people tend to avoid all types of objections because they've really only encountered times when people were pushy, they were manipulative in regards...
So either you hear an objection and sales was taught to just plow through, don't even think about it, just convince them they need to buy it. They don't know what they need is basically what they would teach. Or on the other side, which I think is even worse, let's just manipulate them.
Let's make them feel really bad. Let's ask them questions so we can corner them, so that when objections come in, we're prepared and we can handle them. So we just plow through them, ignore what they're saying, or worse, manipulate them into feeling bad and having to buy. So decent people avoid them at all costs.
Scott Greening: Yeah, and I think This is where people, salespeople get such a bad reputation. This is why people want to run away from sales as fast as they can- Mm-hmm ... because when you start talking about sales, that's what people gravitate towards, is this pushy, manipulative going to make you do things that you didn't really want to do, not really care about people.
And I know it's interesting.
Brooke Greening: Yeah.
Scott Greening: Each week we have a master class, and you ask people to rank themselves on the different aspects of the SERVICE sales framework. How do people normally rank themselves on identifying objections?
Brooke Greening: Yeah, so as they go through the masterclass and they go through the different parts of setting expectations, establishing rapport, recognizing the problem, and verbalizing the value, they usually feel like they're doing pretty decent.
We range from one to five, and one is the worst, five is the best. So they're maybe at a three, four, something along that line. But we get into objections, and almost every single time, after I'm telling them, "This is what I'm talking about in regards to handling objections, asking for them," all the things we're going to be talking about in this podcast, they're always like, "One.
Negative one. Do you have a zero option?" they just don't like them. They don't know how to handle them. They don't know what to do with them, and so they just avoid them pretty much at all costs.
Scott Greening: Yeah, it's interesting. I think people do tend to rank themselves pretty well in the first part of the conversation.
Sometimes after talking with you, they lower themselves a little bit on that, 'cause maybe they're not as intentional or whatever as they should be. But really, everyone gets to this point and they're like, "Eh, I don't like this." I don't like this. Yeah.
Brooke Greening: Yeah.
and that's- that's part of The misunderstanding is that you think dealing with objections means that you have to be pushy or manipulative, and that's- Yeah
Scott Greening: that's not the case. Why else are people confused about objections in sales conversations?
Brooke Greening: The other reason is that they feel like objections mean no. They just like, "Okay, if someone shares any type of objection, the answer's no, so then we're done." And that's what they feel, and that is a misunderstanding of objections as well.
But you have to be careful as you say that because it's going to swing all the way back where they're going to say, "See, you're like every other salesperson that's just pushy." And I am saying, no, you don't have- objections do not have to be pushy. They do not have to be manipulative. They are a way to be able to serve our potential clients well, but it's how we handle them and how we ask for them.
Scott Greening: Yeah, so objections can mean no, but they- Correct ... they don't always mean no. When do objections not mean no? When are- Sure ... objections not a no?
Brooke Greening: Sometimes people have more questions, and so that's when we talk about recognizing the problem, verbalizing the value, and then following that thread. So that's where we're able to be able to truly understand what's going on.
Are they saying no, or are they saying no because they need a little bit more information, there's some confusion? That's one reason. But more often than not, the other reason is people just have scars, and that's just the reality. If, especially as I'm talking to business owners and founders and all of that, like they have worked with people, and they've gotten completely burned.
I've talked to people, and they're like, "Brooke, I spent $100,000 on marketing and didn't get a single client." That's awful. That is horrible. That should not be happening. But these are the types of experiences that are going on, and so they have scars. And so any time someone has had a bad experience, then even when that next experience looks good, looks trustworthy, looks like it could be helpful, they're still hesitant, and that's where objections are coming in as well.
so one way is that objections can actually help test the water 'cause they're thinking, "Okay, this seems good. I think I might be able to do this, but I just I need to see how they react. I need to see what they're going to say if I say no," and so they start to test the water.
Scott Greening: Yeah, and that, I think the danger is, and what sometimes we forget is that there's like humans on the other side of the conversation.
I was watching a reel the other day on effective rebuttals to objections, and on the one hand it was like super impressive and it was two ladies, they were talking, and the one gal had great answers. And I guess in some circumstance, like those might be helpful phrases or things to use.
But then I got to the end and I'm like, " Yeah, but like you're just ignoring the fact," like it's a real person on the other end- Mm-hmm ... that has probably a real history. We tend to work, especially with B2B or people that have had like stuff. Yeah. Like they have a real history with other people.
Brooke Greening: Yeah.
