#244: Why You Need To Stop Handling Objections & Do This Instead
Luigi Prestinenzi [00:00:00]:
And this is where a lot of people go wrong. We immediately respond with price. Let me give you a discount. In this episode, you're gonna learn why you need to stop handling objections. You're gonna learn what an objection actually is and the importance of not responding when hearing an objection. Welcome to another episode of the How to Sell podcast. I'm your host, Luigi Prestinenzi. And this week, Dave, we're gonna be tackling the important topic of objections.
David Fastuca [00:00:31]:
I love this one because what better talk about is very counterintuitive to all the information that's out there about how to handle objections, why you need to. So when you mentioned this is the topic we're gonna talk about today, I was like, oh, this is gonna be a nice juicy
Luigi Prestinenzi [00:00:47]:
one. Yeah. And let's let's get straight into it. Right? So this is a very tactical episode for all of you listening. You should be able to apply this immediately. So the first thing that we need to talk about, we need to demystify the the the handling objection sort of statement. Because often in sales training, you're taught to handle objections. But the reality is you don't handle objections because let's define what an objection actually is.
Luigi Prestinenzi [00:01:12]:
Now an objection is a request for more information before I progress. So a true objection, Dave, is when somebody actually wants to move forward, but they're lacking enough information to give them confidence to take action. Right? And often, salespeople view as an objection as, oh my god. I now have to respond with some, you know, with a with a with a closing statement or some form of statement that'll get them to progress. Right? When in fact, what we should be doing is we should be stopping, seeking, understanding on what information they require, deliver that information to them before progressing. Can you
David Fastuca [00:01:56]:
give me an example of when you should, follow this approach?
Luigi Prestinenzi [00:02:00]:
An example. Okay. So an example is, you know, you might have presented something and and they've immediately David, I'll give you I'll give you the most common one that we see, especially when people present the price. Right? So they say, this is the price. And often what happens is the person on the other end says, woah. You know, that price is actually a lot more than what I was first anticipating. So, you know, I I have a view on this. You should never talk about price.
Luigi Prestinenzi [00:02:24]:
You should always talk about the investment, especially when you're selling a service. Even if it's a product, you should be defining what the return is gonna be for them. But put putting that aside, when we put price up, especially if it is more than what they were anticipating, they'll sort of freak out a little bit. And I say, woah. That's when what we need to do is we need to hold back the response skill, David. And we shouldn't go into that responding and offer a discount. Start selling further features, feature dumping, throwing up on the prospect. Right? We need to hold back and accept their position and say, hey, Dave.
Luigi Prestinenzi [00:02:58]:
Completely understand what we've put forward is different to what you were first expecting. Isolate. Do you mind me asking? Outside of the price or outside of the what I've presented today, what else is causing you concern about what we've discussed? So when you isolate the objection for a moment and you put aside, usually, that is not the true it's not the root cause of what's causing them concern. Yeah? And this is where a lot of people go wrong. We immediately respond with price. Let me give you a discount. But the discount is not what's gonna push them to move forward. Yeah.
Luigi Prestinenzi [00:03:38]:
There's something else that's causing them a bit of concern. So we wanna basically try to understand what that concern is, confirm our understanding of their concern before we go into respond. It's a very, very simple methodology. So you've gotta listen to what they're saying. You have to acknowledge what they're saying. Really, really important. Don't push back. Right? Don't share your own opinion.
Luigi Prestinenzi [00:04:01]:
You need to acknowledge because that's their reality. Right? Once you've acknowledged, you confirm what you heard, then you go into responding.
David Fastuca [00:04:09]:
Can this approach work as well if you're not talking live, like, on a call or a Zoom call, and you're doing this via email, do you find that it has the same effect, or you need to jump on a a call to discuss this?
Luigi Prestinenzi [00:04:24]:
Well, look, I always love to move this type of discussion into a, like, off email thread. But if you're in that position and I have trialed it, you would use the exact same approach. Right? Mhmm. You acknowledge what they're they're they're they're saying. You ask a clarification question and you suggest, you know, it doesn't make sense for us to jump on a call so we can review this. Yeah? And this is pretty important, Dave, because when you think about it, a lot of again, we were taught to manage objections. But what we should be thinking is how do we understand what information our buyers need before progressing. And when we flip our thinking around this, the dynamic of the conversation will change.
