Episode 14 - Final Perspectives on Objections: Optimizing Your Personal Resources

Episode 14: Final Perspectives on Objections: Optimizing Your Personal Resources

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Jason McClain: Welcome to Evolutionary Sales. I am your host Jason McClain and your guide in 21st. century market place.

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“Unless there’s someone else involved in the decision making process, the financial aspect of it, of course because most people coming here that person happens to be their intimate partner, their husband, their wife whoever it may be, but they are in that role.”

“That one is almost impossible to get around for me truly because I am unwilling to override their process with their partner, their significant other.”

“The only appropriate question for you to ask, burst or bulges at the seam and put structures in place avoid in the future is, “How I am responsible and what can I learn.”

“The thing to remember is the concerns, they are really the opportunity for you to powerfully open the relationship. It is a wonderful and fun thing. You begin, believe it or not, you begin to look forward to them.”

“If their receptionist or assistant is going through phone calls, I would ask her or him, “What would I need to do to have him accept the phone call?” That’s one way, that’s kind of the straightforward way. The other way to do it is call a different extension and pull the Colombo[sp] move and apologize and say, “I am sorry. I have finally reached someone so and so, can you transfer me to them?”

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On the last couple of shows, we talked reframing concerns and different language patterns to assist you in reframing the concerns that your client or process may have. Hope that you have gotten a partner and you are playing with those and you have gotten lots of practice at it and I also say that there is no point at which you won’t want to practice at or play with it. No matter what little of mastery you attain and attract…the higher the level of the mastery the more you become aware…there are always more subtler and subtler skills that you can you reach, a higher level of mastery that you can reach.

So play with them. You will begin to find out which context those language patterns fit more effectively fit in; what kind of personnel it will work more effectively with; which ones you feel more comfortable using etc. And I want to talk a second about reframing concerns in general and concerns in general.

First of all, one of things that a lot of sales people do is they get a little tense when someone has a concern. They get scared, they interpret is as a ‘No’ or something of that nature. I am going to give you a few ways to think about concerns so that you can be more resourceful around them and have greater choice, and probably of more relationships. First of all, think of it is a buying signal. I mean if they weren’t interested at all then they would just say, “Thanks and no.”

The facts that they are actually coming up with a concern, means that they have imagined in their mind your service or product engaging in some sort of relationship with you. But they had a concern come up. It’s one way to relate to it. Another way to relate to it, it’s a concern not an objection. They have this and this and that to work out, but ultimately it’s going to get worked out and it’s just a concern. And speaking of that, one of the things that all sales professionals want to do is they want to jump on a concern right away. They want to really handle it. Because you know oh, that they have got this perfect answer for, “No, yeah. The last prospect had the same concern and it was so easy, or whatever.”

I have found that if I just pause and hold space for them to actually have the concern then I don’t often need to say anything. They will talk themselves out of it. May be they are talking a lot, expressing things out aloud. Now you may notice a lot of tension while they are doing that, takes you a while to relax into that; to trust that they are perhaps talking themselves out of it. And sometimes they do and sometimes of course, they don’t. Most often they don’t, and then it’s your job to reframe the concern.

There’s one concern, that out of respect for the integrity of people’s relationships, I simply must make sure that I am preferring my own business. And unless there’s someone else involved in the decision making process, the financial aspect of it, of course because most people coming here, that person happens to be their intimate partner; their husband, their wife whoever it may be, but they are in that role. That one is almost impossible to get around for me truly because I am unwilling to override their process with their partner, their significant other. That one needs to be respected.

Now how I avoid that challenge, is to simply ask upfront, “Is there anyone else that needs to be involved in this decision?” and if you get a man mentioned at earlier then it is serious. But if you keep coming up against a concern and you are not sure how to get around it then your job, being fully responsible for the results that you are getting, is to come up with pre-frame or a pre-question, a pre-qualifying question that handles that upfront.

The underlying principle there is that every “failure” has a gift inside of it and it is the learning that you can take on, to avoid it in the future. Whether that’s in your intimate relationship, out in the world with some stranger, with a prospect client, with your boss whoever it may be, the only appropriate question for you to ask burst or bulges at the seam and to put structures in place to avoid it in the future is, “How I am responsible and what can I learn?” And it is your [xx] to make every “failure” or every event no matter how traumatic or how joyous, an opportunity for learning and improvement.

