The Heart-Centered Way To Handle Money Objections on Sales Calls

INTRO: [00:00:00] After generating over a million dollars in sales and selling one of her businesses with a single email, your host Catherine Thompson, takes an unconventional approach to marketing and sales. So if you are ready to tap into a more powerful way to be seen, heard, and a sought after entrepreneur in your industry without having to spend endless hours marketing your business and chasing clients, you are in the right place.

Be The Sought After Entrepreneur podcast is here to help you ditch the cookie cutter one size fits all approach to marketing, and use your unique energy to effortlessly attract the most aligned clients. When you do this, you can spend less time marketing your business and more time doing your soul work and enjoying the richness of your life.

Welcome to Be the Sought After Entrepreneur podcast, and here's your host, Kathryn Thompson.

Kathryn Thompson: Hey, hey, superstar, that you're tuning this week's episode, and I cannot wait to dive in today's topic because [00:01:00] I wanna answer a question that a client of mine had around how to navigate price objections with integrity, and I have evolved on this. Sort of topic and my response has evolved over the years.

So I knew I had a ton of content that I had created, or podcasts that I had recorded in the past that probably touched on this topic. But I also know that I've evolved in terms of how I do navigate this because of my own experience of taking. Thousands of sales calls now, and not just for my business, but for other seven and eight figure business owners who have hired me behind the scenes to come in and take their sales calls for them, and I have been exposed to a plethora.

Of sales strategies, some that I deeply cringed at initially, some that I have started to cringe at over the years, and then [00:02:00] also really stepped into selling with integrity within my own business and really aligning with that for myself. So I wanna unpack this not from a perspective of here's how you handle these types of objections when it comes to money, because I think that's part of the problem.

I think that for a lot of sales, coaching and mentorship, it's an either or right or wrong, black or white. And I think when we approach. Anybody in our life with that perspective unconsciously, often, right? We don't even know that we're actually doing it. We never really truly approach it from a place of true understanding.

And that is usually conditioned within us when taking sales calls because we've been. Taught and culturally in a sales conversation we're taught not to take no for an answer. And you've probably been [00:03:00] on the receiving end of that, and sometimes to the extreme, right, where somebody just will not let you say no.

And every time you try to say no, in a way. They come up with some sort of excuse, well, what if I do this? Or what if we do this? Or, what if we offer you this bonus? Right? It's like, I can't get out of this labyrinth if I wanted to because they're not taking no for an answer. That's the extreme, but I think that seeps in, even with heart-centered business owners who have been told that when we get an objection.

There is an outcome that has to happen, and that is busting that objection. And sometimes people's objections are well-meaning, right? So if we go into a sales conversation with the idea of needing to quote unquote, bust an objection or overcome an objection. We can be blinded to trying to understand what is actually really going on.

And sometimes a price objection is [00:04:00] legit, a price objection, and I think in a lot of ways. We are taught not to take that at face value that like they might not be telling the truth or, uh, I think there's something underlying this and there very well could be. I'm not saying that there isn't, but what I'm saying is if we don't go in with that pure open channel to understand, to listen and to understand, we've already gone in with the bias.

Meaning we've already gone in with a predetermined outcome of needing to understand why someone's saying they don't have the money, when in reality they just might not financially have that money. Which is why my perspective has shifted a lot having now done these sales calls, but also being on the receiving end of it.

Because money is one of the most conditioned things in our lives. There's a lot [00:05:00] of scarcity, a lot of lack, a lot of fear around it, and for most people. On a sales call, they're never really going to get to the truth of their money story with you, and therefore when somebody says, I can't afford it, sure there could be fear and I'm gonna talk about that and how to really get curious about that and then how to navigate that.

But I also want us. To sit within ourselves before sales calls and clear our channel from any predetermined bias conditioning thought. Even assumption around somebody coming into our world, right? You can probably think of a sales call that you've taken where you've maybe made an assumption about somebody that they don't have the money or they're not gonna be able to afford it or whatever, and [00:06:00] I know I've done that, right?

