How to Scale a ‘Ten Foot Wall’ of Objections

Do you frequently struggle with overcoming objections from your prospects? Do you often feel that they are nothing more than excuses? Then you’ll really appreciate today’s feature article guest authored by Robert Middleton. Robert is one of the mentors we’ve worked with previously, and in fact worked very closely with, in person. Enjoy the article.

The Ten Foot Wall

I’ve found that there are three big objections that frequently come up when anyone is looking at retaining the services of a professional.

1. I don’t have the money.
2. I don’t have the time.
3. I’m not ready/can’t do it/am not able.

This is assuming everything else fits. They have the need and you have the services that can help them. They like you and trust you and you are both excited about the possibilities.

But then an objection bomb falls. So what do you do?

First of all, it’s important for you, the professional, to understand the nature of the objection. And the first fact about all three objections is that they are lies. Everytime.

Even if they really don’t have the money, have absolutely no time and are in some way not ready or able, they are lies. I suppose a softer way to say it is that they are excuses. And excuses are lies.

We lie because we have not made the distinction between an external reality and our belief about confronting that reality. To most of us they are exactly the same. For instance:

• I don’t have the money now = I can’t raise the money.
• I have a completely booked schedule = I can’t make the time.
• I don’t have the experience = I’ll never really be ready or able.

Several years ago I participated in a workshop that included a ropes course. And one of the exercises was getting over a ten foot wall. The reality was that the wall was ten feet high. Everything else I thought about it was a lie: “I’ll never get over it, it’s too high, I’ll hurt myself, this is impossible, etc., etc.”

And then our instructor told our small team that it was time to go over the wall. And he really had no interest in our reasons why it was impossible. “It’s a ten foot wall. Now go over the wall.”

So we put our heads together and in just a few minutes (no kidding!), amazingly to me, we found a way to get over the wall.

And this is exactly how a potential client looks at working with you. They see a high fee, a commitment of time and a challenge that they have never faced before – a ten foot wall.

So the immediate knee-jerk reaction is to lie about the wall.

And the worst mistake you can make is to believe the lie. “Yes, that wall is too high. You’re right, it’s impossible to get over. I understand how hard it is, so let me call you back in a few months and see if you’re ready to get over the wall then.”

I promise you, they won’t be ready.

Again, assuming the work or project is right for them and they will gain a real benefit from working with you, then it is simply irresponsible to buy into their lie. You are definitely not serving their best interests if you “just let it slide.”

So what do you say when they lie to you like this?

You tell them the truth:

“This is something you really want to do, right?”

“Yes it is.”

“And if we do this, you agree that it will make a huge difference in your business (or life), correct?”

“Yes, it will.”

“Then I’d like you to make a commitment to move forward. And when you do that, we’ll work together to find a way to pay for it (or fit it into your schedule or get past your uncertainty). Are you willing to do that?”

“Well, I’m not sure. What if I can’t pay for it (or find the time or get past my uncertainties)?”

“Let’s do this: You make the commitment and I promise we’ll find a way to make it work. The worst that could happen is that things will get delayed a little while. But I know when you make the commitment, we can make it happen.”

“OK, let’s do it!”

Will it always go like this? Can you use this script verbatim? What if they accuse you of pressuring them? What if they tell you never to darken their doorway again?

All I can tell you is that if you make the commitment to take a stand for the truth about the difference your work will make for your clients (and don’t back down when they tell you lies), you will have a client who puts themselves completely in your hands and produces a magnificent outcome.

Give it a shot. What’s the worst that could happen?

©Robert Middleton, the owner of Action Plan Marketing, has been helping Independent Professionals be better marketers since 1984. On his web site ActionPlan.com find valuable resources, products and programs for attracting more clients and get a free copy of his Marketing Plan Start-Up Kit.

Are You Fishing in the Wrong Pond?

If you’ve been a subscriber of the Marketing Edge for a while, you no doubt recall my article in January about “Networking That Produces Results – How to Work That Room!”

Today I’m not going to focus on working the room, but on working the entire concept. I’ll be discussing three essential elements that absolutely have to be at the forefront of any networking that you do. I am taking it as a ‘given’ that you are in the professional services arena, are offering a premium service, and are not trying to be the cheapest provider in town.

1. Fish in the Right Pond

If you had set out to fish for Cod, would you take your tackle out on a barge on some English canal hoping for success? Likewise if you were aiming to catch Rainbow Trout would you set out on a deep sea vessel heading for the Atlantic? Of course not! You would have done your homework in advance, known where the highest concentration of your ‘target’ was, and set off to fish in those waters.

