Overcoming Objections to the Sale

This is episode 21 of Selling More Homes, the Monday Morning Sales Meeting, and you’re listening to the Builder Radio Media Network.

Welcome to Selling More Homes, the Monday Morning Sales Meeting. I’m your host, Scott Stroud. Every Monday by 8 a.m. You’ll find a new program featuring interviews with new home sales and marketing experts who share techniques and strategies to help you find more buyers, close more sales, and earn more money than ever before. In addition to the audio program, a written outline of each episode is posted online for you to read or print and save. And each episode will remain online indefinitely, so you can come back and listen at your leisure.

Selling More Homes, the Monday Morning Sales Meeting, is presented by Jay Relo and Associates and is a production of Builder Radio. For more information on this and other resources for new home sales professionals, visit our website, www.builderradio.com.

Hey, Scott. How are you doing today? Jerry, welcome to Monday Morning. Yeah, I just spent the last past week here in New Orleans, in North Carolina. I was at New Orleans for a Structural Insight and Panel Association conference and then did a presentation in North Carolina for a housing company. Oh, excellent. So it feels good to be back here. I bet it does. You’re not in the office nearly enough, are you? No, in fact, as soon as we finish this interview here, I’m heading up to Maine to spend a day with a builder and their sales team. Wow, how nice. Well, no, I haven’t been traveling at all this week, but I’ve been doing a lot of telephone work with several builders around the country. Hey, Scott, you know, we’ve been getting some great responses from people and some of our listeners, because of their schedules, have had a tough time trying to listen to it on their computer.

And you and I have chatted and we’re going to make another little new service available. Yes, we are. And that is that we’re going to compile three of our programs per CD and make them available on CD. So you’ll be able to get your Monday Morning Sales Meeting right on a CD that you can pop in your CD player in your car and listen to while you’re traveling from sales call or from property to property.

And we’re going to make those CDs available on our bookstore here so you can listen to some of the top trainers here in the country and take them on the road with you. We’re going to make them available at $19.95 each. For how much?

$19.95 each. Some of the best trainers and consultants are right there at your fingertips. Jerry, what an excellent price. I hope I can keep up with the demand.

And the other thing is we’re going to even have a better package deal. If you want one of those CDs sent to you every month, we’ll sell you 12 of those CDs and ship them out to you on a monthly basis for $199 plus shipping. Wow, $199. So that’s a subscription then, an annual subscription. You’ll get three audio interviews that you’ll have on a CD. You can store them in your car and take it from there. Excellent. We’re good.

Hey, we have a great interview this week. We have a returning guest. It was on our expert on the issues, and we got him for our Monday Morning Sales Meeting here. We have Robert August. Robert August. What an excellent trainer he is. He’s always so full of energy. He’s full of energy, and he’s the ultimate networker. He’s absolutely incredible. He knows more people than I could ever imagine knowing. But we have him, and we’re going to get him on the line here, and we’re going to talk about overcoming objections. Jerry, I look forward to this. Let’s get him on the line here.

Robert, it’s always a pleasure talking with you. And today, I think we’ve got a new topic. How about we spend some time talking about overcoming objections and making that extra sale? Well, that’ll be a pleasure. I would like to share with you that I would like to change the paradigm from the word objection and incorporate the word concern. So today, we’re going to handle concerns. You know, I like how you’ve changed that word objection to concern. You know, I’ve always used the word question, and I think the biggest thing is that sometimes the word objection is a hang-up, and it’s really not a hang-up. It’s just a concern. Well, it gives us the opportunity to begin to get into a more in-depth qualification process. When we’re first meeting and greeting customers and starting to understand their particular needs, it becomes important for us to understand exactly how we can provide benefits to them and needs at the same time.

Everybody has a different degree of sensitivity points, and as a salesperson should be on the ball, it’s also very important to begin qualifying the customers and or customer through the initial stages. And we can shorten the closing process much more directly by understanding what the concerns are when we’re asking our initial qualification questions to the individuals. So, you know, what you’re saying there is getting this whole process starts all the way back to the qualifying. I mean, it’s not something that’s going to happen at the end.

