The One Objection That is Crushing Your Business (And Your Clients)
Hey there, Healthpreneurs! Welcome back to the show. Today, I’m going to talk about improving the sales process. I’ll do this by revealing the number one objection that kills your business and keeps your potential clients in pain. And guess what? It has nothing to do with money.
This common objection must be addressed and you must prepare for it. So, what is it? None other than the good ole, “Lemme think about it.” To understand this objection, we’ve got to know where it comes from: Fear. Fear of making the wrong choice.
But you can combat this with information and a clear solution to their problem. You also must help your prospective client understand how the price of your program is way smaller than the price of their continued suffering. But there’s more. Tune in to hear how to never let this objection get in the way of selling your product and helping people again.
In This Episode I discuss:
01:00 – 03:30 – Introducing today’s topic and the objection that kills your business
03:30 – 05:30 – Understanding why someone reached out in the first place
05:30 – 08:30 – How to turn around a “Lemme think about it” objection
08:30 – 13:30 – The likelihood of someone coming back after saying they need to think about it
13:30 – 16:00 – An example and understanding someone’s level of commitment
16:00 – 20:00 – Getting the help you need if your sales process isn’t working
Transcription
Hey, guys, what’s up? Yuri’s here. Welcome back to the show. In today’s episode, we’re going to talk a little bit about enrollment calls, the selling process, whatever you want to call it, right? I’m going to share with you the number one objection that not only kills your business, but it actually keeps your potential clients suffering. It has nothing to do with money.
Introducing today’s topic and the objection that kills your business
This one objection that I would say is probably the most common objection is brought up for a couple of reasons. The thing is, if you don’t understand how to address this, here’s a couple things that are going to happen.
Number one, you’re not going to be able to enroll clients to the degree that you want to. You’re going to start to doubt yourself. You’re going to lose confidence because you’re like, “Nah, I’m speaking to like 10 people, and no one’s enrolling.” It’s not that the process is broken, but there’s something in the conversation that isn’t working.
As a result of that, you’re not going to make the money you want in your business. And that can become very frustrating because you start to second-guess the whole thing, you start to look for “Maybe I should do this instead,” and you start to chase shiny objects, which is the last thing you want to do. But if you do get this figured out, what ends up happening is that you become a lot more confident on the phone, you become a lot more confident when you’re speaking to people. You become a lot more confident at detecting bullshit. And you get a lot more confidence at having deep, meaningful, honest conversations that most will lead to some type of enrollment.
And that’s the power here, is that if you have 10 conversations booked with prospective clients and 0% of those people enroll with you, that’s a very different business than if, let’s say, five or six of those people enroll with you. That’s a very, very different business. Can you appreciate that? So, nothing else has changed. The only thing that’s different is, you’re able to enroll a lot more people. What I’m about to share with you is going to help you write your own lottery ticket. This is something I really, if you’re one of our clients listening to this, this is very important. This is something I really helped my team grasp. Because I don’t do enrollment calls that much anymore. It’s mostly our coaches who do them. And this is something I continually have to remind them about.
So, this one objection that is crushing your business and your clients is the good old, “I need to think about it.” And so, here’s why this objection is not a lot of fun. Why is it that people need to think about something? Well, first and foremost, is it that people book a call with you? There’s two things that people want from a conversation. Number one is, they are looking for information. They are looking for information. And number two, they want a solution to their problem.
Understanding why someone reached out in the first place
So number one, let’s talk about number one for a second. If they’re on the phone with you, and they don’t feel they have all the information they need to make a decision, then they can’t make a decision, right? You can never expect somebody to make a decision who was not fully informed. So your goal is to fully inform your prospective client about everything that’s entailed with your program without obviously, overwhelming them with details. But they need to feel clarity around what it is they are getting into.
I use this example about the black box and the fishbowl. If I were to ask you, imagine Fear Factor, that show, if you can remember that. Imagine them asking you to put your hand in a black box. I’m not going to tell you what’s in it. Would you do it? Maybe if you trust me you would, but most people are not going to, because they don’t know if there’s jelly in there, or a scorpion, or nothing. There could be $1 million in there. Here’s the thing, there could be $1 million in that black box. But why would someone not put their hand in? Because they are afraid. They’re afraid of making the wrong choice. And the wrong choice means, “I’m going to put my hand in this box and bam, I get bit by a scorpion.”
