Why Prospects Jump Straight to Price and How to Take Back Control (Ask Jeb)

0:00This is the Sales Gravy Podcast. Hi, I'm Chad Blunt, best-selling author of fanatical prospecting, objection, sales EQ and ink, and I'm here to help you open more doors, close bigger deals, and rock your commission check. Welcome to Wisdom Wisdom on the Sales Gravy Podcast where you bring me your biggest sales and leadership questions, and I give you my very best answers and advice. Today I'm talking with Cindy, a sales rep who's switched to a new industry and is having a challenge getting meetings with prospects. Let's find out what's going on. Cindy! Hey, Chad! How are you? How are you? How are you? I'm doing good. How are you doing? I'm great. Awesome. So nice to meet you. You too. Wow. I've been, gosh, 10, 15 years. I don't even know how long I've been reading your books and taking sales. Craming courses. Cool.

1:00Well, you are so awesome. Well, thank you, first of all, for taking courses on sales gravy, and really thank you for reading my books. I appreciate it. It's cool to meet you too. So tell me about your question. Yeah. Well, you know, I've been in sales for almost 20 years, advertising sales, media sales, and I think I've maybe been a little bit spoiled up until now because I have not had to do a lot of cold calling. I had a large territory with lots of accounts, and, you know, prospected, but now I'm in a new industry, home improvement industry, and I have to go out and find all my own account. So prospecting and cold calling is my life. And I'm calling folks in the construction industry, and the other thing that's different is I'm used to talking to people who sit behind desks most of the day. But it's not the case now. Most of the people I talk to do not have a marketing department. They are the marketing department, and they might be on a roof, what I call them. So I'm trying to set appointments, but I find that it's difficult to have that kind

2:08of a conversation when I'm calling these prospects just because of the environment they're in. And I think that that translates into my voice, sounding a little different, a little desperate, and I'm just struggling a little bit to set meetings. Okay. I got you. So when you ask for a meeting, what do people say to you? They say, oh, is this advertising? And I say, yeah, we do sales and marketing. How much does it cost? They want to just jump right to the price, or they, you know, I'm busy, call me later or I'll call you later or send me an email. That's, you know, any rush off you can imagine. Okay. I got you. So the struggle is that you're having a hard time. I'm getting past some of the objections that they're throwing at you because they're super busy in their day. Then it makes you feel nervous, and then it shows, it shows up in your voice, and because of the type of personalities you're dealing with, they just steer all right over you. That's 100% correct.

3:08Okay. Perfect. So one thing you want to think about is that emotions are contagious. What I mean by that is that human beings are really, really good at picking up on the vibrations of other human beings. So if you come across feeling like a little insecure, or you're, like you're trying to move faster because you don't want to be too pushy, or you know, they're probably on a roof right now. As soon as you come off that way, it kind of opens up the door for just human nature to take over. And they, they say, they think, how much does it cost because they're just trying to get stuff done, right? So we'll start there. The nice question I have for you is when are you typically cold calling them? Well, I do it all day long. I, so, you know, it's typically an eight to four kind of schedule for me. And I've noticed that the earlier I start and the later I call, yes, work best for those guys. And you know, I have a colleague in another state who says, I get the most meetings by calling them at 7 a.m. Yes. And my eyes got really wide when she said that because to me, that seems extremely early

4:12because again, I'm used to like a nine to five kind of work environment. So I should probably start calling in those kinds of hours. That's exactly what I was going to recommend. So I want to back up before we go down that road. One of the things I want you to think about is a word called projecting. What's happening right now is that you are projecting your feelings onto these other people. You're down on the ground and you're projecting how you feel onto the do that's on the roof, fix in a roof for his client, right? And what that's creating for you is that you're making a decision for these individuals based on your value set. I was in Orange County with a group of reps, just like you who are calling into home services businesses. And we were having exactly the same conversation. I think we had like 30 people and we were doing a fanatical prospecting bootcamp with them. And they were like, you know, have our time and they get these objections blah, blah, blah, blah. And I said, all right, here's what we're going to do. We're going to meet here tomorrow morning at 630 and we're going to do a phone block. So they came in at 630. We did a couple of role plays to get started and we started making calls and they were stunned.

5:16And what they were stunned at is that a, the people that owned the business were answering the phone. And the reason they were answering the phone is if they had an office, there was nobody in the office. He answered the phone for them and their business owners and they understand that when the phone is ringing, that's money. So they're going to pick the phone up. And we got more appointments and more conversations set between 630 and 8 o'clock. Then they were getting between 8 o'clock and 10 o'clock. It was just easy and the people that they were talking to were in a much different space. You call somebody on their cell phone and they're on a roof. Of course, they're going to go how much does it cost because they're just trying to make a decision about whether or not it makes any sense to be with you. So I would move your call time up and I would test how early you can go like try 630 in the morning. If you get yelled at, that's fine. You know, you can always call again and apologize, but I would try to go as early as possible. But I would start calling home services around 7 o'clock and then go to 8. How many appointments do you need to set a day? One would be great. What I would suggest is if you really want to blow out your numbers, get on a habit of

6:16two a day. So my goal is to set two good first time appointments a day. If you can start with one great. Okay, so between 630 and 8 o'clock, let's see, you start dialing and let's just say you go 630 to 9 o'clock and then you have another phone block at 4 in the afternoon. The problem with 4 in the afternoon is you will get them, but they're tired. They're worn out. Their day has been tough on them, so you're going to get a few more objections. But if you start in the morning and you say between 7 and 8, I'm going to make 25 outbound dials, I feel confident that you could set two appointments. Now you do have one thing going against you. You're selling advertising and then it's the hardest thing to sell, period, end of story. I know everybody else who's listening and going, my industry is really hard. You don't understand. Let me tell you something, selling advertising is freaking hard and it's hard because there's so many different places that people can go. The individuals that you were talking to, there's an entire industry that is set up to talk to those folks and they're getting inundated by everybody who wants to sell them advertising.