It can happen at the end, certainly, but we feel that it’s important to get to the heart of the matter in the earlier stages. It’s not standing in front of a topo table or suggesting to customers that we’re here to tell the whole story. It’s not about us. It’s about the customer. It’s about each of these home buyers and what they’re trying to experience. And if we delay the process, we’re typically going through a rote presentation rather than getting to the heart of the matter that’s going to help the buyer understand that we’re more genuine and we’re more interested in the specific needs of that buyer rather than just trying to tell a story for the sake of telling a story. What are some tips that you can give some of our listening audience?

You know, it’s really interesting. When you’re thinking about handling initial concerns, it’s helpful. You know, the customer might say to you, gee, we’re just looking, we’re really not interested right now, or we’re in the neighborhood, thought we’d stop by, or golly, you know, let me look around first. If I’m interested, I’ll see you after I’ve looked at the model homes, or I’ve looked at, in some markets, they’re called samples. And I think that typically what happens is that we get these questions brought to us because we’re not qualifying the buyers from the very, very beginning. And I think that, you know, from the standpoint of getting to the root of the matter here, these are important. And I think that you can spin the situation around and say, yes, I understand that you’re looking right now, and you may not be ready to make a purchase.

What are the items that you’re looking for that will help you make a purchase?

When you see the right product, how will you know it’s the right product for you?

These are questions that you can begin to ask. So we’re creating a spin. And although it may be referred to as a spin doctor, the concept is how can we constantly get into the minds of the buyers that we’re treating them as buyers and not prospects? And what the purpose of handling these concerns are, immediately we take these initial concerns and we help the customer understand that when you walk through a home and you know it’s the right home, how will you know it’s the right home? What are you looking for in your next home? Please explain to me about the current home that you’re living in and what changes that you would make in the next home that you purchase. So you’re taking their comment, which is really not an objection.

I’m just looking or let me look first. And you’re just kind of digging in a little bit deeper and turning it around to find out some more information about that customer. Exactly. And it’s all about that whole process. You know, how do we take the qualification points and spin those qualification points into creating an understanding of the concerns that each of the customers have and then putting them into a broader and then more defined presentation so that we can help the customer move into a funneling approach towards the buying sequence.

There’s, you know, there’s things that, you know, additional points, tips that I can offer. For example, questions can be effectively used when we’re trying to convert or create this positive spin as we’re talking about to, you know, to understand the buyers a little bit better. And let’s think of some of these things that the audience can write down. For example, tell me, how do you like such and such?

What is your opinion about?

What do you like about?

Which is best for you? This particular situation or that?

How would you change?

When is the best time? So, in essence, what we’re doing, we’re always asking interrogative questions. We’re not asking questions that are going to provide us with answers of yes or no. The more that the customer can hear himself or herself speak, the more the customer will become relaxed with us as salespeople because they’re hearing the most familiar voice that they understand and know, which is theirs. Yeah, right. They’re also providing us with information. Now, another important tip that most of our salespeople don’t do. Many salespeople think that they can put a presentation to memory and bless them if they’re capable of doing that. But I’ve found that regardless of handling a concern or making a presentation directly, it’s always important for me to have a pad or a 3x5 card and begin taking notes.

I may even be taking the notes on the asset management card or the prospect card, as they’re often called. And the purpose is that I’m paying attention to the consumer. The more I write down as a salesperson, the more the buyer is going to tell me. The more the buyer can tell me, the more that I can understand the buyer’s needs and help fulfill its destiny to become a buyer with us rather than someone else.

You know, the questions as you’re posing them, what is your opinion, tell me how you’d like this or what we can change, they’re all great questions that get the customer to even open up further. That’s a very, very good point, Jerry. And we found that this is very, very important in order to make the customer feel more comfortable with us. And remember, the longer that we stay with a customer, the longer that we remain pitching, telling, coaching, mentoring, guiding the customer, the customer isn’t going to go to our competitors. Right. The more that we can have the opportunity to engage these individuals and mitigate their concerns, the more these customers will become our own buyers.

Let’s take a moment and talk about answering concerns. All concerns really need to be answered. There are basically two theories. Sometimes we get into a situation where we want to jump into it, and sometimes we want to bypass. And sometimes by bypassing it, we’re putting it off until we get all of the other concerns that are needed to be brought to our attention. And so another tip might be, I can see why you feel that way. It’s almost like the old Hubert Humphrey democratic presentations that he was making, when he would answer audiences. He’d say, that’s a very good question. I can feel and understand how you think that way. And he would pause and then move on to another topic.

