You Don’t Have to Manipulate People to Make More Sales
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Brooke Greening: There is a moment on sales calls when things get weird. The customer hesitates, the salesperson gets nervous, and all of a sudden no one is acting like a human being anymore. That's what we're talking about today.
So the first way that people handle objections, and I am not encouraging this but it is one of the most popular ways, is to just be a jerk.
Just making them feel awful about not wanting to invest in their business or themselves or their health or their weight or their marriage. Whatever it is, they just make you feel really bad about it.
Okay, so I'm just saying you don't put people into a corner to make a decision. You're going to help them think through the decision. That's the biggest piece for this. We're not going to be a jerk. We're not putting them in a corner. We're going to help them think through a decision, and we'll talk about that more as we go on, but that's the biggest, that's the biggest teaching point right here.
Scott Greening: Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of Sippin' Matcha and Helping You Make More Sales. In about the time that it takes you to enjoy your matcha or coffee break, our resident sales expert, Brooke Greening, gives you some great advice on moving your sales conversations forward. Because if you have to talk to people to make sales, how well you lead those conversations directly impacts your revenue.
And let me give you an invitation here right at the start. We'd encourage you to subscribe, to like, to add, to leave us a review. If you're finding value in this podcast, we'd love to hear from you, and Brooke would love to know what's going well for you.How you doing, Brooke?
Brooke Greening: Oh, I'm doing great. Thank you, Scott. How are you doing?
Scott Greening: I'm-
Brooke Greening: Got my iced matcha today.
Scott Greening: Yes. It's the surface of the... Well, it's actually a little better today, but it's been very hot and muggy the last few days.
Brooke Greening: Yeah, they canceled a lot of the fireworks and parades and all of that because it was just so hot in Philadelphia, which is sad 'cause it was America's
Scott Greening: 250.
It was, yeah, and we had the joyous experience of trying to wait out a thunderstorm for 45 minutes- ... with the kids in the minivan, and then- Yeah ... my patience ran out and I said, "We're going home."
Brooke Greening: But we did have glow sticks, and so they all- Yes ... said that was
Scott Greening: fantastic. Yes, so we had a mini- We had fun ... rave at our house when we got home.
Last week we talked about identifying objections. That's the part of the sales framework that we're on, and you've got a little bit of a different take on it. A lot of people often think objections are rejection- Mm ... but you actually say that they help us in conversation, they provide us information, they let us know a lot about them, and we should actually ask for them with that.
Brooke Greening: Yeah, because actually objections, like you said, are information, so it is not our job to avoid them. We want to understand them. That is the biggest piece with objections.
Scott Greening: Right, and so that sounds super easy to understand And I know you do this really well, but for most of us mere mortals, the idea of objections gets us really nervous
It sounds super simple, and so sometimes things get a little weird.
Brooke Greening: Yeah, a lot of times that sounds really good until someone actually raises a concern, and then that's when things kind of start going off the rails, at that
Scott Greening: point. It's... Yeah, it's sort of that Mike Tyson quote of, "Everybody's got a plan until they get punched in the face."
Today we're going to focus on some of the ways that, like, when we have those nervous moments or we're not quite sure- Mm-hmm ... how to handle them appropriately what that looks like. So what's the first one?
Brooke Greening: So the first way that people handle objections, and I am not encouraging this but it is one of the most popular ways, is to just be a jerk.
Like you're basically manipulating them. And this is the one that, in regards to good humans they hate. And so they feel like that's the only way to handle objections. But that's when someone is sharing a concern and they're trying to think through it, and the salesperson is more of a jerk. They're just like, okay, if we say if the potential customer is saying, "Oh, I'm not sure.
I don't know if that's going to be the best ROI," or they raise any type of objection, then they turn back and they're like, "Oh, well then I guess you're just, okay, staying stuck then." Or if they're like, "Well, I'm trying to figure out like how much this is going to cost each month," then they say something like, "Well, you told me that this was really important.
How has that changed?" Like they are just a jerk. They are just... And they've been trained to put you in a corner to feel bad, to basically just beat you down until you say yes. It is effective. I do not recommend it and I do not use it with any of my clients, nor with our potential clients that we're talking to.
