The Pre-Emptive Strike

Bad things happen, but people do not hate when things go wrong as much as they hate being SURPIRSED by things going wrong. In this episode Red goes over how to avoid getting objections and building more trust with clients. 

For more information and free training go to brokensalespeople.com 

Transcript

Hey, broken salespeople. So today we're talking about preemptive strikes. That's this episode on the broken salespeople podcast.
Hey, broken salespeople. Welcome to the workshop. My name is Red Stafstrom. We are here to help you fix your broken sales skills. So I kinda want to apologize in advance on this, I want to talk about something ahead of time. I've talked a lot about toxic masculinity, in terms of how its integrated and intertwined with sales, and how a lot of that a lot of the problems in sales in terms of having to feel like you need to be the dominant person, you need to be the alpha, the way you need to control the conversation, all of those different things. stems from men thinking they're not strong enough stems from stem from inadequacy and scarcity. It comes from a place of not being confident in yourself, and not being confident in the product. by forcing your will upon a customer, you were jeopardizing a relationship, because you're scared to address objections. That's what a lot of that is that toxic masculinity. So I try to avoid military lingo, I try to avoid being combative and talking about a lot of those things. But in this episode, I don't have better metaphors for them, I don't really have a better way to explain what I want to talk about today, without the more militaristic, masculine, toxic masculine ideas. So we have to kind of dive right into that. I'm a big fan of Lee childs, the author, I've been reading his books, probably since I was 15 or so. I really enjoy his work. I've really loved the jack Reacher character, really upset they cast Tom Cruise in that role. But that's another diatribe to go down another day. But I was I've been a fan of that character since some of his first books. There was a phrase in that book that I keep thinking back to get your retaliation in early. Be the first to retaliate, start the fight before you get punched in the face, punch them in the face. Don't give them the opportunity. Because if you wait until they act until they hit you, they have now dictated terms of the fight. They have decided when and where and how to fight what everything about it, they decided the arena. If you don't punch them first, they get to choose when the fight happens if the fight happens, they get to dictate everything. So I really want to talk about that today, because it's very pertinent with sales. One of my favorite tools that I've ever learned, I've learned this, since my door to door days, is something that I call the preemptive strike. Everything I've sold everything that I've ever sold has negatives to it, there is no such thing as the perfect product for everyone. There are some things that are better some things that are worse. It's just about what fits for that customer, whether I'm selling cars, security systems, stocks, bonds. When I sold fuel cards, when I am selling consulting services, there is no perfect one size fits all solution that fits everybody's needs and everybody's budgets. Knowing that gives me more confidence because I know I don't have to and don't want to close 100% of the people who come in front of me. I just know I have to find the right people, the people who will stay beyond the terms of their agreement, and be loyal customers. So in doing that, I've taken a different approach than a lot of salespeople do. I address the objections head on. Right from the beginning. I like to tell them from the very beginning what they will and what they won't like about the product. I do not want them to pay me a penny without me giving them these disclaimers. Whatever products you sell, you know the things they don't like you know them very well because those are the objections that you get. Now almost everybody talks about price being the objection. price isn't always the objection. Even when they say it. It's easy to say hey, I don't like Like this price rather than I don't like the product or I don't like you, I don't trust you,
it's easier to blame it on the price. It's kind of that white lie, I don't want to buy it. But I don't want to offend you either. And that's perfectly fine. But you need to understand that in your head, they sense that something is off that there's something that they don't trust about the situation. And it's triggering that adrenal response, fight flight freeze. A lot of them flee, but a lot of them have take that flight method run away from the deal when something isn't right. So you need to know that. So you have to tell them, that this is a landmine area, that there are things in this area that will trigger that response, that there's going to be some loud popping noises. People don't run when they expect things, people. After studying my own amount of emotional wellness, and the emotional wellness and emotional intelligence of a lot of people, I've noticed something. People are never upset by bad news. People are upset by surprising bad news. Think about it like this. Let's say you feel a lump somewhere on your body. We don't need to go into it. But you feel a lump. And you go to your doctor, and you find out you have cancer. Now you're upset. You're very upset, understandably so. But you knew it was probably the case that soften the blow, you're not surprised by it anymore, because you found that bump. Now Meanwhile, you have people who go in feel like they're sick, they're running a fever, and they come back with say a lymphoma, blood cancer, they had no idea they didn't have that bump, that telltale sign. So now they've been completely caught by surprise, they had no time to go through those stages of grief, as it were, they didn't get to mentally prepare themselves for the possibility that maybe this can be the issue. While getting cancer is never good. Having that time of I felt a lump. Okay, now let's cut it out is not as bad as okay you have it, like the doctor coming in and showing you your blood work, I would much rather have that time