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#78: Listen as Nick Krebs, Sales Coach at Vendition and sales development expert, discusses overcoming objections and staying curious in your sales approach.
Explore the human side of sales and business with host Tyler Lindley. Leaders in their field share a dose of inspiration through stories about life and business. Sales professionals provide tactical tips you can put into practice today. It all comes together to help you chart your path forward.
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The Sales Lift Podcast
Episode #78
Overcoming Objections: How to Pivot with a Process w/ Nick Krebs
Hosted by: Tyler Lindley
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[00:00:00] Tyler: Hey, Sales Lift Nation it's your host, Tyler Lindley. Today, I have Nicholas Krebs who goes by Nick. Hey Nick, how's it going today? Let's go and get it's play off weekend and football. I can't wait. Playoff weekend. This'll be released after those games. So hopefully the playoffs went well this past weekend. Nick is a Sales Coach at Vendition, where he helps out a lot of scaling startup and fast growth SaaS and tech companies
with their sales team. Coaches a lot of frontline sales reps SDRs. And today we're going to be talking about overcoming objections, which is a topic that's near and dear to both Nick and I's heart. Nick, what the hell is an objection? What does that even mean in sales? If I'm overcoming the objection.
First off. Thanks
[00:00:44] Nick: for having me on Tyler. When an objection comes up in sales, that's really where the sale begins and that's where the fun starts. For me, I think it's a lot easier to cover what not to do with objections. So for covering how to handle objections because you and I see this every single week working with hundreds of sales reps.
There's a lot of ways not to handle objections, but what you want to be is you want to be curious. You want to learn more, you want to keep them engaged and on the phone.
[00:01:09] Tyler: Yup. Exactly. I'd like you bring up sales doesn't really start until you get an objection. Why do you say that's when the conversations starts?
[00:01:17] Nick: That's why we're here. If it was just yes or no, robots would be doing this for us.
[00:01:22] Tyler: Exactly. I totally agree. You talk a little bit about what not to do. Why do you think that's more important talking about what not to do when trying to overcome an objection versus what to do? Why do you start with what not?
Let's see how I
[00:01:34] Nick: learned myself. And I think that's how most sales reps learn how to overcome objections is you have to lose a lot of them. First. You have to face a lot of rejection before you can learn how to overcome it. I used to have a say in on the sales floor as a leader, just to say, Hey, try not to get ate by the same objection twice.
Or try to learn from that last objection. You just heard, whether it's self-reflection. Whether it's chatting with your manager or director, or whether it's looking for outside resources, like a podcast like this, you should think creatively and strategically
[00:02:04] Tyler: how to overcome those. So when we think tactically about objections, is this really only in the cold call conversation where you could come across an objection.
What do you think of when you think objections? Where do they actually have. I think they
[00:02:15] Nick: happen all throughout the sales process. They can happen as late as your negotiation and contract phase. And they can happen as soon as when someone picks up the phone and says, not interested
[00:02:25] Tyler: so it's throughout, but when you hear about them, people, most commonly think about cold calls, which we work with a lot of cold calls, top of the funnel, prospecting SDRs.
That's where we most commonly think of it, but it can really happen at any point. But if we think about at the beginning of the conversation, you just brought up a good one. I'm not interested. Man. That's hard to overcome right off the bat. You're just starting a conversation. They barely know you. You don't know them.
There's not a lot of context and they're not interested. What do you do there? What does a new sales rep do when they get, I'm not interested at the top of a cold call. We see
[00:02:54] Nick: the best ones do is they don't get rattled. It doesn't take any wind out of their sale. They almost pretend like they didn't hear it.
Okay. And they just move onto their next question that they were going to ask. Just if the other person didn't say not interested, I think for those early ones, early on a college, it's like you mentioned, there's no trust. There might not be any value. They don't know really the purpose or reason for the call.
So for me, that's more of a brush off it's like when I walk into Kohl's and they're like, Hey, what brought you in today? I'm like, oh, I'm just looking to buy. Really. I'm looking for a specific pair of socks. I'm just going to tell them, Hey, I'm just looking because that's
[00:03:28] Tyler: Muslim. We always do that too. It's funny.