Scott Greening: Maybe it's the first time they're reaching out to someone for help in this area, but probably not. So then that means There's a reason why they're not still with that person. Yeah. There's a reason why they're looking out, and so they just want to test the water.
they may be thinking, "Well, I really like this person, but I'm sure that they're not as genuine as they seem." Mm-hmm. And so these objections can do that.
Brooke Greening: Yeah. The thing, the best thing about objections is that a lot of people think that they're bad, but I believe objections are really, really good, and that we should be asking for them.
Because when you ask for objections, and we're going to go into this more in the podcast coming up, but when you ask for the objections, it gives everyone the space and the trust to be able to share things. So many times when we are acting like we don't want to have objections, or we're just trying to run through this conversation and woo, if they don't have an objection, that's great, that actually starts to breed distrust.
Whereas if you are asking for the objections, you're showing them, "I'm confident in what we're doing, that I'm okay to answer questions that you have or concerns about working with me, and I want to give you the space to be able to ask the questions that you need to." If we say our whole goal is to truly understand what's bothering them and what they need to be able to move forward, and if we can be able to provide that, then this has to come into play.
We have to do this.
Scott Greening: All right. So I think we've hopefully cleared up a little bit of the confusion around objections or at least raising some of the issues that, that people need to think about and encouraging them that there's a different way to look at it. Mm-hmm ... I know you're, were really excited I know you really like coaching people on objections and doing that.
why is this such an important part of the sales conversation?
Brooke Greening: Yeah, so the first reason this is important is because everybody has them. Everyone has objections, and sometimes people are like, "Well, I don't know." this is just the reality. If they're not buying from you, they have an objection. If they are not giving you their credit card, if they are not signing the contract, there is an objection.
It might be a good objection. It might be a question. But the reality is there are objections. And so you have to be able to recognize that and realize that if they don't tell you the objection, they're going to go to your competitor, and they're probably going to share it with them, and then they're going to be the one that ends up making the sale.
Because the person who's actually able to uncover the objections, the true ones, the ones that are motivating them, all of those things, that's the one they're going to be able to trust and to be able to move forward with. And so objections are really good, and everyone has them. And so you can just ask yourself, "Oh, if they didn't buy- There is an objection somewhere that we need to figure out.
So that's the first reason.
Scott Greening: Yeah. I think that's often a big aha moment that people have in your coaching, and they think, "Oh, they didn't have any objections. We didn't talk any-" But
they...
they, everything was good, and then they didn't buy from you. And you know they went and they bought from someone else.
Mm-hmm. And so instead of it just being sort of like, well, we win some, we lose some, which is sort of true, maybe, maybe what you're saying is that, that people didn't uncover this hidden objection.
Brooke Greening: Yeah, no, I'm saying exactly that. Yes. If someone goes to the competitor and they buy, most everyone will say that was because of the price," or, "That was because of something else."
And my first reaction is I don't think so. Usually there were other hidden objections that were going on that weren't uncovered. Can people choose to do that? Yes, but that goes back to verbalizing the value because if they look at you and the competitor as the same, then it is a race to the bottom in regards to who is going to be the least expensive investment.
And and we are able to know that through the objections that they have. So we need to know them because they do have them, and if they don't share them with us, they're going to share them with someone else, and more than likely, then they will end up buying from them. So as a sales professional, it's important to know everyone has objections, and if they're not buying, there is some sort of objection that's coming in.
Scott Greening: All right, so we had a two-part reason there. First of all- Mm-hmm ... just the reason everybody's got them. That's why it's important. Yes. And then secondly, if they haven't shared them, that means... It doesn't mean that they just didn't exist. It just means that- Correct ... somebody else found them out.
I think- Yeah ... maybe you have at least one other reason why- Yep ... So what i- what is that?
Brooke Greening: The other thing I want you guys to know is that customers are trying to avoid bad decisions. They're not trying to avoid buying. If someone has gotten onto a sales call with you, they are open, they are wanting to be able to get whatever they need, to be able to pay for that, to be able to move forward.
So many times we think, "Oh, well maybe they're just checking. Maybe they're just looking around." A lot of people don't do that anymore. Like we're... They're not tire kicking these types of things. The last thing they want to do is to be talking to someone. They would rather look online and find these things.
And so if they've come to the point to talk to you and you're having a sales conversation, they are interested in being able to buy. And so we just need to remind ourselves they're not trying to avoid buying, they are really trying to avoid making a wrong decision. But to us, it looks like they avoid buying.