7:17Although it's a really, really good industry to be in home services because it's one industry that AI is not going to take over because AI right now cannot go up on a roof and fix a roof. It can't fix windows. It can't fix HVAC, it can't put gutters in, it can't do any of those things. So you've got an audience that is strong, but it's hard. Okay. So let's start there. Now, the thing about the objections that you're getting, like somebody says, how much is it cost? How do you handle that objection? I usually say, well, it depends. You know, that's why I'd like to sit down and meet with you because we've got a wide range of products and offerings. Okay. Rather than say depends, it's one of those words that it feels like you're arguing with them. Right. How much does it cost? You can say, that's a very good question and it's one that I expected you to ask. And that's exactly why I want to get together with you so that I can learn a little bit more about your business, understand your goals. And then I can tailor a package that will help you achieve those goals. How about I bring lunch to wherever you're going to be on Thursday?

8:18By the way, I was out with a rep who was doing this. He bought pizza and we went and sat on the back of a guy's work truck and had a business meeting on a job site eating pizza and we ended up getting a deal done right there. So if someone says that you go, that's exactly what I expected you to ask. And that's why I want to get together because what I want to do is learn a little bit more about you and your business, understand what your business goals are. And then we can tailor a package that's going to be right for you. How about we get together for lunch on Thursday? I'll bring pizza wherever you are. I love that. So right. If people say they're busy, you say, that's exactly why I called because in your business, I knew you were going to be busy. And all I'm looking for is a time that's more convenient for you. How about and then offer another time? How about I bring breakfast? How about I bring lunch? Because with these guys, right, they're they're working. They're out and they're tough, but they like a free lunch. They like coffee, you know, they sure do. So I would look at it.

9:18I would look at it that way and think the objection isn't so much to have in a meeting with you. And then the thing is, I'm really, really busy. Typically, they're overwhelmed in the moment. Like when someone says, I'm busy, they're overwhelmed right now. I'm busy right now. I'm in the middle of doing something right now. They're not thinking about next Thursday. They're just thinking about right now. And all you got to do is say, I figured you'd be busy. I mean, in your business, why wouldn't you be? That's why I call. I want to find another time that's more convenient for you. When someone says, is this advertising? What do you say? I usually say, yeah, advertising, you know, marketing, but it's advertising. If you say all of those things like advertising and marketing, you would say, yes, it is, but it's a little bit different than what you have typically experienced. We've got new strategies for home services companies that are resulting in, you got any stats? What? Give me a good stat. Give me a juicy stat. Yeah. 25% higher profit jobs are being booked by use of more services.

10:22Yeah. Perfect. So absolutely, but it's not what you've experienced in the past. We're doing something that's new and innovative that is helping our clients increase the profitability on the jobs that they book by 25% or more. And all I want to do is grab a little bit of your time to walk you through exactly how we're making that happen so that you can see it for yourself and make a decision if it's right for you. How about we get together thirsty at two? That's good to me. But do you see how we're doing that? Absolutely. Because when someone asks you that and then you're deer in the headlights, then they don't trust you. But if you just go, yep, that's exactly right. And then throw a stat out, a lot of home services companies, especially in your state, where you've got insurance problems, they're getting hammered because the insurance companies are sucking all of the profit out of their jobs. So if you go in there and talk about how we can get you more retail jobs, less insurance jobs, we can get you those retail jobs at a higher profit margin, you're going to have people that are going to pay attention to you.

11:22Yeah. Wow. That's great. Thank you. Awesome. Well, I hope I answered your question. You absolutely did. Thank you, Joe. I appreciate it very much. Thanks for reading my books. Thanks for listening to the podcast. Thanks for coming on with me. Have a fantastic day. Thank you. Take care. If you need help setting more appointments, we've just released a brand new guide called the 25 ways to set an appointment on a call call. You can download it free at sells gravy dot com forward slash appointment that sells gravy dot com forward slash appointment. If you've ever changed industries or even territories, it's easy to empathize with Cindy situation because many of us have been in their shoes. The lessons from my conversation should resonate with everyone because no matter what your situation, you'll book more appointments, craft better messaging, and sell more when you learn how to step into your prospect shoes and look at the world through their

12:22lens. Before I wrap up, a big thank you to Lindsay Wise for leaving this amazing five star review on Apple podcast. She writes, the podcast is fantastic. Many people step into sales without a clear understanding of what to expect and while companies provide some training, this podcast is an invaluable resource for anyone in sales. Jeb, your insights and advice have been incredibly helpful to me over the years and I truly appreciate it. Keep up the great work. I look forward to listening to more episodes. Thank you, Cindy. That was fantastic and also a shout out to Trenton Reed and Daniel Coleman, Jr. for sharing the sales gravy podcast with their followers on LinkedIn. You guys are awesome. Now, I've got one more question from a follower on LinkedIn. His name is Zahr. He's from Tablisi in the country of Georgia and he says, hello, Jeb, I've finished your book, fanatical prospecting and I found so many great insights in it. So thank you for that. Would you recommend any other books on sales that have changed the way that you sell?

13:26Well, there are two classic books I recommend that have had a big influence on me. The first is How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie and the second one is See You at the Top by the Great Zig Ziggler. Now remember, folks, when it's time to go home, when you're tired, when you're worn out, and when you feel that your grind is gone, always stop and make one more call. Because as Trenton Reed pointed out to his followers on LinkedIn, that one more call adds up to 260 more calls each year. I'll see you next time on the sales gravy podcast.