I use that example sometimes too. When you walk into a store, what do you always tell them? You just say I'm just looking, but you're usually not just looking. When you walk into a store, how can we identify then? What is an objection versus what is a brush off? How do you tell the difference between those two?
That's a
[00:03:44] Nick: really good question. I think you have. Really think you have to listen at what point. And what did you say before the objection came up that caused the objection? Maybe my intro wasn't specific enough. Maybe I didn't frame a problem or give a clear purpose for my call at that point. I might want to switch gears and listen to them a bit more.
Hey, tell me more about that. Do you already have a solution covered? How are you doing this today? What's the process look like? I think the key to it is you want to seek to understand under and where they're coming from. Put yourself in their shoes. If you were in their shoes, getting a call out of the blue, when it was just someone calling to check in or introduce themselves, you probably would say not interested too, because it's like, wow.
I only have
[00:04:25] Tyler: so much time throughout the day, but reflex, like you said, just human nature. And I like how you say frame up that problem. Start with a good introduction. Seek to understand. Listen, it's almost like if you have a powerful introduction to your call, Sometimes that can get you away from having to even face an objection.
You may not even have to have one, if you have a strong introduction. So I think sometimes it starts with going back to the fundamentals to avoid an objection in the first place, maybe. Oh,
[00:04:52] Nick: exactly. There's going to be times where you mess up on those fundamentals. Yeah, exactly. You're expecting maybe a non decision-maker to answer.
And it's your decision maker. Maybe they gave you an objection that you're not ready for. The best thing that you can do is just learn from each scenario. And think after the fact, okay, what could I have said differently? What can I try differently? Right. It's almost like AB testing. Every objection that we
[00:05:15] Tyler: that's so important.
I feel like in sales, AB testing is one of the fundamentals of being a great sales rep. I think we're always trying to iterate and improve. I like earlier when. Don't get beat by the same objection twice because we hear new objections all the time, but eventually you should be building up this library or this repository of man.
I've heard that objection. What might I say? Do you think reps should go as far as to script out potential answers to common objections or how should they approach those top objections that they just get all the time? I'm not interested. I mean, some information we're already got that handled. How should they handle those comments?
That's a really good
[00:05:49] Nick: question. I like scripting the responses, Tyler, but rather than scripting, maybe your sales pitch or your value prop, think of a way where you can script a question specifically an open-ended question so that rather than you telling them the answer, they're discovering the answer just by having a conversation
[00:06:08] Tyler: with.
I like that. I think that reps sometimes are scared to do that. I think it feels like they want to go to the value prop. My safe place is pitching. My safe place is the value prop. My safe place is me telling them not as safe as me asking them, me forming that question. And sometimes it feels like reps might be scared of questions, but it seems like questions are the.
What do you think that is Nick? I think
[00:06:30] Nick: sales reps have a tendency to try to close the conversation or close the sale a little bit early. I think people try to rush that area for me. I like to take my time, learn, be curious. Tell me a bit more about that.
[00:06:44] Tyler: Tyler. One thing I like that you do in your cold calls as we're role-playing you tend to ask a question early on, you tend to get the prospect involved early on.
Do you think that helps with overcoming. I think it
[00:06:55] Nick: helps with keeping me on the phone past 30 seconds,
[00:06:59] Tyler: which that's the goal. If I can make it to 31 seconds, I've at least got a shot.
[00:07:03] Nick: That's what I'm thinking with questions early on is okay. How can I get them engaged? How can I create a strong reason or purpose for this?
[00:07:12] Tyler: So I think it comes down to, like you said, back to basics. If you can have a strong introduction, if you can have some strong questions that can help with some objections, but you're still going to get objections. Should reps expect an objection on every call? Is that pretty much standard? Do you think? I
[00:07:26] Nick: wouldn't be ready for them.