Just because it can work doesn't mean it's going to build the relationship that you want. In fact, it actually sets you up for failure. But I'm not going to argue and say it doesn't work at all, because if it didn't work at all, then no one would do it.
Scott Greening: Yeah, I think it, it can work. Mm-hmm. How effective it is for your long-term business goals and all that, we could debate.
I do not
Brooke Greening: agree with it.
Scott Greening: But , but basically you're feeling like you got put in a corner and- Mm-hmm ... you don't have a good answer
Brooke Greening: Yeah, and sometimes people are actually training you to get into that corner. They're, the questions that they're asking you, so if you go back to previous podcasts when we talk about uncovering the real problem, verbalizing the value, they were, they're actually trained to get you to say certain things so that when the objection comes up, they're, like, all ready to go and they can fight it.
And that's, that is not the goal of a sales conversation. We're trying to uncover the problems they have and see if we can be a resource. If we can, great. Let's talk about it. If we can't, then let's give them other resources. And so it's just completely the opposite. But one of them is just being a jerk, just phew.
Just making them feel awful about not wanting to invest in their business or themselves or their health or their weight or their marriage. Whatever it is, they just make you feel really bad about it.
Scott Greening: Yeah, and this is sort of the, the classic, like, why people hate salespeople and why- Oh,
Brooke Greening: yeah ...
Scott Greening: At family conversations it gets awkward and all of that, of manipulation- Yeah
and mistreating people. And almost everyone universally says that they don't like this, and yet so many salespeople end up doing it for a lot of reasons. And maybe in a future episode we could talk about the reasons why, but what- Ooh,
Brooke Greening: that'd be good. Could I put my counseling hat
Scott Greening: on? There we- That'd be fun.
Everybody, I think, instinctually knows this one. Don't be the manipulator, don't be a jerk. We've all seen it, we've all experienced. There's a good chance if you've had a sales conversation with somebody you're going to have it this week. So what- Mm-hmm
what should we learn from this? What are you telling us?
Brooke Greening: Okay, so I'm just saying you don't put people into a corner to make a decision. You're going to help them think through the decision. That's the biggest piece for this. We're not going to be a jerk. We're not putting them in a corner. We're going to help them think through a decision, and we'll talk about that more as we go on, but that's the biggest, that's the biggest teaching point right here.
Scott Greening: Great. So what's the next poor example of that? So everybody, I think, for the most part, I would anticipate almost everybody that listens to this podcast agreeing with the first one.
Brooke Greening: Yeah, otherwise they'll j- they'll just unsubscribe. Right. And that's fine.
Scott Greening: Have a g- have a nice life.
Brooke Greening: We'll see you.
Bye-bye.
Scott Greening: So.
Brooke Greening: Okay. So then the next one is, I call it the ostrich. They avoid it. You know how they stick their head in the sand, and their whole body is sticking out, but their head is in the sand? That's what we're talking about. So this is what's happening on the opposite extreme. So sometimes the objections comes in, we've already talked about it, people just plow through it, they're a jerk.
This one is where they avoid it. So they raise a concern, and we just pretend it didn't happen. We swing all the way to the other side. So they say, "Hey, I'm not sure we have the budget." Then we're like, "Okay, no problem. I'll just send a proposal over." we didn't uncover that objection.
We didn't understand what was going on with that objection. We're just kind of like, "Oh, no, okay," "We- we'll ju- we'll just do this." Or they're going to hold off, and you're like, "Okay, k- yeah, great. Just call me if something changes." That is just completely avoiding it, and that's not going to help you either.
Scott Greening: Yeah, and when we avoid it, you're not dealing with it. It's all sitting and s- it's still there, and so- Mm-hmm ... assuming the person hasn't gotten help from someone else, which they probably have, but if you go back, they're probably going to say something very similar again because- ... you never dealt with it the first time, and so then you're kinda in this- weird loop- Yeah
of hoping for a miracle that they've just changed their mind when you didn't have to talk about it.
Brooke Greening: Yeah. And a lot of times people are just they're so nervous or they just don't want that awkward moment of what it's going to look like if you have a question. 'Cause they feel like a question is confrontational, and that's where it's not, and we're going to talk about that later, but it's okay to have a question.