And here it’s the same way. And so I can see why you feel that way, Mr. Rulo. By the way, have you thought about the fact that we have the best financing that we’ve had in 40 years? So you’ve held off the concern so that you can make a presentation point that you think will be more instrumental in helping the buyer.

And the reason, again, for not answering every individual concern is that sometimes it may be argumentative. Sometimes it may really be a concern that’s used as a defense mechanism. So we need to be very, very careful in our approach as to how we best reconcile our understanding as to which theorem is best to utilize within the situation.

And I’d also like to take a couple moments, if I may, and talk about handling the concerns directly.

Typically, what I’ve found is that it’s very, very, very important for me to relax and listen. It’s also very hard for me because I’m so animated and I’m so engaged with every consumer. But I’ve learned the hard way that it’s very important for me to listen to the customer, to hear the customer, and not assume that I understand everything. And it’s also important for me not to interrupt. It’s just an amazing process. You know, we often have so much to say and we don’t want to give the consumers, the buyers, the opportunity to say something because we’ve already anticipated what the customer’s concerns are. And it’s wrong. What we need to do is let the buyer fully explain his or her concern. The other point is that customers often will make statements.

And it’s important for us not to be argumentative. We don’t want to be defensive. We want to be positively offensive and there to be a mitigator of any concerns that they may have.

You know, that’s real to them. And in your mind, it might be the total opposite, but we need to listen through it. Sure. And what I would, you know, the point there is that, you know, once a customer has made a statement like that I would have an objection to or a concern about, you know, I might say to that individual, gee, why do you think that way? You know, where have you learned, you know, this information? You know, and putting it to the words of a salesperson so that it’s not threatening to the buyer, but it’s almost as if the buyer’s teaching us. And when the buyer thinks that they’re in control, again, the buyer becomes more relaxed with us because they don’t believe that, the buyers don’t believe that they’re being sold.

They believe that they’re exchanging education. You know, on what you’re saying there, two key words that I heard from another consultant that does what we do is they’ve used the word I’m interested or I’m curious. Why do you feel that way? And using the curious or I’m interested is adapting the same thing that you’re saying here because now we’re interested in what they’re saying, what they’re telling us. Sure. And we’re maintaining a positive framework, Jerry. And we’re also, it’s extremely important while we’re handling concerns and also throughout the entire presentation and our meeting to be as enthusiastic as possible. Well, one of the statements a lot of salespeople hear early on up front, and I know it’s a concern from the customer, but some of them don’t answer it properly.

They walk into the house and they say, how much does this house cost for a square foot? And my response would be, that’s a really great question that you’re posing. You know, and why would you think that the square foot is the most important item within the home? Golly gee, when you buy a wonderful automobile, I noticed outside when we first met that you had driven up in a beautiful Chevrolet or a lovely Mercedes or a fantastic Volkswagen. And did you buy the car by the pound?

You know, and it’s always very, very interesting when we compare, you know, apples to apples. And I think that when somebody asks about the square foot, what another question might be, you know, that’s a really great question. In your search for homes, do you always buy by the square foot? Or do you do a comparative market analysis and base it upon the value of products and services that are incorporated into the home? Because at XYZ Homes, we’ve chosen to use better materials than those which are what are accepted within the marketplace. And we’ve chosen to use better subcontractors that we’ve worked with for the last 12 years that stand the test of time and warrant their products and services. So I think it’s important, Mr. And Mrs. Byer, that when we’re comparing square footage, we really compare it product to product so that we can get a true analysis of the appropriate opportunity to scale the difference between one home and another.

Well, I love that response. I just like the way you just crafted that and turned it right around and turned it into a positive quality service reputation, everything. It all came out in the way you returned that around. Well, thank you. Some other points, too. I think that, you know, when we’re handling concerns, and this might be about the curiosity and the interest that you broke into a couple moments ago, just to clear my way of thinking, what brought this particular point to your mind, you know, right now? Or another one, you know, why do you believe this particular point? Or you might also say, in addition to that, is there anything else that you are uncertain about at this particular time? And what happens here, oftentimes the buyer will repeat their concerns or his concerns and clarify the issue.