I would say not just one. There might be multiple, I would say on every call you could get two, three or four objections. And it's not necessary to overcome those right away. It's okay. If you're coming into a more curious, learning more about it, your product and your demo down the line, I'll be able to overcome that solution when they test drive the solution.
When they see the product firsthand, that might answer a lot of questions. So I think the more I did this. The less, I try to overcome objections and the more I just try to learn about them, what was important to them and maybe what they would like to see improved in the future.
[00:08:02] Tyler: Do you think our framing, when we say overcome, because when we bring up objections in sales, it's always, we're going to overcome that objection, but do we necessarily need to overcome them?
Is that the wrong word to use overcoming objections? If so, what are we actually trying to do with an objection? I think
[00:08:18] Nick: we're just trying to. And the conversation and lead them closer to water. Exactly. Maybe it's not overcoming, maybe it's extending the conversation. Maybe it's learning about the objection
[00:08:31] Tyler: or pivoting or getting to that open-ended question, seeking to understand, versus just telling one of the things I tried to tell reps, you brought this up a little bit.
You don't even have to necessarily try to overcome the objection. As long as you acknowledge what they say. I like to use the framework. AI are acknowledge, ignore, resume, because as long as you acknowledge people want to be heard, they want to feel acknowledged. You can't just ignore. When someone says, I don't have time to talk to you right now.
You can't just ignore that and just go right back into work. He to acknowledge. Oh, so sorry to interrupt your day, but then you can tactically ignore that sometimes and just resume where you were going resume with that open-ended question resume with that small little value statement, and then a question that pivot you don't necessarily have to overcome the objection.
What do you think about that? Nick? The air frame.
[00:09:15] Nick: You're totally right. And I want to focus on the acknowledgement part of it, because it's important to do this in an empathetic tone, to be super empathetic as a sales rep, when you acknowledge something, they should really feel that, Hey, this person hears me.
They feel me. They understand where I'm coming from. So the more empathetic you can be with that acknowledgement and not just rushing to your pivot too quickly, or your resume as you call it, that's a big
[00:09:40] Tyler: key. I agree. I think people hear that word though. They think empathy, pathetic tone. I think that's thrown out a lot in sales.
It's hard to actually execute that though. I think it's hard to do that. Tony, if you were a newer rep or you were somebody that was just trying to work on empathy in their tone, what advice would you have? Because it sounds like a great idea, but how do you put that into practice? What does empathy sound like?
It's tough. It's really
[00:10:03] Nick: tough. I think you have to understand your prospect. The buyer, when I was selling medical software, something they did early on for me is they actually placed me at a medical practice where I was shadowing a physician all day long. Really. Not for me was really eyeopening because I saw how busy these people were, how stressed out they were and also to how much they were willing to take care of their patients.
And that meant a lot to me. So after I spent that day in the medical office, I would hop on the phone and we'll say, thank doctors for the work that they're doing in the middle of a pandemic. Let's provide some software that make things easier.
[00:10:39] Tyler: I love that exercise. I love that they had you actually shadow a doctor.
I think that's something that not a lot of reps get to. It's either see or walk a mile in their prospect shoes. A lot of people don't know what it's like to be a doctor or to be a VP of marketing or to be a CEO or to be any of these jobs that we're after those DMS, we've got to get to the DM, get to that decision maker, but then do you know anything about their world?
You know, anything about the daily challenges and struggles that they face and that call that interrupts their day. Do you know what that looks like in the context of their day? It sounds like that was helpful for you. That
[00:11:11] Nick: was super helpful. And when I would hire more sales reps during COVID, we didn't have the opportunity to do that.
So I was constantly searching for a way to replicate that. So if you don't have access to. I spend a day in your prospect's shoes. Maybe we can follow some of the material and content that they're learning from day to day. Is there a podcast that's important to their sector? Are they active on LinkedIn?
Can you find a lot of their posts and content? And can you engage with that content before you're reaching out to them? I think that's really important to show them, Hey, not only am I interested in selling you this product, but I'm interested in helping you and making your life easier.
[00:11:46] Tyler: Empathy starts from understanding those people.