Scott Greening: Yeah, I think there's so much information that you can get out there, and a lot of that is, is good.
Like
y- I don't think it's a good thing to hide information from buyers and all of that. And if your marketing's- Yeah ... done well, if your website answers people question and all of that, when they get on the phone with you, at least in some sense they're ready to go.
They're ready to buy. Mm-hmm. And so a lot of times we, whether it's the story we tell ourselves or whatever that we think oh, they didn't really want to buy. No they just want to make sure they're not making a bad decision.
Brooke Greening: Yeah.
Scott Greening: And I think that's okay, we buy a little treat for the kids at the grocery store.
We didn't agonize over should we get pastas like shaped in World Cup sizes or- ... in the regular real pasta ways. Right ... when it comes to making like big buying decisions- Mm-hmm ... we're probably going to have some questions. We're probably going to have concerns. That doesn't mean that we're not interested in buying.
We just, we want to avoid making a bad decision.
Brooke Greening: Correct. And when we remember that we approach our sales conversations differently at that point. Because if we're on the defense 'cause we feel like, oh, maybe they don't really even want to buy, maybe they're just trying to look around, or they're just going to go with the cheapest option- Is that true?
Sure, there can be people like that. But more and more and more people are very, very savvy before they have a sales conversation. And so we want to know that when they're actually talking to you and they've said, "Yes, I want to talk to you," they are interested in buying. And so it doesn't mean we just blow past all objections.
It doesn't mean we make them buy, like none of that. But we need to understand something was strong enough for them to overcome not wanting to talk to you
Scott Greening: Yeah, and when we do that, then we want to make sure that we are truly understanding what those motivations are and that.
Brooke Greening: So Brooke, I think you also talk about this idea, and one of the reasons why it's so important to do this, of b- just making sure you're on the same page with your- Mm ... your customers, and sometimes we realize when we get to this, "Oh, I thought we were, but we're not quite there yet."
Scott Greening: So help us understand why objections are important in making sure that we're on that same type of page with our customer.
Brooke Greening: Absolutely. The reality is, as we ask questions and we uncover what's wrong, and then we're verbalizing the value, all of those things, but then we get here and there's an objection that comes up, we can't help with what we don't understand.
And so asking for objections just allows us to, once again, be able to confirm what we thought was happening. So if someone's worried about implementation and then we're explaining our ROI, we're solving the wrong problem. If someone is worried about timing and we're trying to defend our price, again, we're solving the wrong problem.
So objections help to make sure we're all on the same page as well.
Scott Greening: Yeah, so we're back to this recognizing the problem again, is that right?
Brooke Greening: Mm-hmm. Yep. It- the framework builds on itself.
Scott Greening: Yeah. And so we just reset back to the right part of the conversation that we're having, and if we need to go back to recognizing the problem and then we need to verbalize the value, and that this is where we do that.
I know people, and we said last time when we were talking about verbalizing the value, like hey, you will have moments if you need to explain things that will- Mm-hmm ... that will come. You don't have to worry about sharing all of the value right now, and this is like- Right ... that moment, right?
Brooke Greening: Yeah. Yeah.
It's an incredible thing, because now you get to have sales conversations where people are telling you what they're actually worried about, and that is much different than us trying to guess.
Scott Greening: I like the no guessing things. Like- ... I try to guess sometimes with you and it rarely go- goes well.
But no. So that sounds nice. And if they have a concern, what are you able to do?
Brooke Greening: If they have a concern, and we're going to talk about this more in the next episode in regards, or actually in the next coming episodes, of how to be able to handle objections without dying a little bit inside.
But when they are sharing that concern, we can go back and we can realize, okay, maybe we didn't uncover the right problem. So we're going to ask some questions and we're going to try to understand, then we're going to, we're going to validate what they say, and we're going to start following that thread again. We do not have to guess.
Anytime they share a concern, we can just talk about that concern, understand it. Before we start fixing it, before we start trying to analyze or defend it- We don't have to be guessing. And so it's a great thing when someone's actually sharing a concern with you because they're, they are telling you in their actions, "I trust you enough to share this with you."
Otherwise, I could just say, "I'm going to think about it," and never talk to you again.
Scott Greening: Yeah, and the goal is not to eliminate them. No ... You want to talk through them. The goal is not necessarily to manipulate your way to overcoming them.
Brooke Greening: No, not
Scott Greening: at all ... you do need to address them and move through and overcome them in a sense, but not in a manipulative sort of way.