And then they go to prove us completely wrong with that assumption. I'm talking about being the clearest channel you can possibly be when you take those sales calls so that you're not going in with that bias that they can't afford it and or when they say they can't afford it. There is this underlying conditioning that's wanting to bust that objection for the sake of busting it to get the yes.

And if you're heart center, you might be thinking, well, I don't want to do that. However, sometimes it's intrinsically wired within us, so we don't even know that that's actually what's driving our sort of. Uh, actions in that. So clearing our channel and getting really rock solid on that is, is so, so important.

And doing our own unpacking, which is why I often say that it's not one thing or the other, right? Some salespeople say you just bust the objection. You just get to the root and here's how you do it. And I, I look at things more holistically [00:07:00] and more big picture. And try to understand the system at play rather than the micro situation that I'm in, because I don't want to enroll somebody into a program with me that truly cannot afford it and or is pushing them beyond the threshold that they can handle in terms of their nervous system, which we're gonna dive into because it's all wrapped into one.

And so when somebody tells me they can't afford it. I don't have that predetermined thing of like, I don't believe you. You're just making that up. That's just an excuse. If you really want this, you'll do it. Um, let's get curious about where you're spending your money and like, oh, you're spending too much on coffee and eating out and you can afford it, and all the things, right?

I don't go down that route. I've been on the receiving end of that route where someone's like, well, let me help you get a credit card for this. Like, ick, gross. Yuck. And the reason I say that is because. I'm not just looking at enrolling [00:08:00] somebody either. I'm looking at the actual value I can provide them, and when somebody enrolls into a program that, A, they can't afford it, like they actually don't have the finances too, like they don't have the money B.

Their nervous system can't hold that risk, and therefore they might in the moment, buy, put it on a credit card, take it alone, whatever it might be. But then they get into your world and they're freaking out and they can't actually move forward because they're in such a state of fight or flight within their nervous system, so they can't creatively think or make decisions or whatever it is, and they don't actually then get the results.

And C, we've talked somebody around in a circle to a point where they just had to say yes to kind of get off the call, which then they get into your container and they likely will ask for a refund. They'll likely complain, and I've seen this on the back end of seven and eight figure business owners where.[00:09:00] 

They're using tactics to just get people to say yes, and it's in that micro moment, and their refund rate on the backend is astronomical. And I'm talking like high, high percentages of people refunding every single day or doing chargebacks. If you're heart centered, you're probably like, I don't want any of that.

I do want to provide someone the permission to say yes, but I don't want to pressure them into saying yes. And so there is a fine balance, and that's what we're gonna navigate here today. The first step of this is your channel. You as a clear conduit on that call with that person. When you show up on that call being detached from the outcome, and I know that might sound cliche or like so tired of people telling me to detach from the outcome.

'cause I do want the sale and I think you can want the sale and I think you can want to help people and also be detached from it and not be passive in that detachment [00:10:00] of like, come when you're ready. I'm not gonna pressure you at all. Like just say yes in the moment because fear does play a factor in people's decisions.

So I think there's that piece of it is you becoming clear in your own. Channel, whatever that is, and it's gonna look different for everyone. You might be making assumptions about what people can and can't afford. You might be really attached to the outcome. You might be going in with a bias on trusting what they're saying, and that is huge because if you don't trust what they say when they say, I can't afford it, or I don't have the time, or I don't think this is gonna work for me, when you don't trust that.

One, you close yourself down to really trying to understand their perspective, and two, you're putting out mistrust into the field that you're in with that person. So why should they trust you if you don't trust them? And that's a really hard question to answer for a lot of us, because if we don't [00:11:00] trust them either unconsciously or consciously, right?

If we think every time they give an objection, they're not telling the truth, there's something below that. There's some hidden reason why, which is what we're trained to do in sales conversations, your frequency of mistrust. It is already seeped into that sales call. So that's number one is you really getting clear and clean on your channel and also healing any of your own money objections that you may have around money making decisions.

