Rule #19 Assume It’s True

Years ago a success guru addressed our national sales meeting. He spoke of his program for elite professional athletes and special forces members of the military. His program specializes in helping those individuals achieve their peak performance. 

He told of the first-day test his company issues to every attendee to their Florida campus. Upon arrival the candidates are told they must go out of the building to a paved path that runs along a canal and run one mile to the end of it, touch a white fence, and return. He declared to us that every military person has touched the fence, yet no athlete ever has. 

Astonishing! No pro athlete has ever touched the fence just one mile away?! 

He then explained that just before the candidates leave their seats, he mentions, “Alligators often sun themselves along the path, but they should pose no problem if you give them a wide berth. Alligators are fast in a straight line, but they can’t turn on the run.” 

Then, just before the candidates reach the door, he mentions, “Be alert for snakes. They are poisonous in this part of the country.” 

Finally, just before the candidates start to run, he tells them, “One last thing: You need to listen for wild boars. They’re like a pit bull with big tusks. They have a hideous, grunting, screechy sound, and they are as mean as hornets—and just as fast. They will be defending young litters this time of year. You will hear them coming before you see them. It’s important to take the threat seriously.” 

He proceeded to explain to us that he has a very obese man hidden behind a bush around a bend halfway down the trail. When the athletes approach, the man screeches really loud before pausing and slowly rising to waive his hands and show himself. 

He showed us a video of three NFL players on the trail. Sure enough, the screeching started, and all three men turned on a dime and sprinted out of

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sight of the camera. The man stood up, but no one even turned around to see him. On the other hand, upon hearing the screeching, every military person crouched down to face the threat, prepared to defend themselves, and every one of them had a good laugh with the man behind the bush before going on to touch the fence. 

Two groups of elite people. Two very different responses to threats! Handling objections is the key to success in sales. Sales organizations work hard to understand the customer’s values and concerns, likes and dislikes, and wants and desires in order to build value propositions that appeal to them. Great organizations keep track of customer objections. They study them, update them, track them, and search for best practices and talk tracks to overcome them. Every sales organization trains their sales force to recognize and respond to the objections in a successful way. But if it was that easy, everyone would close every customer on every sales call. 

The term “bird brain” is actually scientifically accurate. The cortex is where creativity and conversation occur. The fight-or-flight response comes from the hypothalamus. Researchers can see this on an MRI, where certain parts of the brain being used in real time during various tasks or situations light up. Birds, however, only have the hypothalamus; they don’t

have a cortex. In a stressful environment, we tend to act as though we do not have a cortex either! So we must practice. We must prepare our answers in advance. As we gain confidence and self-control through practice, eventually we won’t panic, and we can manage what initially is a very stressful moment in the course of our day. 

Part of our problem as salespeople, however, is indicated by the nomenclature we use. We tend to use war terms to describe our engagement with prospective customers. We instinctively “fight” objections. We get physically emotional when objections come our way. Instinctively, our hackles come up when we are opposed. Sometimes we feel outright disgust and

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righteous indignation! That was a terrific presentation! How could they fail to see my point? we think to ourselves. 

The fight-or-flight mechanism kicks in as though we were being attacked and are in physical danger. Preparing rebuttals to overcome objections is critical but so is changing the way we think about objections. 

Let me ask you something: What if the objection is true?

Several years ago I made a sales call. I presented information that my company had discovered about patients declining surgery two out of three times due to fear of bleeding, pain, the ensuing recovery complications, and cost concerns. The surgeon I was presenting the information to objected to the information, declaring that none of his patients ever declined surgery when he offered it. I insisted that they did—based on the carefully collected data my company had given me. 

Needless to say, that appointment didn’t go well, and I spent a week trying to figure out what to do. Then it hit me: What if what he said was true? For another week, I let that possibility roll around in my mind until the answer finally came to me: There was a third truth that reconciled the first two. I returned to that surgeon and asked him, “Do patients ever cancel surgery?” 

“Oh, yes!” he said. “It happens all the time. It’s driving me crazy!” Patients were not declining surgery to the surgeon’s face. They were, however, letting his assistants schedule them for surgery, then in the intervening weeks leading up to their procedure, they were pondering their fears, the cost, and deciding to cancel. 