Brooke Greening: No. Yeah, when we talk about overcoming objections, like you said, the goal is not to eliminate them, not to manipulate them. The goal in those objections coming at us is to understand them, is to understand where they're coming from, what's driving and motivating them. That's how we're going to be able to both figure out, is this going to be the right fit or not?
Because that is the goal of the sales conversation. Can I help you? If I can, great. This is what the investment looks like, and we can be able to move forward. If I can't, I want to be able to give you other resources. I can't do any of that, and my clients can't do any of that if we don't ask for objections and know how to be able to handle them appropriately.
It's not to eliminate them. It's not to get them to say, "Oh, I'm so wrong in all of my ways. Thank you for showing me the light. I would love to buy from you." That is not the goal of when we're dealing with objections. It's truly to understand what is getting in the way from them to be able to buy, and can we help with that or can we not?
Scott Greening: All right, so people are beginning to hopefully have a little bitter- little, a little bit of a different take on objections and that. What-
Brooke Greening: Mm-hmm ...
Scott Greening: what can people do to get started in doing this? How can they get started this week?
Brooke Greening: Yeah. So this week you don't have to change anything. I just want you to have some perspective.
So I want you to notice how often are concerns, objections coming up after the call? Are they coming up in the follow-up emails? Are there getting delays? Are you f- realizing that you're getting ghosting? Because the chances are that those concerns were already there before you started. So this is what I want you to do.
I want you to ask yourself, "In the last three sales conversations, did I hear an objection? Did any objections come up?" So think, last three sales conversations I had, did any objections come up in those last three? And then you need to ask yourself, did any of those three buy? Because if they did not, there is an excellent chance there are objections that they had and they've already moved on, or they still have that you might be able to address to be able to continue to move things forward.
But if someone doesn't buy from you, then you can't say they didn't have any objections, ' cause they probably did
Scott Greening: All right. And I think the, did they actually buy part is like you've received payment, right? So sometimes- Right. Sometimes we celebrate, we think, "Oh, we s- they said yes," but then they all of a sudden- They said, "
Brooke Greening: Send me a proposal."
Speaker 5: Right
Scott Greening: That's what they mean, yeses. All of a sudden they get slow and they don't sign the contract- Mm-hmm
or they haven't submitted payment. Yeah. And then you reach out and they're like, "Well, actually." Yeah.
Brooke Greening: Yeah ...
Scott Greening: so- That- Don't
Brooke Greening: count your chickens- That's an excellent point ... before they
Scott Greening: hatch.
Brooke Greening: That is an excellent point. If you're saying, "Yes, Brooke, they bought," send me a proposal is not a they bought. Like they've signed the contract and they've given you money.
That's what we mean by they bought. That's how you can know, okay, we're moving in the right direction. If you're not there yet, there's an excellent chance that there are some objections that haven't been resolved.
Scott Greening: Yes. And we were trying to get our kids to understand this 'cause we'll say, "Hey- ... we think we made a sale."
And they're like, "Celebration time?" And we're like- No ... "Uh, not until the money comes in."
Brooke Greening: right.
Scott Greening: Yeah.
Brooke Greening: Very true
Scott Greening: All right, everyone. If you are thinking about your sales conversations in a different way and you think, "Maybe I need to think about my whole conversation a little differently," I'd encourage you to take a few moments and take Brooke's Sales Conversation Assessment.
You can access it by going to buildingmomentum.info/assessment, and there in about seven minutes or so, you can go through a set of questions that'll help you think about each of these different areas of your sales conversation, and then get a report back on how you can improve, how you can make each part just a little better and get started on applying some of these principles,
Brooke so heading into it then, where are we headed next week with some of these ideas about identifying objections?
Brooke Greening: Yes. We are going to talk about some ways that people make objections weird, like in how they're handling them. And so I think it'll be really refreshing for you to know, hey, you don't have to handle it this way, and we'll talk about how you can be able to handle them in a better way that actually serves your clients.
But first of all, we're just going to talk about, okay, these are the weird ways, these are the wrong ways, these are the ways not to handle objections, 'cause that's important to know.
Scott Greening: Great. And if you'd like to make sure that you don't miss that episode or any future episode, we encourage you to subscribe, to follow, depending on whatever the platform is where you're taking this in.
We also encourage you to comment, to leave a review, and we'd love to hear from you and what you're finding valuable on Sippin' Matcha and Helping You Make More Sales. You can always access all the links, past episodes, all the different things, blog articles on each of the episode at buildingmomentum.info/matcha.
And until next week, we hope you make some more sales and enjoy your matcha.
Brooke Greening: Bye-bye.