That’s your duty as an evolutionary sales professional. There is one another consistent concern that I come up against in my business and I thought I would share that with you because it may be useful to you. Often people say, “Well that’s just the kind of person you need to think about,” and he would just sleep on it for a few days or something that of nature, may be a week may be it is 24 hours, and I know statistically that if they walk out, the result, the statistics drop, they plummet in terms of the actual relationships that are opened, the number of them.

And so given that I feel I am living my purpose and given that I know that they are going to get what they want, if they work with me I just tell them, “Well you know, I can appreciate that and it is my duty, it is my duty to help you overcome that. It’s my duty to have you make a choice today. And here’s why,” and I just tell them everything I mentioned: The numbers drop that ultimately that means they don’t get what they want and then I feel it’s my duty to overcome that.

Try somewhat they would need to know or what do they engage in that process etc. Sometimes I ask them, one of the reframes is, “Is this the thing that’s stopping you and the rest of it. Is your need to think about it for too long? Is that the thing that’s stopping you and the rest of your life? How many other contexts is that stopping you?” And if that’s the case, “Well then this may be the one time where you should override that, so that you can ultimately get whatever you want.” The thing to remember is that concerns are really the opportunity for you to powerfully open the relationship. It is a wonderful and fun thing. You begin; believe it or not, you begin to look forward to them. They get kind of fun, they really get kind of fun.

Shortly for the rest of the show first of all I am going to handle couple of listener question and then we are going actually to do a little bit of internal work for you to assist you in integrating yourself unconsciously as being more resourceful around concerns.

The first of the listener may…and let me stress here that I need your feedback and your feedback may come in the form of sharing a win or a success or asking a question of application or challenging some concept that I have laid out and as actually going deeper into the distinction. If you found these [xx] to be valuable and you would like them to continue for yourself and for your others, please begin to interact, even more powerfully. I look forward to the questions.

OK. Michael asks, “I believe in not leaving a message. However, when do you call it quits trying to reach a prospect that doesn’t answer the phone?”

First of all Michael I agree with you never leave a message. They don’t make a difference. If you have not contacted them and don’t have a relationship in play, it’s an absolute waste of time and then messages can work against you because you might be that guy that was on the voicemail so many times.

When do you give up, I think it is your discretion. I usually just kept them in the file, in my call list for everyday. I never really took them out for not answering, but I did put up a code in there that they did not answer. So I will say that that is up to you.

For me someone you never contacted, they are still a fresh prospect. And then your follow up question, Michael’s follow up question is, “What if the receptionist says that the decision-maker doesn’t take incoming calls; you can only reach him by email or leaving a message with the receptionist. Also the decision-maker says they are not interested in the sales call then what do you do?

Two really great questions. First of all, if the receptionist or assistant say that they don’t accept phone calls I would ask her or him, “What would I need to do to have him accept the phone call?’ That’s one way the straight forward way. The other way to do is call a different extension and pull the Colombo move and apologize and say, “Oh, I am sorry. I have finally reached someone so can you transfer me to them?” Now they may kick you back to the receptionist, that’s certainly happened to me or they might just thumb you on to the other person that has also happened to me.

What do you do if the prospect says they are not interested in the sales call? Ask them what would have them be interested in a sales-call or you can also change your first question rather than saying, “This is a sales call. Do you have time for a sales call?” as I am fond of doing you can say, “Hi, I am so and so. Do you have the time to talk about increasing your revenue?” “Do you have the time to talk to about something?” Something that would be a benefit to them through your service.

You are also still on integrity there because obviously you are implicitly asking them a favor of time for a sales call. It’s just without the word sales. So I would try both of those and ultimately there is somebody who you may have to take off your list. May be they don’t ever want to talk to sales people. Then you can also ask them, “Well who would be interested in talking about increasing your revenue?” So, there’s always a way somewhere in.

You can even think of others that I haven’t mentioned here. Thanks for your question Michael.

The next question comes from Rebecca in the United Kingdom and Rebecca is a photographer’s rep and she says, “Often in my work I find myself having to sell photographs, I don’t think it very good. Worse, sometimes I know the photographer has to be slightly unprofessional. It doesn’t serve right. I have never even promised making sales on behalf of brilliant business-like photographers, but I just can’t seem to work for others. It’s a lot of pressure because it directly affects the photographer’s finances and quality of life if they have no work coming in. So my question are there any tricks of the mind or otherwise that I can employ to sell a product. I think it is poor quality. And then she has a disclaimer about creativity being subjective.