I encourage questions during this time. Not the manipulating ones, but ones trying to understand what is going on with that objection. What is it that they might be unclear about? What is it that they have concerns about? Those, that's really important. And so the big takeaway is you can't, you can't understand an objection that you refuse to explore or understand.
Scott Greening: Yeah, and I think that goes for both sides. Both you get more information about what they're thinking about, and a lot of times you end up helping your customer think more clearly about what they're actually thinking and feeling, 'cause you just, you've had a good, healthy conversation and you've brought self-awareness to the issue.
Brooke Greening: Yeah. The other thing I would encourage, when we say avoid, is we always encourage our clients you need to ask for the objection. That is what you need to do every single time, and there's lots of reasons to do that, and we'll be talking about that in previous, in these coming episodes. But when you don't ask for the objection, you are completely avoiding it.
So when clients come to me and they're like, "Hey, I had a great conversation. This is where we're going," and I say, "Okay, but what were the objections?" They're like, "Oh, they, th- they didn't have any." They did. If they didn't buy, there was an objection. And so avoiding it is not only just trying to skirt around it really quickly, but it's also just not even asking for it.
Scott Greening: Yeah, so that's a great teaser, so make sure you have subscribed and turned your notifications on, all that type of stuff, because next week Brooke's going to help you know how to do that. What- what's the third way that people... Okay, we know we don't wanna be the manipulator. People may be sitting there and think, "Ah, I'm- I'm the avoider.
Uh, I just try to avoid it at all case." But there's another option. What's that?
Brooke Greening: Yeah. This is the storyteller. This is rushing to the solution. So when we talk about objections, you either you're a jerk about 'em, you try to push them in a corner, you try to avoid them, or we try to help people to think how good their life is going to be when that result is solved.
That is not necessarily wrong, but this is not the place we do that. So that's mistake number three, we rush to the solution. So then we just try to help them feel better about the concern that they have. So if they're like, "Hey, I'm worried this is going to take too much time," we'll be like, "Oh, but it- it's going to be worth it.
Just imagine where you're going to be six months from now." Or they're saying, "Hey, I'm just not sure if the program is the right fit," "Hey, I- I totally understand. I just- let me tell you a little bit about some of our success stories." We rush to the solution instead of actually exploring what that objection is, and that will hurt us, because that's not where they're at at this point.
It's not that you don't want them to see the value in it, you absolutely do, but not in this moment. So many times we rush, and that's- that's what hurts us, and that's what actually causes them to not trust us as much anymore, 'cause then they're like, "Okay, you're just like everybody else.
You're just a little bit nicer or you're just a little bit more patient." So that's mistake number three, rushing to the solution. We do that usually with good intentions, but it's not a good idea.
Scott Greening: Yeah, and that idea of skipping over the concern, and-
Brooke Greening: Mm-hmm ...
Scott Greening: I find myself, I know when people begin to do this, and they're focusing on painting the picture of what it'll be like.
"Well, wouldn't you want, like..." Well, of course I want that. But I don't, I don't think you're really listening to like that's- Right ... that's great. Right. I've got a lot of questions of between now and-
Brooke Greening: Right ...
Scott Greening: like, where that is, and-
Brooke Greening: It's the nice manipulator, actually. Right. Like, that's what's actually happening.
We're saying, "No, I'm not going to be a jerk about it," but yet we're still kind of doing it.
Scott Greening: All right. Help us think through a little bit of what- How do we frame this? How could we... Not so much how, but what's the takeaway, the lesson from this idea of the storyteller the rush to the solution person?
Brooke Greening: Yeah. When we do that, we're going to skip what they've said, and then that's gon- like, we're not going to have the information that we need. We're not going to be able to continue to build that trust. Hope matters when we're talking in regards to them making a decision, wanting to be able to work with us. I'm not saying we don't want to give them hope, but they need to understand before they're ready for that hope.
And in the moment of the objection, it's not usually the hope that's getting in the way. And so if we're just trying to paint this great picture of what it's going to look like, we're missing where they're at. So many times we are, like, two to three steps ahead of them in what we want them to do, and if we would just take a moment and come back to where they're at, that's how we're able to actually walk together through making that decision and moving forward, instead of us trying to jump and get them to do what we just want them to do 'cause we wanna make a sale
Scott Greening: Yeah, so I'm feeling, and we even highlighted some of the connections and that before, but that all of these things, they're different, but they're connected.