to be able to recognize the possibility. On the other extreme, think about the little things that upsets you. I am a person who doesn't get upset about big things because there's not much I can do about them. I tend to get more upset by the little things that could have been prevented. I, somebody stealing my parking space is something that gets me a little more upset than a running out of gas. I knew I was running out of gas, I saw that idiot light right there. And it was my own fault for pushing it off as long as I did. But somebody's taking my parking space, even though I'm parking another 20 feet away, upsets me more because it changes what I was looking to deal with changes my plans what I was thinking about it throws off my morning in some cases, but running out of gas. I knew that was the case, because I saw that needle dipping and dipping and dipping. And then I saw the light come on. And I'm like, Alright, I got five more miles, I can make it pop up, up, up up up. I would much rather know and be able to blame it on my own and competence, rather than be surprised by something. So when you're talking to people, you need to know what objections they're going to throw at you. And you need to give them to them and address them before they have the chance to bring them up themselves. And the reason is very, very simple. Once they raise the issue, once they bring up the objection, they've chosen terms. They say we are talking about this now and they are punching you in the face before you were ready. In some cases. I don't want to be that person. I don't want to be thrown off my game. Because I didn't disclose something a little bit earlier. When I sold cars. This was one of my favorite tools. So when I was talking to people, and they were asked well about how much is the payment going to be on this? I would prep them with a much higher number than I thought they would pay. The interest rate that I usually told them and I quoted them in most cases was I said Well, normally rule of thumb for every $1,000 you're looking at, you're usually looking at $20 a month for the payment. Now I started selling cars in about 2012 2013 the average interest rate at that point was about 4.3%. At a five year payment,
the payment that I'm quoting at $20 per month per 1000, is roughly 13%. I'm tripling the possible interest rate. Because I know that we can beat that price. I know we can beat that $20 per 1000, once we sit down and start discussing terms, but I want it in their head, that that $30,000 car is going to cost them $600 a month, rather than we sit down and they're surprised when the number comes up. I'd rather tell them up front before we sit down. Because if we need to switch cars, everything falls apart. If we start talking about the wrong car, we've got big problems. As I'm talking to people now, and I'm talking to people about marketing, I say to him, Hey, we have a marketing program, it works extremely well. We don't have a 12 month agreement, like most companies, but we do have a six. I tell them that because I know they're going to fight back if I told them we have a six month agreement. But if I wait until they say, Well, do you have an agreement? It's a little bit more contentious, because if I just fire back, yes, six months, oh, well, I don't want a six month agreement. Let's do three, see, I set the expectation at 12 and then cut it in half. Rather than I tell them what it is. And they try to cut the expectation. By starting with the higher number. I know that I can pull it back, I know where I can move. I know what their emotional entanglement is. I know what problems they're going to have. When I talk to people about coaching. I tell them very bluntly, hey, here's the way coaching is going to work for you. month one, you and your coach will have a little bit of a honeymoon period, that kind of getting to know you time. It's going to be exciting, you're going to be kind of invigorated, energized, you're going to get things going. Then month 234. Your coach is going to force you to do all the things that you've been avoiding, and you're going to hate it. These months are going to suck it's going to feel like when you played basketball as a kid and you're running wind sprints. But then round month four or five, six, you'll start really noticing the wheels grip. So what you'll get month 1011 1213 1415 will be way more than what you get month one, two or three. It's not a consistent return. It's kind of a snowball. And I tell people that because I don't want to call month three. Well, I haven't gotten a transaction yet. I haven't made any money off of this yet. No, you wouldn't have. But by telling them that ahead of time. I'm pre empting any possible fight from being started? I know where their mindset is. Now, in terms of the way it's used. You heard it at the beginning of this episode. Yeah, I did it to you. Sorry, not sorry. But I was doing it for a point. See, there are people who would have commented and said, Well, I thought you didn't like those toxic masculinity you did. This sounds like really aggressive for the style of sales that I do. I started this episode by saying, Hey, here's the problems. Here's what I'm doing. And here's why I'm doing it this way. So that I can't get those objectives, those objections? I know by addressing it head on that now people can't really come out and say, Well, this seems really toxic and aggressive for me. Yeah, I know it is. And that's perfectly fine. But it's toxic and aggressive. To prevent things from becoming toxic and aggressive. It's dictating the terms. So a real fight doesn't break out. It's bringing them to a negotiating table where you're going to yell rather than starting a fist fight in the parking lot. So make sure that you're telling people the bad news at the beginning, tell them these things, be upfront. Let them know what they will and what they won't like about the program before they spend a penny with you. And it's going to help your career immensely. So I hope this helps. I hope you guys have enjoyed this episode. Please take the time to review the podcast on whatever platform you're on. Subscribe, do all of those things. They really help the channel out and until next time, go fix yourself.