? First truth: Patients decline surgery.

? Second truth: Patients never decline surgery.

? Third truth: Patients may not decline surgery to the surgeon’s face— but they do cancel surgery.

There was a third truth, and that second sales appointment went very well, and we moved on together and enjoyed great success, partnering to treat patients with the new technology. Initially, I made the mistake of

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“fighting” his objection and failing to assume it was true. In a sense, I was assuming the surgeon was either lying to me or was terribly mistaken. Most of your customers are not lying to you, and they are not mistaken. Most of the objections they pose are absolutely true! 

We would get so much further so much faster if we would train ourselves to understand that and then respond appropriately. Why? For two reasons: First, we would not shift into fight-or-flight mode, which would have the profound benefit of causing our ears to stay open. My experience has been that salespeople in the “heat of battle” (another militant phrase we would do well to avoid) lose their ability to listen. Very few salespeople take notes, which would promote listening, retention, and deliberation. 

The second reason we should train ourselves to understand and respond is that we would gain tremendous perspective on the situation—the customer’s perspective.

Think about it: What are the top five objections you hear from your customers? 

? “My patients do fine.” 

? “I am happy with what I have.”

? “We already have one.”

? “The competition is cheaper and easier.”

? “Your contract is too long.”

? “Your price is too high.”

? “I had a bad experience with your product in the past.”

I want to dive into a few tips about objections. First, let’s agree that by assuming the objections are true, you might be able to find a new way to think about them and then find a unique way to discuss them with your customer. Is your competition cheaper and easier to use? Is your contract longer? Is your customer happy with what they have? Do their patients do fine? Yes! Most of the time these responses are absolutely true. At the very least, they are true in the mind of your customer. 

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Let’s also agree to believe the best about our customers. My customers do the best they can with the best devices, equipment, and information available at the time for the sake of their customers. We must believe that. To believe otherwise is to believe that our customers are underhanded and deviant, and to win their business, we need to demonstrate how our product or service can assist them in their diabolic dereliction. If you believe your product is the best, then believe that your customers want the best. Come out and say it! 

Price is a very common objection. I have always worked for companies selling high-end products. My competitors have always been lower on price. Can we turn the tables around for our customers? Recently at a meeting, our sales force was up in arms that the competitor had gone from 80% to 50% of our price, to which I replied, only half-jokingly, “That’s terrific! Wow! Wait till I tell my boss. You know they used to be only 20% less! 50% less? Wow! Things must be worse over there than we thought! I know our product is great, but I didn’t know how great! I really think you all need to make it your goal, as salespeople for our company, to drive them down to 75% less than us! We are the best! If they are going to sell on price, we better make it such a big gap that customers have to wonder why they can’t charge more. I mean, how bad are they? I am not worried about the competitor that comes to market with a significant discount; I am worried about a competitor that comes to market with a premium. But I have not seen one! Let’s talk about why.” 

I said all of that with a huge smile on my face and lots of enthusiasm, which shook up the room and put a big smile on their faces. It turned that particular part of the meeting around. –beep, beep, beep– We backed up the truck from Negative Town and drove onto Happyville. Notice that I didn’t fight or deny the issue; I was able to hear it, acknowledge it, and lean into it. We need to make customers concerned about what they will not be getting with an inferior product that can’t deliver on its promises. Yes, your customers want to save money. We all do. And most of your customers have very sound logic behind their choice to go with a cheaper vendor. They are not just being cheap or greedy. Find out what that logic is and lean into it. That said, if you sell for a low-cost leader, I appreciate you. I like the money I save at Walmart and many other discount institutions. But I wouldn’t want to be you; that is not always a fun place to be. If you have never enjoyed the privilege of selling a new technology in a “Blue Ocean” with no competitors where price is not an issue, you haven’t really lived yet

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as a sales representative. It really is that fun!

Is cost an issue for our customers? Yes, it is. If your competition is cheaper and you are not assuming it’s true, acknowledging it for what it is, and coming right back with a good reason why so many other customers are happy to pay more, then you’re going to lose that customer—and you don’t deserve their business. 

Elite execution demands that you assume your customer is speaking the truth when they object to your assertion, even if it means recognizing how it is only true from their current perspective, which you will then proceed to change