Luigi Prestinenzi [00:05:08]:
Yeah? So if you're thinking ahead of time, when I'm when a buyer is at x stage of the process, what information do they need? Then it's about delivering that information to them. But it's also in about ensuring that before they progress, you seek confirmation. You're checking to make sure they're understanding the information that's being delivered before progressing. Right? So they're kind of like gates that you will help them through. And in some cases, even when you've been quite articulate, when you've educated them around that particular topic from an information perspective, sometimes it's an overload. They're overloaded with information, and they're just not hearing or they're just not understanding. So they'll still have an objection. Right? Because there's information gaps.
Luigi Prestinenzi [00:05:59]:
So again, before progressing, you might have to go back a step. And that's why from a proactive perspective, and and you've listened to me for many years, I talk a lot about being proactive versus reactive when it comes to selling. The proactive nature of selling is identifying what are the key questions that our buyers will need answers to throughout the buying journey and making sure we're clear that we're giving in that information. A lot of people will call you know, there's a term called neutralizing the objection before it becomes up. Right? Before it comes up. So you essentially identify it beforehand. You give them the information so they don't bring it up first. But even when you facilitate that process, in some cases, there is a genuine lack of understanding.
Luigi Prestinenzi [00:06:47]:
Because, again, they're just overloaded with information. Right? Mhmm. And especially, Dave, when and and the complexities of of of the sales process kick in when you have multiple stakeholders involved in the buying journey because then you have multiple people that will interpret things differently. This is the and this is the art of the sales process. Right? Knowing that you have multiple people involved in the decision making process, and they all interpret things differently. So you then have to deliver the information in the way that they need to in in the way that they need it. Right? This is that whole platinum rule. Treat others the way they wanna be treated.
Luigi Prestinenzi [00:07:23]:
So one message does not fit all.
David Fastuca [00:07:26]:
Just a quick interruption to let you know about a free resource that Luigi and I wanna hand over to you. This resource has helped lift close won rates to over 73% on average, plus you'll get our b2b sales newsletter that drops weekly where you can learn what it takes to build a repeatable sales process and creating a pipeline full of qualified deals. To get this resource, just go to Forum Forum click the link in this episode and sign up today. Oh,
David Fastuca [00:07:59]:
I love that. Right? And I actually I've used that a few times, that neutralizing. But in a in a a way that feels more genuine when we're going through the conversation, allowing for time, allowing for responses. You know, it brings me back to the old movie, 8 Mile by Eminem at the end when he wins the rap battle by, throwing back everything that he thinks they're gonna use against him in, you know, in that opponent's rap, and he brings it up in his and it sort of just shuts him down. Now do you find what it what happens when someone's like on a call or they're in their email, Fred, and they're like, I just wanna know the investment. So to refer back to the gates, they're trying to skip the gates, which could lead to not enough information being presented to them, with that bit of information shock when they get to the investment. How do you how do you tackle that? Because of you know, we've been victim to that ourselves, right, when we've jumped straight to investment because we think we've got a super warm lead, but they've skipped the sales, and we've missed our process.
Luigi Prestinenzi [00:08:58]:
Yeah. But and and again, we all get excited when we have a prospect. It's like I'm ready to buy. Right? You're like, great. I just gotta send them a quote. I just gotta send them the proposal. They'll sign it, and off they go. So they're pushing the momentum of the sales process.
Luigi Prestinenzi [00:09:13]:
You're like, man, the velocity is insane. I'm gonna close this deal really quick. It was an unexpected deal in my pipeline. It's, you know, awesome. Love those deals. And then all of a sudden, you send it across and you hear crickets. They ghost you. Right? It often happens.
Luigi Prestinenzi [00:09:26]:
Yeah. It's actually it happens more often than not. And so what we what we've got this is where the discipline kicks in. We've gotta be disciplined to say, yes, completely understand. And and, again, you've got to you've got to meet them where they're at. So, you know, mister prospect or David, completely understand, the drive that or or the, urgency that you have around implementing x solution. Hey. Happy to help facilitate what you need.
Luigi Prestinenzi [00:09:52]:
But in order for me to make sure that I'm giving you the right information, do you mind if I ask a few questions? You've actually gotta go back a step to ask some questions. Gather that information first. Right? Because, again, unless you're selling a widget, it's a fixed product. There's no changes. Nothing. Right? But even in that case, you can still align the benefits of what you sell to the outcomes that they're seeking to achieve. So there's still a way for you to add that consultative selling methodology. But it's really important that you slow it down a little bit just to gather the information so that you can make that you can align exactly what they're trying to achieve to what your product or service offers.