Networking should be no different. In order to get the highest return on your investment (that’s your time and money) you simply have to be doing your networking where your ideal prospects are.

There are a great many different networking organisations to choose from that you may feel overwhelmed by the choices. I wholeheartedly recommend that you take full advantage of attending as a visitor, as many times as the group allows, before making any commitment to join. Investigate, do your homework, and make sure that the fish you want to catch are swimming in that pond!

There is a school of thought that suggests it doesn’t matter where you network because networking is simply about meeting people and making connections. I totally disagree. Pure business sense and sheer economics mean that lots of low value connections, not turning into money, equals a high cost of conversion and low return on investment. It simply has to be about quality not quantity, which brings me nicely on to the next point:

2. Don’t Spread Yourself Too Thinly

To make a genuine success of your networking efforts and get tangible value out of it, it is imperative that you be an active, visible member of the group (or groups) to which you belong. This comes back to the quantity issue. Ask yourself: Can I be an active, visible, highly involved member of a whole host of different networking clubs? To get the most value out of my membership how much time would I have to dedicate to attending events? Over the course of a week or a month, how many hours am I spending at these events? How many work days does that equate to? Now the killer question: Do I have to compensate by catching up on work in the evenings and at weekends?

Hmmm.

Never forget that you have a business to run. Spending time and money in marketing efforts that get poor or wishy-washy results is going to have disastrous knock-on consequences. I’m not saying that your networking is getting poor results, but it introduces the third point.

3. Frequently Evaluate

If we keep doing the same things, we will keep getting the same results. That’s why it is crucial to frequently evaluate what we are doing and examine what results are being obtained from those efforts.

We do, of course, also need to factor in the cost of membership to all these clubs, plus any additional out of pocket extras like the breakfasts or lunches there. How does that fit in with your overall marketing budget? Can you think of ways to get more ‘bang for your buck’ by getting in front of your prospects in a more targeted way?

Many fish migrate to other waters during different seasons, or because of other changes in environmental factors. So too, do we need to frequently evaluate whether our ideal prospects are still swimming in the pond where we have cast our net.

Back on the issue of quality rather than quantity another area that demands close evaluation and scrutiny is that of the quality of business or referrals that are being obtained within the group. If the best referrals you are getting are names and numbers on a post-it note, they are likely to result in nothing more than a cold-call at best. Take an honest look at your conversion ratio: How many of these leads are being turned in to paying clients? How long does it take?

(A simple way to warm up a referral is to ask the referee what they know about the prospect and their needs, and then encourage them to make a warm introduction. It’s important that the approach is made by the person that the prospect knows and trusts. It can even be as straightforward as just arranging a phone call or exchange of emails between you and the prospect. Try this tip alone and see your conversion rates sky-rocket!)

You absolutely have to ensure that any networking you do fits in with your overall marketing strategy. (You do have one, right?) If your weekly commitment is turning into a glorified breakfast club or ladies tea-party it’s time to refocus, reprioritise, and re-evaluate what may be better uses of your time.

©Vanessa Deakin and Zee2A Limited 2008. Would you like to reprint this article? You may do so as long as you include the copyright notice and the following paragraph: Vanessa Deakin, Operations Director at Zee2A, is a Marketing Coach who works with Professional Service Executives frustrated and disappointed with their current growth rates, marketing efforts, and business profitability. Through one-on-one and group mentoring programmes she helps them to skyrocket their results and break their own best records. To learn more, sign up for her e-zine, or make an enquiry please visit our website at www.zee2a.com

Listen and Learn: A Lesson for Marketers

I love my dad: it’s necessary to make that clear before I tell you this story. My dad is always wondering when I’m going to give up this lark and get a real job. That’s not the worst of it – the worst is that he’s not at all sure what ‘this lark’ is! Yes, I’ve told him – and told him, and told him … Those who are avid readers of The Marketing Edge will know that we here at Zee2A help our clients to craft a Verbal Signature – a brief statement which encapsulates who you work with, what problem you address and what the outcome is of addressing their problem. My dad has heard my Verbal Signature on many occasions – so why doesn’t he know what I do?

The answer (I’m sure you’ve already guessed) is that hearing doesn’t mean the same thing as listening. Perhaps you’re wondering what on earth this has to do with marketing, so let me rephrase that: Speaking, telling, talking – none of them mean the same thing as listening! And yet we as marketers are always focused on telling, not so? We just assume that the person we are talking to has listened.