And by providing us with the real or hidden concern, it will give us a much better, clear path in order to mitigate that point, as you and I just went through an experiential opportunity a couple of moments ago. You know, I love some of the wording that you put in there. And the wording can be adapted to almost any concern. It’s just how you bridge into it that I think is what you’re providing our listeners some really solid information. I think they’re going to be listening to this and trying to write down as fast as they can some of the words that you’re using. Well, my favorite of all methods is the feel, felt, and sound method that you and I have shared over the years.

And a customer… Go over that. Go over that briefly. Well, thanks. A homebuyer may come in and present us, you know, as we’ve asked one of these earlier questions or the homebuyer’s posed a question to us and is looking for feedback. And it might be something on, well, you know, I’m very, very concerned. I’ve had an adjustable rate mortgage for three years and it’s been so hard in the marketplace and, you know, I read in the newspapers that foreclosures continue to go up and it’s so difficult to obtain a new home because of the new qualifying methods and I’m really concerned.

I, as a salesperson, would respond, you know, I know how you feel. You know, and I would commiserate. I would identify with the homebuyers. I know how you feel. You know, it is tough out there for many individuals. Others have felt that way too. And what we have found, what we have found is that by sitting down with each individual homebuyer, we’re able to understand the makeup of the needs and the wants of that individual homebuyer. And from that point, we can structure a transaction that can help you become a homebuyer with us today at XYZ Homes. And let me sit down and show you exactly what I’m speaking about. And then, Jerry, what I would do is sit down with the homebuyer and I would say, now, let’s review your situation.

And if I recall from our previous discussion, your concern is one of moving into a new home. You’re presently living in a home that’s located at 3920 Wakefield Drive. And the home is, you’ve shared, you and your family are now outgrowing your home. That the home seems to be too claustrophobic with three children at this point sharing two bedrooms and, of course, your master bedroom as well. And what we have for you today is a wonderful four-bedroom home that meets your specific needs. It’s 2,400 square feet and it’s priced to meet your specific goals. What I understand that we have to do is to show you how we can help you provide the correct mechanism to help you purchase your new home. You’ve shared with me that your current adjustable rate mortgage at 7%.

Well, the good news is that we have 30-year fixed financing for you today at 5.5% for our home that we’re going to make available to you. And what we’ve also been able to do is to make our financing available to you to sell your existing home. We realize that any advantage that we can bring to you to help sell your existing home and help you become a homebuyer at XYZ Home Building Company is going to make a much better opportunity for you to help you become the most satisfied homebuyer. And we’re also going to open up our design center to you to help repaint and or add new carpet to your existing home in order to help you sell that. And we can work with you in an effort to make your new dream come true.

That’s a nice touch, that last little statement there. And you’re actually working with them to help them sell their existing home so that they can get into their dream home. I like that. I have been quiet. I’ve been doing just what Robert said that he does on a sales call. I’ve been avidly taking notes.

But, Robert, that last point that you made, that has got to be one of the largest concerns that homebuyers have today is selling their home so that they can make the move. And what a great way to address their concerns on moving their home right up front and put yourself on their team.

Well, we found it to be very, very helpful. A lot of our builders that we’re working with don’t necessarily like to go back in and do some remodeling. But on the other hand, where the markets have been difficult throughout the country, a lot of our builders are diversifying right now, doing remodeling of homes, tenant finish for commercial buildings and the like. And it gives the opportunity for us to really help that consumer make a difference. The other thing it does is it adds instant revenue to the home building company because the work that would be done in the existing home would also be beneficial. Now, this is going to sound crazy, gentlemen. We’ve also had a scenario where we’ve applied the financing not only to the customer’s existing home, but also we found that there are other buyers in the food chain who want to buy the existing home, but they can’t sell their home.