They all come- Mm-hmm ... from similar sort of places.
Brooke Greening: Yeah. So we end up doing three things. We either fight them, we either avoid the objections, or we rush to fix them. That, like, and none of them are actually saying, "We're just going to sit here in the objection and try to understand it more." We either fight it, we avoid it, or we rush to fix it, and that's where it gets us in trouble.
Scott Greening: Yeah, and so that's like the common thread is we don't understand. We don't- Yeah ... we think we have to have the perfect response. We think we have to have the slick objection Right ... arguments and all of that. But we need something actually different.
Brooke Greening: Yeah. And they need to understand the concern.
We need to understand the concern well enough to see if we can help someone make a confident decision. That is our goal. We are trying to help them make a good decision, and again, if we are honorable salespeople, sometimes that might not be us. We may be realizing in this moment, "Okay, this isn't exactly the right thing."
And we will talk about that. What do we do if we realize this isn't right?" It doesn't mean we start slashing prices. It doesn't mean we just give up. There are different ways to help walk through what they actually need instead of what we want for them.
Scott Greening: So I we're making the case here to listen next week to find out how to do all these things.
But when you approach things a little differently, what does that look like?
Brooke Greening: You're not guessing anymore. When you make the decision to have maybe that little bit of uncomfortableness, because it is a little uncomfortable when you're maybe asking a question or sitting in the objection and not trying to run around it, you're not wondering anymore.
You're not wondering if they're going to work with you. You're not wondering what their timeframe is. You're not wondering why they disappeared. You're not trying to read between the lines, because you were able to have a real conversation about the concern they have, and you understand where they're coming from, and they also understand what you can provide for them.
It takes the guessing out. So many times I'm working with clients, and they're like, "I don't know. I don't know. I don't know why they did that. I don't know why they said that. I don't know why they're not responding to my proposals." I do. We didn't understand what was going on in the objections, and that is where things can really fall off the rails.
It doesn't have to be really uncomfortable. It doesn't have to be manipulating at all. It's just we need to continue to have a real conversation in this moment and not all of a sudden not know how to talk.
Scott Greening: All right. So I'm going to ask you to put your counselor hat on, and if somebody's going and they're listening to this, they've identified themselves with maybe one or two, probably not three, but maybe one or two of these mistakes, what questions could we ask to figure out where they're at?
Brooke Greening: Yeah. So when you hear an objection, and please understand anything besides not yes I would... Let's send the proposal, let's set the date, let's sign a contract. Anything like, "I wanna think about it. I need to talk to my business partner." Like, all of those are considered objections. Anytime you hear those, just ask yourself, "Am I getting curious about it?
Am I getting defensive about it, or am I trying to avoid it altogether?" Those are the three que- Like, where are you at in that moment? Do you get curious about what it is? Are you getting defensive and trying to... Or are you trying to avoid it? And defensive can sometimes be like, "Okay I gotta try to fix this.
I've gotta make it right." So curious, defensive, or avoid the conversation. Where are you at when they bring up the objection?
Scott Greening: All right, Brooke gave us another good question for some self-refection, self-reflection. She's got a great tool to help with that even more, and that's her sales conversation assessment.
So I encourage you to head over to buildingmomentum.info/assessment and take that. In somewhere between five or seven minutes, you'll go through the questions and then get a report back that'll help you begin to know where you could take steps forward in your sales conversations.
Brooke Greening: Brooke, we've been talking about this idea and we've been teasing that something's coming. Where are we headed next week and what's the good news that's coming for people?
Yes. So next week I'm going to give you one question that's going to be able to create space for your customers to share the concerns before they start becoming obstacles.
I'm not saying we're not avoiding the objections. I'm going to help you to know how to be able to ask for them, to be able to give them the space to be able to share it. And it is a lot more simpler than you think, I promise.
Scott Greening: Yeah. And it's really good news. I've been trying to figure out what do we call this que- is this Brooke's million dollar sales question?
This one question has helped you and a lot of your clients make a lot more sales- Mm-hmm ... 'cause it takes a lot of the guessworking out of it. Until then, We hope you enjoy your week, enjoy your matcha, and make some more sales.
Brooke Greening: Bye-bye.