Luigi Prestinenzi [00:10:32]:
Now, again, another major, issue I I see across various industries is that I'll give you an example. Proposals are often sent via email to a prospect or to a buyer, and then the buyer starts to ghost them. And I'll tell you, right, this is and we've seen the the difference when a proposal is presented, questions or objections are heard, information is delivered, more deals progress. We see the win rate increases when you present
David Fastuca [00:11:10]:
You're talking about presented live?
Luigi Prestinenzi [00:11:12]:
Correct. Right? Versus sending over email. Again, this is another great example. You send it by email. The person receives it. They open it. They start to read it. They start to have questions, which could be objections.
Luigi Prestinenzi [00:11:27]:
Now because you're not on the call, what do they do? They then answer the questions themselves. Right? And in some cases, the answers to the questions that they have, they're interpreting it wrong. And, therefore, they're either losing confidence or they're like, no. This is not the right fit for me. And because you're not there to help them through that process, help them see things a bit differently, the doors the the deal stall. Right? So, again, a great practice should be as you're progressing a buyer through that process, and if you have the the occasions where you just simply can't present it, do a video. Think about what are the questions that most of my buyers have as I'm progressing them through this proposal. Right? Think about that ahead of time.
Luigi Prestinenzi [00:12:14]:
This is that proactive nature. Think about the information that they need to acquire through this process. Let me define that first. And if I have to send it ahead of time, which I don't advocate, but in the event that you have to, record a little video and walk them through and preempt those questions and say, hey. Most typically, what we find when we bring this solution up, a lot of our buyers or a lot of our, you know, a lot of our clients often ask a, b, c. And you're probably thinking the same. Let me walk you through that. So, again, you're bringing that objection up.
Luigi Prestinenzi [00:12:47]:
You're saying, hey. Typically, what we hear is x. Let me walk you through the solve around that. Right? So because what happens is as people start to move to that point of decision, task tension starts to increase. They start to feel that level of anxiety and start to question, is this possible? Do I have the bandwidth? Does the product do what it says? So they've got all these questions sort of coming up in their head. We've gotta we've gotta bring those questions and talk about it. We've gotta address it. Because if they're not addressed, what we're doing is we're using hope as a strategy.
Luigi Prestinenzi [00:13:19]:
Yeah? So, you know, just to summarize this episode, Dave, when it comes to objections, I just wanna go back a step. When you're on a call with somebody, you've got a if somebody does have some form of resistance, they've got a little bit of tension about a particular topic, don't ignore it. Don't try to force it. Right? Don't try to force past it. You've got to accept their current position. You need to decrease their tension. Hear what they have to sales, so listen. And don't listen to respond, listen to understand.
Luigi Prestinenzi [00:13:50]:
Right? So the first step is to listen. Acknowledge their current state. Don't push back because it'll create tension. Acknowledge it. Accept it. Right. That's how they're feeling. Confirm your understanding.
Luigi Prestinenzi [00:14:04]:
So ask a clarification question to ensure you're clear on what that resistance or what that question is. Once you've seek confirmation, then it's your opportunity to give them the information that they need, then check to make sure they're comfortable before progressing. It's a very simple framework. Right? It's a framework that'll help reduce that tension, get a better understanding of their current state, and allows you to get that information to them that they need. The second element of this process is and map the buying process and ask yourself, what are the questions that my buyers are asking as they progress? Right? And not just your main champion, but the other people involved in the buying journey. Think about those questions as they progress from top of funnel to bottom of the funnel. That is then your opportunity to start to be proactive with how you share information with them. And even when they don't raise something, be bold.
Luigi Prestinenzi [00:15:09]:
Raise it for them. Say, hey. Most people when they get to this step often have this concern. I'm not sure if you've considered this, but it's probably something you should consider. The buyer will respect you more for telling them what they should be considering. Yeah. So this is why we need to change our thinking and change our relationship with objections. This is not about people have an objection to what you want you're proposing.
Luigi Prestinenzi [00:15:36]:
They're just seeking some further information. It's our role to facilitate, to guide, to educate, and nurture them to move to that state where they're confident about the decision they're about to make.
