Overcoming Sales Objections: Why Your Clients Have a "Crisis of Faith"
I recently asked a group of coaches and consultants why people weren't signing up for their programs. Without hesitation, they said that people didn't have the time or the money to pay for and participate in the programs. While I understand that those are the easiest answers to my question, after digging a little deeper into it, we started to see that there were a lot of exceptions to that imaginary rule. People were willing to enroll and pay for programs that had more stringent time and money requirements than those my group was talking about. We had to identify other reasons for their hesitation to act. Why were some people able to override their financial and scheduling limits to respond favorably to an offer?
I suggested that the time and money objections might reflect a more critical difficulty. My thought was that the real issue isn't money or time - it's a crisis of faith. I'm not talking about religious or spiritual belief, although some people might lump their consumer mindset in with their theological views. I'm thinking of faith as the impetus that drives our personal commitments. It's a reflection of a combination of belief, energy, excitement, openness, willingness, and motivation that shakes off any resistance we feel and leads us to say, "Yes, this is what I'm going to do right now."
People invest in things they believe in. In the group I was with, their offer is for a coach training that requires a significant investment of time and money. Their basic training program with professional supervision and cohort participation is a minimum commitment of one year, and the cost is in the moderate five-figure range. Every one of the people I met in that group was a high achiever who could have easily foregone the training and gotten a decent start in executive coaching without it. But they all were convinced that going through the program would be worth their time and money. At some point, they had enough of a shift from doubt to faith to move their feet across the line. Now they are asking other people to follow their lead.
I've seen mediocre coaches sell multi-thousand-dollar packages to poor people that ultimately didn't deliver the promised satisfaction. Where their coaching lacked, their evangelism didn't. They knew how to communicate their message so effectively that large percentages of their audiences would get out their credit cards and enroll. I'm not suggesting that we try to follow suit and con people out of their cash and time, only to leave the program jaded. But the point can be made that the evangelistic message may be the most important aspect of marketing professional services. People want a better future than the life they have right now.
The Prosperous Coach
Steve Chandler is a retired coach who has probably trained more successful coaches in their selling process than any other single influence. He's written many books that include information on selling, the most notable is probably The Prosperous Coach, co-written with his former client and now collaborator, Rich Litvin(find a used copy of the paperback for the best price). Steve is a big proponent of letting the experience of coaching sell coaching, instead of trying to tell people what coaching is and what it does. He also suggests making time for a longer conversation when you're making your offer. In the book, he and Rich both emphasize taking the time to make a strong connection, help people envision the future they want, propose how you will help them arrive in that future, and deliver a valuable and memorable coaching experience instead of a polished, rehearsed sales pitch. They also encourage people to steer the conversation back to the desired outcome if the topic of price arises too quickly or if the client backs down at the price.
This isn't a guaranteed method to make a sale every time, but it feels a lot less manipulative and honors the value of connection, inspiration, and genuine experience over making a transaction both parties may later regret. When it comes to helping people move from the doubt end of the continuum to the faith end, this approach has a lot of merit.
Guy Kawasaki
Most entrepreneurs of the last 40 years are at least familiar with the name Guy Kawasaki. He was the original product evangelist hired by Apple to go out and give people the good news of what they could accomplish with their new Apple personal computer. They didn't hesitate to call him a product evangelist. It was a perfect description of what he did for the company. He also had a successful blog called Holy Kaw, and he's a best-selling author, podcaster, and in-demand speaker. In recent years, he has been the most visible product evangelist for Canva.
It's interesting to me that they chose the term evangelist to describe his role, but it is fitting. Back when he started with Apple, a basic system cost several thousand dollars, and their main competitor, IBM, and the thousand off-brands that followed could sell a computer for less than a third of what Apple was charging. Guy was masterful at translating the higher quality and superior user experience into a case for the additional investment. He got people excited about using Apple products, and he was one of the early faces of the brand community that Apple, Mac, iOS, and all the related channels became.
If we identify the real reason for a potential customer's reluctance to commit as a crisis of faith, then evangelism is the key strategy we need to employ. Instead of trying to rush people into making a decision, we can take our time and share openly about their needs and our resources. We can display authentic excitement about our future possibilities together. We can understand their concerns and allay them where possible. And if money and time are the real reasons they can't commit, we can agree that it's just not the right time, and that our connection is more valuable to us than the transaction. The connection allows us to continue to populate each other's circle. The connection allows us to continue a conversation past the original invitation. The connection lets our clients know that our faith in our own offer is legitimate and genuine. Over time, that connection can translate into a movement on their part from no to yes, resistance to acceptance, doubt to faith.