In business, when you’re speaking to people on the phone, people are more concerned about making the wrong choice than anything else. I’m serious about this. So if they don’t have enough information, they can’t move forward with confidence. Instead of the black box, you need to create a fishbowl, which means you’re getting people, “Hey, put your hand in the fishbowl.” Cool, awesome. Why would they do that? Because they can see everything across that. There is no mystery. So, you need to be very clear about the information that’s being given to that client so they feel like they have everything they need to make an informed decision. So, information is the number one thing they are looking for.
The second thing is, they are looking for a solution to their problem. So, the whole time you’re talking, you’re asking questions, they’re answering, and so forth, the goal of the conversation is not to be like, “Okay, what do you want to do?” “I want to lose weight.” “Awesome, next.” You have to go deep with people, because they need to recognize the badness or the severity of their situation. Because if they don’t, they are never going to see your solution, especially if it’s a higher-priced solution, as the must-have thing to solve their problem.
So you, in the context of the conversation, that goal is to have an open, honest conversation where you’re digging deep and getting to the truth, having them verbalize why their situation sucks, and if they can stay there or not. I’ll tell you this, though. If people are speaking to you, and don’t get to a point on the phone where they have recognized that the value you’re providing or the price of your program, is infinitely smaller than the severity of their problem, you will not enroll them. And this is a problem, because then you start, you’re like, “Oh, my God, it’s priced too high,” or whatever.
Someone is about to work with you, and your program is, let’s say it’s $3,000. They want to lose weight. In their mind, if they don’t enroll with you, they don’t think they have a $3,000 problem. That’s what it comes down to. They believe that their problem is $500. Your job is to help them internalize that their problem is not a $3,000 problem, it’s a $500,000 problem. And this is why you need the right training to be able to do this. And we are not talking about manipulating people and doing that kind of stuff. It’s about leading the conversation in a way where people are just openly talking with you about with the situation is. And if you don’t know what questions to ask, and if you don’t know how to lead these conversations, well, you’re going to have a challenging time, right?
How to turn around a “Lemme think about it” objection
So, if we go back to, “I need to think about it,” people are going to say, “I need to think about it,” because they want to be polite, right? Maybe they don’t want to verbalize, “I can’t afford it.” Because some people, I’ll just be honest. I am not the type of person to tell somebody I can’t afford something. Why? Because it’s going to make me look bad. So, you have to understand that some people are not going to verbalize that they can’t afford it. It makes them look lower, in terms of the status on the totem pole, then they think they are.
But third is, that there’s something in their head, they are not clear about something. There is something they are not clear about. So number one, they’re going to use it as a stall. They’re paralyzed. They can’t make a decision. Number two, they are going to be polite about it. Number three, they’re going to say that because they don’t want to look like a fool by saying it’s too expensive, for instance. And we have to understand where people are at. But the thing to remember is that if we let people off the hook to think about it, what is the likelihood of them coming back and being like, “You know what? Yes, this is the thing I need to do”?
The likelihood of someone coming back after saying they need to think about it
What do you think the percentage of people who you have a phone call with for 45 minutes or an hour 30 minutes, who are like, “I know I want to do this, but I just need to sleep on it. I need to meditate on it. I need to talk to my dog about it,” whatever those excuses are, what is the likelihood percentage-wise, of those people coming back and actually doing business with you? And I don’t care what kind of follow-up you have in place. We’ve got a really good follow-up process in place, but I’ll tell you statistically, it’s very low. It is less than 10% of people. And what that means is, that if you let them go, you let them down.
So in our process, when we get to a point in the conversation where we mutually agree that this is what they want, they have verbally told us, “Yes, I need your help,” once that has been decided upon, it is our job, and I continue to tell my coaches, it is your job to lean in. Because if you don’t lean in and get uncomfortable, that person is going to use the, “I need to think about it” excuse to jump out of the conversation for whatever reason. And when they jump out and they say, “I need to think about it. I’ll call you back tomorrow,” what’s going to happen? Even if you have a phone conversation the next day, what’s going to happen? Is their energy, and their enthusiasm, and their excitement going to go up or down from the conversation? It’s going to go down. It only can go down. It’s not going to get any higher than it was on the phone with you.