What is their world look like? And I think a lot of reps get sucked into, I need to understand this specific sales tactic, and I need to understand this sales, this and everything is sales driven when it's like, maybe they should just understand more about their buyer. They understand more about the people they're trying to reach.
Then they could have that empathetic tone. Then they maybe aren't overcoming objections as much as they are just having a conversation with somebody that they can relate to because they know a little bit about.
[00:12:13] Nick: Sometimes you don't have to win the deal over the table. You just have to gain the trust to sit on their side of the table and help them out.
Ooh, I like that more encouraged them to think a different way. Yeah. But the back end of that air, you call resume for me. That's kinda more of a pivot
[00:12:28] Tyler: than a resume. What's the difference do you think? And when I say resume, you say pivot, what does pivot mean?
[00:12:34] Nick: Pivot to me means going in a different direction.
So when I first started off in sales doing retail sales, sailing mattresses, we had a big same ABC always be closing. I was huge in retail, I think in the software sense because the sale is a lot longer. It's a longer process. I think it's always been. Oh, we eat pivoting. Take the conversation in a direction.
That's going to move the ball
[00:12:58] Tyler: forward. Let's talk a little bit more about some of these other objections. We've talked about some of the common ones, but I'm not interested. I'm busy. We've already got that in place. We don't have any money for this. Call me back later. How should we be approaching some of these most common objections?
We talked a little bit about scripting out, maybe some possible pivots or responses. What does that look like? How do you actually prepare it? For those on the phone as a rep,
[00:13:20] Nick: I think most objections fall under the category of a lack of value. There's not enough value there because if there was then maybe they wouldn't have a budget.
Objection, maybe there wouldn't be that authority. Objection. Maybe they wouldn't say, Hey, let's do this next year or next quarter. But there was more urgency there and they saw the value. They would take care of this today. Actually they would take care of this yesterday. Oh valuable. So for me, there's two different types of objections, right?
There's the lack of value. And then there's just the brush off. You hit on a lot of the brush off ones early on. Hey, I'm busy and it was this not interested. Usually getting those within the first 30 seconds to a minute. Those are just brush offs or those are muscle memory. But then if they're happening later in the conversation where they're happening on your discovery call after, and those are true objections, those are broken windows that we need to fix, or they're going to remain there for the entirety of the sales
[00:14:13] Tyler: process.
Sounds like when you say broken windows, I like that analogy, by the way, we want to try to fix those before they ever even get broken. It sounds like you think they're broken because a step might've been missed or a part of the conversation was missed by the
[00:14:25] Nick: rep before. Or you're not listening. And they had mentioned something in the conversation that if you don't overcome this or you don't at least learn more about this, you are going to be facing this later on.
And in my inner your ability to make the sale a good example is I'd love to move forward with this process, Tyler, but I have to check with that. He's going to charge. And if I try to continue the sale without incorporating Eddie or without bringing Eddie in or without finding out what Eddie's goals are, and what's important to Eddie, then we're not going to be able to make that sale.
[00:14:55] Tyler: And if you've glossed over that and you miss that, then you probably miss the opportunity to sell to them. You probably missed the opportunity to have a good conversation, take them on that journey with you because you've missed a key detail. I agree. Listening is so important listening that empathetic tone.
It's almost like these objections. If you can just do the basic. You should be able to naturally be able to overcome or pivot off of these objections a lot easier. Another thing that you talk about as we're training new reps on objections and how to maybe overcome them or navigate them. One thing you talk about is the north star.
I love this north star framework, but what does that mean for you? And we're talking about objections. What is the north star? Nick, it's a place you can look when you feel about.
[00:15:35] Nick: Just like a north star is I joke around that the one phrase that I can always use if I don't have enough time or I'm not really sure what to say next is, Hey, that's why I'm reaching out Tyler.
That's exactly why
[00:15:46] Tyler: I called. And that works with any objections. So let's role. Play that out. I'm going to throw a few objections out. Let me hear what the north star sounds like. Oh, Nick, I'm just not interested. Thanks a lot for the
[00:15:56] Nick: Hey Tyler. That's actually the reason for my call today. Have you even heard of us?