First of all there may be some mind tricks that you can use and I won’t support that and I won’t tell you how. That’s because this is 21st. century practical sales and for me what’s happening there Rebecca is you have an integrity you could call it a bug, or a part of you who is going, “Hey this isn’t fully in integrity.” That’s your friend you want to have that and voice come up or that sensation come up. It is telling you that if you are comfortable with that.

Here’s the other thing I will say too is that if you are selling the photographs of those photographers who are less than professional, or their photography is not very good, you are doing them a disservice by actually selling their work.

Here’s why. Without the feedback of people not buying their work, they will never improve or they will but not at the pace that they would if they had the push because it is impacting their finances and their quality of life for them to improve. So believe it or not, you may be doing them a disservice by actually letting theirs be sold at all. But the integrity bug, that is your friend you are going to keep that, you are going to honor it, and you always, always, always want to listen to it and ultimately you will expand yourself.

I remember one time someone in a workshop I was leading asked me, “What happens if you don’t believe in your product?” I said, “Well, find another product to sell.” Don’t be out there peddling a product that is poor quality, you don’t believe in, you think is negative because ultimately it will affect, in long term it will actually effect your health, your well being, and your state of mind, your entire life. Thanks for your question Rebecca. And keep those questions coming. They are tremendously valuable to me, to the show, and to all the listeners out there.

And now let us do a little exercise. For this exercise you are going to be want to be in a quiet, comfortable place, preferably sitting down. Do not, repeat do not, drive while you are doing this and if you do drive, well the least that will happen is you won’t really be paying attention and you will miss the benefits of the exercise. The worst that can happen, well I want to say that, remind that Jason McClain and Personal Life Media we are not responsible for any damage to your person or property as a result of you ignoring part of the exercises, sitting down comfortably.

OK. We have worked with the same in the past and so as you sit down comfortably, when you are so, imagine yourself way up in the air. Way above the present, looking down on a line in space that is your timeline. Future in front of you, past behind you, present directly underneath you and then as you float there, you could imagine an image floating up in front of you of yourself. Yourself how you thought of concerns a few weeks ago may be a picture of yourself not really handling concerns well and you can just notice the qualities of that image.

Is the color black and white, is the emotion still, is it sharp or bright, is it high on contrast or low, what’s the color saturation like. Just imagine yourself as you used to be unresourceful around concerns. [xx] I would like you to add whatever resources necessary to that you in that image floating in front of you.

May be it is confidence, may be it is ease, may be it is skill, may be it is connection with the prospect, whatever it is, is fine for you and as you add that, you just imagine a brilliant ball of life or gold [xx] it will be for you, but a symbol that represents those resources and go ahead and toss that gently into the image, noticing how it shifts the image may be that’s emotion, may be changes the color, may be it’s bigger, may be it gets brighter, whatever change is perfect for you but allow your mind now to adjust it so that you can tell from that image that you are powerfully handling concerns with ease, with grace, and with skill. Go and finish that up now and then take that image and grab it at the edges and snap it and blow life into it.

I want you to get even more perfect and then take that image and notice it replicate itself. Thousands of times into the future like an endless drawer in the library of some that nature, infinite resource all the way into the future and allow those copies of that perfect image, of your future self, managing and handling these concerns. Drop that on to your timeline now and let them settle into your timeline and see the light come from it and rush up into your chair, and even now notice your breath getting deeper, more powerful. Once you have noticed that you can float back down in to the present, knowing that every moment of every day is that unconsciously that image of you being fully resourceful will assist you in gaining the skills necessary to become even more effective.

As you come into the room gently, gently, gently, before you drive make sure you walk around the block or something of that nature or do some jumping jacks.

I am Jason McClain, your host and your guide in 21st. century Market Place.

For transcripts of this show and other shows in the Personal Life Media network, please go to personallifemedia.com and it’s two l’s in persoallifemedia.com. If you got questions for me, email me at [email protected], it is [email protected] As always it’s a pleasure contributing to you. Keep the questions coming, keep your success rolling. And let’s meet back here next week.

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