What else is going to kick in? People’s inertia. The inertia to keep doing what they’re doing, because change is scary and uncomfortable. What else can happen? Oh, they might talk to their spouse, and their spouse who is like, of course, the know-all. Right? Of course they had a conversation with you, as well, so they know the whole gist of your program. Very often, that spouse is going to talk them down. They’re going to say, “You can’t do this. It’s a scam, it’s not going to work.” And so, they’re going to come on the phone with you tomorrow and they’re going to say something like, “You know what? I thought about it, and” dot, dot dot. Whatever follows that is never a good thing.
An example and understanding someone’s level of commitment
And it’s really frustrating. When this happens more often than you want to see it happen, you’re going to start to change your approach. You’re going to start to get a lot more assertive with people on the phone. I’m at a point now where if I speak to people and I’m like, “Listen, where are you on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being let’s do this right now, 1 being I’d never do this even for free”? They say they’re at a 9. Okay, cool. What’s it going to take to get to a 10? “Oh, I just want to think about it.” “Okay, great. I know there’s probably a couple of things you want to think about, but I’m going to assume there’s probably one thing you want to think about more than anything else. What’s that one thing?” “I just want to figure out the finances.” “Okay, cool. Awesome. Totally understand that.”
So, if you don’t know how to handle these conversations, what’s going to happen is, the conversation’s going to finish by you saying, “Okay, cool. I’ll let you look over your finances and we’ll talk tomorrow.” That’s how that’s going to end. And here’s what’s going to happen the next day. “Hey, I’m really pumped about our conversation yesterday. So, you ready to rock ‘n’ roll?” “Ah, man, I was thinking about it. Talked to my husband.” You might as well just hang up the phone at that point. It’s over. It’s done, okay?
So, I want you to have the belief that once you finish that conversation, it’s over. No commitments, no clients. They don’t put down that deposit, they don’t pay whatever, they are not going to become a client. And everyone talks about follow-up, you need 1,000 touch points. We have a whole 90-day follow-up sequence, okay? So we have a whole drawn-out process. And we do get quite a few clients from that follow-up. But I promise you, if you are better on the phone on that first conversation, it’s going to save you a lot of time and it’s going to save you a lot of heartache. And really, it’s a pain in the ass.
Because what ends up happening is, you have to draw the line between following up with people and chasing people. You are offering a premium solution that is going to solve someone’s problem. If they don’t see the value in your solution, either two things, number one, you haven’t done a good enough job communicating that, or two, they’re just not serious enough about making it happen, right? Where there’s a will there’s a way. If it’s something that’s a must for someone, they will find a way to make it happen.
I had a conversation with a lady the other week … Amazing, amazing stuff that she’s done. She was in school, and did a PhD on this whole new cool methodology of helping people achieve weight loss, crazy stuff. And I’m like, “Man, you’ve got something phenomenal here.” And she said she wanted to think about it. And I said, “Okay,” whatever, kind of addressed that. And she said, “Listen, I’m not the type of person who makes a decision right away.” Okay, there’s lots of different ways to handle that. But again, this is a PhD student. You obviously know she’s going to be analytical and so forth.
And she’s like, “Yeah, why don’t you reconvene in three weeks?” I’m like, “What do you need three weeks to think about?” Either this is, “I need to do this,” or it’s not. I’m at a point now, I don’t waste my time following up with people like that. Because I promise you, if I were to follow up with her, she is, “Other stuff has come up. This other stuff is more important. I’m going to do this for now.” It’s all bullshit, okay? It’s either you need this and let’s do this or, you’re not serious enough. That’s all it comes down to.
So if someone’s like, “I’m going to think about it,” for me, it’s, you are not serious enough. That’s all it is. How is either a, “Hell, yes,” or it’s a “No.” And if you can’t make a decision, if you can’t see how your situation is horrific and how if you keep doing what you’re doing you’re going to end up in a really bad place,” if they can’t see that, and if you haven’t done a good enough job at showing them that your solution is the only … not a way, but the only way, to achieve their outcome, you’re going to have a tough time enrolling people.