[00:16:00] Tyler: Good. Awesome. Hey Nikki, know what? We've already got this handled. We already have. Oh, that's actually why
[00:16:06] Nick: I'm reaching out. I wanted to discuss that a little bit more. How are you performing at X, Y, and Z.
[00:16:11] Tyler: Okay. Hey Nick, can you just send me some information? Just send me an email. That'd be fine.
[00:16:15] Nick: That's actually why I'm reaching out.
What type of information would you like to see? I'd love to share the novel. Why don't we get you in front of the movie?
[00:16:22] Tyler: Ah, I love that one. We've been working on that one recently. The no in the movie. It's funny. That's exactly why I'm calling or that's the reason for my. It's almost like a softening statement.
It's a softening statement. It helps to us to get in the right frame of mind. And I think it helps the buyer's expecting us to fold or to hang up or to start pitching. But when we say that's exactly what I'm called, probably piques their curiosity a little bit. Definitely why I call it that I just told you I'm not interested.
I just told you to get a buck off and you're telling me, that's why I called it, softens the conversation. And it probably makes it a lot easier to extend.
[00:16:53] Nick: Absolutely. You're flipping the script on them, if you will shout out. And I love
[00:16:58] Tyler: that. So you can use those softening statements. Is there anything else?
Obviously you've got your north star there. Are there any other softening language, those acknowledgement type languages, anything else you'd recommend for reps? I like saying
[00:17:10] Nick: the phrase. Let's talk about that a bit. Let's go down that path. Something I see early on is sales reps, really switching paths too soon.
Maybe they ask that first level of qualifying question for around your time being around your budget, and then they move on to the next topic. Let's stay down that path. Let's find additional pain points down that path. Let's dig a little bit deeper and maybe overcome some value that not even the prospect realized they needed.
I
[00:17:39] Tyler: totally agree with that. Reps are quick to hop off. Reps are going down a path, trying to have a conversation about a specific area or a specific value that we might bring. As soon as the prospect says, nah, that's not really a fit for us. It's like, oh, well let's just pivot to a different one. Right? Oh, we also have.
Oh, we can also talk about this. Like you said before, trying to extend that conversation to go a little bit deeper, cause that might've just been a brush off. Why do you think reps are so quick to pivot? I think it's because you're feeling
[00:18:04] Nick: that objection. You're in the rain and you're feeling that push.
So you're looking to get out, you're looking to hop over the ropes, find a different path and it's like, you know what, actually, let's just stay in there. Eight to take a couple of those punches. Let's stay in there. Let's listen, let's learn a bit more. Let's be curious. Let's seek to understand why they do things the way they do.
And
[00:18:25] Tyler: you talk about staying in the ring easier said than done. It's hard because this is an emotionally charged conversation when you're in sales and you're on the phone with a prospect or an influencer or decision maker, whoever, it might be someone that is involved in the decision making process for your company.
It's a charged environment. There's a lot of pressure and weight on that conversation. And that objection can feel like a big punch can feel like that right. Hook from Tyson. How do you control your emotions, do you think? And don't get out of the ring. Cause I think we do want to flee in those moments.
How do we dig our feet in and not. It's tough. It's
really
[00:18:58] Nick: tough. And they'll even be weekends where maybe I'd get back on the phone after three or four day weekend. I wouldn't feel the ability to stay in the ring as much. It's tough. It's a grind. It can be for me. I think it was really separating my identity from the outcome.
If they said no to me, I used to take it really personally. I got, it felt like they were saying no to you, Nick, your identity when really it's, they're saying no to another salesperson, or they're saying, say your company or a product, or just a sales conversation in general. So I think when I was really able to separate like my identity from the outcome of the call and to get confidence saying, Hey, we're going to try my best to stay on this call as long as possible.
Be very empathetic ask questions that are personalized to who they are and what they do day in and day out. And if I can't make the sale, then that's okay. I'm not going to make every sale out there. There's always going to be someone else to approach.