I’d like you to participate in a short experiment in case you’re not convinced. Quickly write down the names of five people who are close to you but not people you do business with – family, friends, community members. Done? Right, now call them one by one and ask a simple question: ‘What do I do?’ If you got five accurate, congruent answers I’d like to hear from you – you’d be a world-first! You’ve told them (almost certainly) but how many listened?

I recently participated in a very interesting experiment under the direction of Maureen Scott of Mascott Training. Maureen wanted to graphically illustrate to a roomful of hard-nosed business people the challenges we face in accurate communication. She did so by splitting us into pairs and assigning one of the pair as the talker, the other as the listener. To the talker she gave an envelope containing a simple sketch, to the listener a pen and a blank piece of paper. Then, sitting back-to-back, the pair had to reproduce the sketch on the blank piece of paper. Get the idea? The talker cannot see what the listener is drawing, while the listener cannot see what the talker is seeing.

I was the listener in my pair but it wouldn’t be difficult to imagine the challenge faced by the talker: how do you even begin to describe what you are seeing? (You may be interested in seeing what I drew, which you can do by clicking here.) Do you describe the scene? Do you describe each line in detail and let the overall picture form as the process continues? What about colour? Positioning of the drawing on the page? Page orientation? (Our pair made the mistake of assuming that we were both holding the paper in the correct orientation, so the picture you see was inaccurate in that it should have been in portrait orientation.)

It is a deceptively simple experiment with so much meaning to be derived from it. Different people listen and visualise in different ways, so understanding whether the person you are talking to is a visual listener, an auditory listener or a kinesthetic (touchy-feely) listener is immensely useful in guiding how you present a proposition to them. Equally, as a talker you need to be a good listener too, because you should be sure to check regularly whether the person you are talking to is developing the correct image of what you are presenting. Maureen illustrated this concept by suggesting that the goal of communication is to create a shared vision, so we should imagine two ‘thought-bubbles’ emanating from the respective heads of the talker and the listener. If those two thought-bubbles are overlaid on one another, are they identical? If not, there is more (and perhaps also better) communicating to be done!

What can marketers take out of this? Here are three keys to effective communication:

• Never assume: Remember the mental exercise of overlaying your ‘thought-bubble’ with that of your prospect. Are they identical? Or does your communication need enhancement? If you don’t know what is in your prospect’s thought-bubble then you need to listen more!
• Be adaptable: Different people need the same information to be communicated in different ways. Are you talking to someone who seems to get frustrated when you try to talk detail? Chances are they are visualisers – start using verbal ‘broad brush’ strokes to paint an overall picture. (This type of person is vehemently opposed to presentations that rely on scores of Powerpoint slides – you have been warned!) Are you talking to a detail person (career engineers are a good example)? They are auditory listeners – break your proposition down to its key components and allow the prospect to build the picture as you supply the components. Touchy-feely listeners really struggle with a service proposition because they can’t run their hands over it! Make sure that you provide lots of references (the closest thing we in the service profession have to a tangible offering) and offer to set up calls with or visits to satisfied clients. Some kind of demonstration of how your service works is also powerful if you are selling to a kinesthetist.
• Listen more than you talk – Always! Yes, you are trying to communicate something to someone else, but never think that you don’t need to listen. Only by listening carefully and diligently can you understand how your message is coming across to the prospect. A ratio of ‘2x listen : 1x talk’ could be called the Divine Ratio – because we were given two ears and one mouth!

In conclusion we could perhaps say that rather than listening and learning, the goal of our decision to be good listeners as marketers is because listening leads to more profitable clients. Now that’s music to my ears …

Are you a Professional Services Executive struggling to close deals at the right price? Do you have to ‘give away the farm’ in discounts to clinch the deal? Would you like price to be a non-issue in your sales cycle? It is possible! We at Zee2A have not had to negotiate on price to close a deal in more than three years! Our methods work, and we know that because we use them on every deal. Find out more about our Marketing Edge Mentoring Programme here.

©David Deakin and Zee2A Limited

Would you like to reprint this article? You may do so as long as you include the copyright notice and the following paragraph:  David Deakin, CEO of Zee2A, is a marketing guru who works with Professional services Executives yearning to take their business to the next level of profitability and success.  Through one-on-one and group mentoring programmes he helps them to create sustainable marketing strategies that attract more clients at profitable rates. To learn more, sign up for his e-zine, or make an enquiry please visit http://www.zee2a.com