Getting the help you need if your sales process isn’t working
And so, one of the things that we help our clients with is, we spend a lot of time on the enrollment side. We actually have a whole new training we did over the Christmas holidays called the 30-day Sales Amplifier. And it was all because I recognized that you have to learn how to sell with confidence. Because if you don’t know how to handle these situations, you cannot enroll people. You will continually come up against, “I can’t afford it, I need to think about it, I have to talk to my spouse.” And if you don’t know how to, first and foremost, prevent those things from happening, and second if they do happen how to handle them, you’re going to have a tough time, okay? It’s going to be a tough go of making sense of this stuff. And it’s going to be very frustrating. You’re going to hit your head against the wall. You’re going to think there’s something wrong with you. There isn’t. It’s simply the way you’re approaching your calls, and how you speak with people.
And again, if you don’t know what to do, then what are you supposed to do, right? You only know what you know. And listen, I’m not the world’s best sales trainer. I’m not trying to say that. But I’m very good at what I do. And we are very good at helping our clients break through their own limitations to help their clients. And the thing I really, really don’t want you to run into is, if you are running your business and you run into, “I need to think about it” more often than you think is normal, then something isn’t working. And I implore you to get the help you need to fix that.
So, one of the things I’d like to present to you … I think I mentioned this last week. We have our next Luminaries Mastermind coming up in Toronto June 26 and 27th. We’ve opened up about 20, 25 spots for non-clients to sit in and experience the two days with us. In those two days, on day one, we are going to map out your million dollar model. This is a very, very simple model that we encourage anyone in a coaching business to build out and deploy, which is going to help you bring prospects in predictably. It’s going to help you enroll them with more confidence. And it’s going to help you deliver an amazing result to those clients.
So, if you want more clients, if you want to charge what you’re truly worth, if you wanted to deliver an amazing coaching experience without one-on-one coaching, I think you’ll really enjoy this. Day two, you’ll be able to sit in with our existing clients, and really just kind of take things to the next level and be surrounded by some next-level stuff and people that are doing some awesome stuff. If that’s of interest to you and if you want to see if you qualify, then head on over to healthpreneurgroup.com/2day. So, 2 as in the number 2, D-A-Y.
Once you’re on the page, just have a look through everything we’re going to do. Check out all the testimonials of our clients. We are crushing it. And if you are serious about fixing your business and moving it to the next level, then fill out the application on the page. I’ll get back to you within about 24 hours, either yes or no based on where you’re at and where you want to go. And then we’ll take it from there, okay? Because I don’t want you to run up against stuff that I can help you fix. But again, if you think everything’s okay, there’s not much I can say about that, okay.
So, you have to be honest about your situation. And you have to say to yourself, “You know what? My situation is great. I’m making $1,000 a month and I’m happy.” That’s terrific. I can’t help you. But if you’re in a position where you are absolutely frustrated and sick and tired of where you’re at and you know you’ve got a bigger future, you’re not going to do it by yourself. I can promise you it’s never going to happen, okay? So, I’m not saying I am the only option. But I can promise you that if you’re a health, fitness, or wellness coach, I am the best option. And it’s not just me, it’s my entire team that’s here to support you.
So, if you’re interested, join us over at healthpreneurgroup.com/2day. 2 as in the number 2, D-A-Y. Fill out the application. And we’ll get back to you. And if all is good, you can join us live and in person in Toronto, which is in Canada, just in case you’re wondering? I’m amazed at how many people don’t know where Toronto is. It’s an amazing city. We are going to have a lot of fun. And most importantly, we are going to help you create some big breakthroughs and big wins in your business so you can get more clients, convert more clients, and deliver amazing results. Cool? Look forward to seeing you there.
Thanks so much for joining me. I’ll see you soon.
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What You Missed
In our last episode, I talked about climbing your success ladder, specifically, to help you diagnose exactly where you are in your business so you can know which rung you need to reach next.
Certain questions, like ones about basic tech, indicate that a business is still in its beginning stages. Alternatively, questions about scaling and stepping out of the business start a very different discussion. Neither are wrong, but identifying where you are – honestly – can give you a gauge of where to go next.
Each step of the ladder needs to be mastered before proceeding on to the next. So, if you’re still figuring out the tech to operate your business at its most basic level, for example, you probably aren’t ready to start discussing how to step away from it all and still scale.
Tune in to assess where you are, where you want to be, and how to get there.