[00:19:53] Tyler: I love all those things that you brought up, but I love that you talk about it's the repetition of it.
It's the repetition, it's the understanding of your buyer? It's all these things that we've been talking about. It's just the confidence in all of those things. How do you get better at overcoming objections on a. You just wrap it, you wrap it, you listen to it. You role play it. You write it down. You ask your neighbor, you asked you go on a podcast.
You try to figure out what you get new ideas. I think it's just repetition. It's muscle memory. Just as much as our prospects have muscle memory. I'm just browsing. I'm just looking around, not interested. We have to have the same reflexes ourselves to be able to navigate and extend those conversations.
[00:20:27] Nick: Absolutely. You have to be very self-aware of the conversation that you're having. I had a manager early on. Tell me next God gave you two ears and one mouth flyer with so much.
[00:20:37] Tyler: And what'd you tell him? I love to hear the sound of my voice, right? I'm trying
[00:20:42] Nick: to make a sale
[00:20:42] Tyler: for you boss. Exactly. I can't make the sale.
I'm not telling them anything. Awesome. Nick, what haven't we talked about any final parting words of advice for reps out there, trying to figure out objections and shout out how to extend conversations. Any other words of advice that we haven't discussed yet? I think confidence
[00:20:58] Nick: is the one that I would like to touch on because for me, if you put in the work, if you put in the repetition, eventually you're going to get some deals.
You're going to get some good fortune. That's going to give you a little bit of confidence and then you can build upon that and you're going to get even more wins and more confidence. It's going to be like a snowball effect, and this is going to change at every company you go. You could be a president's club member.
You could be number one on the leader, boards, your dashboards and everything. And then you can transition to another company and be back at the bottom. So I think that this process of facing objections facing rejection and having to build confidence, it's something that you have to deal with at every company and every new position that.
So just know that if you put in the repetition you put in the work, eventually luck is going to turn your way. That's all a sales rep needs is a little bit of confidence. I at first really started to hit my quota that gave me some confidence, but I still wanted to get to the top of the leaderboards. I still wanted to get to the top of the dashboard and I wanted that enterprise promotion.
I wanted that management promotion. It's a process. It's a journey. It's going to take some time and it's going to build up. So I think what's really important with that. Competence is sustained mental. You've ever played individual sports. I was a tennis player in college, so it's really important to stay mentally tough, boost yourself up with positive affirmations.
But at the end of the day, your sometimes your biggest critic
[00:22:22] Tyler: and sales is a game. Just like these individuals portraits. That is mainly played between our ears. That conversation we have with ourself is almost more important than the conversation was that we have with our prospects, because if that's not a great conversation, neither will the other conversation, the prospect conversations won't be as good either.
Nick, great conversation today with me and you. If my listeners want to find out more about you online. They can look at the addition,
[00:22:45] Nick: they could follow me on LinkedIn. You and I both know there's hundreds of companies that are constantly hiring software sales reps. We get an opportunity to work with those companies.
So please reach out to us if you're looking for a next step in your career.
[00:22:56] Tyler: Awesome. Definitely to sign up to be coached by Nick is such an advantage to have that kind of coaching working on these types of skills early on in your sales career. So definitely check out rendition and. LinkedIn profile, connect with them on LinkedIn, Nick.
I really appreciate you coming on, had a blast. We'll do it again. Okay. Thanks pal. Appreciate
[00:23:12] Nick: it. See ya.
[00:23:16] Tyler: Thank you so much for listening to today's show. You can find all the links discussed and the show notes@thesaleslift.com. That's
[00:23:24] Nick: the T H. Sales
[00:23:27] Tyler: S a L E S lift L I F t.com. Have questions for me. Email me@tyleratthesaleslift.com. We look forward to seeing you back here next week, and we hope today's show brings you the sales lift.
Your business needs. Remember. Ideas plus action equals results. You've got new ideas. Now it's time to take action and the results will follow.
[00:23:54] Nick: See you next time. .