So we’ve gone back as many as three different buyers in order to make our design center and our financing available to these individuals in order to mitigate their concerns and help them get their homes sold. Wow. Talk about going the extra mile. We have landscapers and we have flooring contractors and we have tile companies. And the concept is to make a difference. And what’s happening is that you’re stimulating the economy and all of the builders, subcontractors appreciate the additional work. And it may be something, you know, as simple as fixing some flatware in front of the home and relandscaping the home so that as buyers are coming out in March and April to buy new and existing homes, that they’re seeing a marketplace that’s rejuvenated and exciting.

And we all know that he or she who designs and builds and maintains an outstanding home is the one who’s going to be able to sell it. I shot it down a bunch of notes also, as well as Scott was writing here. And I really love some of your start-off phrases that could be adapted to any situation.

Well, I know how you feel. Others have felt that way, too. And we have found, through our research.

Well, thank you very much, Robert. It’s always a pleasure to spend some time with you talking. And I’m sure our listeners always enjoy hearing you. So thanks a million. Well, it’s a pleasure. And I’m ready for the next show as well, Jerry. Okay. Thanks so much, Scott. Gentlemen, have a great day. And thanks for considering me.

Hey, Scott, I couldn’t write fast enough when we did this interview.

I was writing some of the key words that he was saying. And I’m a big one for question selling. And I just love some of the words that the phrases that he uses to launch into, as he says, a concern instead of an objection. What a beautiful way to think about it. Because nobody likes objections. Objections are confrontational. Concerns are not. Concerns give you a chance to be compassionate and to listen. So just that single phrase made a huge difference, didn’t it? How wonderful that was. I love that. And you know, some of the wording that he uses, I just, you know, I can see how you feel. Or, you know, tell me how you like this. Or what is your opinion? Like I said, I couldn’t write fast enough.

So I’m going to have to re-listen to this whole audio and take some notes myself for some of the training that I do. Let me tell you one of the points that I, or two of the points anyway, that he said that I particularly like. First of all, feel, felt, found is one of my all-time favorites. I’ve used that forever. And it just puts you on the same wavelength and on the side of your client. And it’s very disarming and gives them a chance to understand and be reasonable about getting what they really want. It helps them to rationalize things more clearly. But another thing that he said, too, was that these answering concerns, he said he brings them into his qualification questions, his qualification points to write to begin with.

Right. So, in other words, he’s taken the points that are likely to come up as concerns or what we would have called objections. And he builds his qualification questions around those concerns right up front to get them out very early on in the process so that they really never become objections. Yeah, right.

You know, I love his comment there, just to clarify my thinking. Yeah. And then you get back into the situation. He’s just a really good, I see him as qualifying, screening, but more importantly, overcoming that last objection or concern. Exactly. Exactly. How nice that was. I really appreciated his thoughts. He is a wonderful trainer. Have you ever sat through one of his classes? Oh, yeah. Most definitely. I have not had that opportunity. I’ve met him a couple of times, but never had that chance to. I look forward to doing that. You know, and I would encourage our listeners, if you ever have a chance to sit through one of his presentations. He goes a mile a minute. Well, let me tell you, he’s just got that information right at the top of his head, and he just keeps going.

He just can give you more information than you can almost take in. I can see that. He’s certainly energetic and effervescent in his delivery.

Well, Scott, another good week here. And we’ve had a few other listeners pipe in from different countries that we could tell from some of our web statistics. The other day, we had someone from Buenos Aires, Argentina spend over an hour on our website. And hopefully they were listening to some of our past programs. Well, how about that? And we’re international now, and we’re growing so rapidly. I just want to thank our listeners, and particularly our new listeners who are just now, maybe you’ve only been associated with us for a couple of weeks. Thanks so much. And please, go back and look at our archives and listen to some of the other older programs that we have. None of them are that old. None of them are four or five months old.

And better still, they can buy the archives and put them up. We’ll have them all on CDs for you. Exactly. Good point. And we’ll have those available here.

Just click on Builder Radio, and you’ll be able to have a link right there to take you to our store. Also, we want to thank all those that participated in our contest, which was over last week. And thanks so much on the contest on the most creative way to generate traffic to a model home. We’ve got a lot of interaction from our listeners, and we appreciated that.

Yeah, great. And I think probably next week we’ll announce our winner. Very good.

Well, until next week, I’m Jerry Rouleau. And I’m Scott Stroud. Thanks for listening. Thanks for listening.