Your own threshold of risk is huge. I've seen that a lot on sales calls. If the person that is is navigating the sales call, leading the sales call and they're selling an offer and they have. Their own limitations around the risk threshold they're willing to take in terms of the investment you're gonna see that mirrored back to you on the call.

Doesn't make it right or wrong, doesn't make you good or bad, doesn't make you anything. It's just your own threshold. And I've seen this time and time again, again, not [00:12:00] only on my sales calls, which is why my theory often gets proved right in this, is that I've taken sales calls for like seven and eight figure business owners and I'll get on a call and I'm like.

Out of all of the random 'cause, it's usually a random selection. I will get on a call with somebody who is so much mirroring my own current reality. To me, it's scary, right? Because we are a mere reflection and they're not my audience. It's not my messaging that's being put out there, right? So that's why I say the theory gets proved right, because if it was my own messaging and I'm putting out the message, well then yes, of course you're gonna attract people into your world that resonate with you.

But when you're working behind the scenes for other people and you're experiencing that, it's an absolute wild experience. So I will see on those calls, my own objections coming forward and. How to sort of navigate those is really working on sort of clearing those or expanding your capacity. And this [00:13:00] then brings me to the other kind of points of this is that if.

Our channel's clear and we're truly detached from the outcome, and we're coming with this open perspective to understand, then we have to truly have zero bias around the understanding of what's going on. And when I say that, I mean some people just don't have the money and that is an absolute truth.

Some people are not willing to. Push the risk of what their nervous system capacity can handle. And sometimes they don't even know how to articulate that. And I'm gonna give you a story around this. So a year ago I got on a sales call with a woman I was in sort of limbo or transition, or a threshold pivot, growth, whatever you want to call it.

And I was looking to figure out. How to evolve and grow my business to be even more in alignment with where I want to go in this season of life. And I got on a call with her and there were so many tactics on that sales call [00:14:00] that viscerally I could feel were like, ick. One, I'm not gonna tell you the price of my program until you say yes.

Which is absolutely asinine in my opinion. And the reason why people do that, and the reason why they use that manipulation tactic is because they say price and money is never the issue. And I don't actually believe that. That's where my evolution has taken me is I actually don't believe that to be true.

And viscerally my body's going, but like. You could say your thing was a million dollars. I don't have a million dollars. Well, if you could make a million dollars in a month, then you would say yes. So it's not about the money. And I'm like, no, it's not that. It's that I, I don't actually have physically have the a million dollars right now to give you, and so, and her program wasn't a million dollars, but I'm just giving you the example of like how asinine that is.

I'm not gonna tell you the price until you say yes. It doesn't even, doesn't even [00:15:00] make sense because to me, price plays a factor in someone willing to invest. And the reason for that is either they don't have the money or their nervous system and the the risk threshold that they're willing to bump up against.

Is outside of what your price is. So for example, and again, I'm not gonna share the price of this program, but let's just say it was $10,000 and I'm going, I don't have, my risk threshold isn't there in terms of capacity of what I'm willing to invest in in that, so that my nervous system feels safe and.

That is what I was bumping up against on that call. One, I didn't have the price, and then two, when she actually did tell me the price, my nervous system was like, no, I don't have the threshold. It was well beyond $10,000. And I was like, I don't have, my threshold isn't there from a risk perspective. Here's what this particular person kept doing.

They kept telling me that it wasn't about the money [00:16:00] and they weren't actually trying to understand. How I was wired, how I was approaching things, the lens in which I was looking through things and whether or not I could actually hold it. And that for me is a biased sales call because you're actually not looking at the human on the other end of the call and trying to understand their capacity, because if you did, then you would.

C, that they're probably not the best right fit for you to work with. That they're either gonna get into your container and like have a complete nervous system meltdown and then they're not gonna get the results they wanted. Or they're just gonna say yes. 'cause there's that manipulation on the call of like, it's not about the money.

Da da. All the things. And they're just gonna say yes because they feel pressured to say yes. Anybody who's a people pleaser, anyone with an open solar plexus who just doesn't wanna ruffle feathers, like, just get me out of this situation, will say yes [00:17:00] for the sake of saying yes, just to get off the call.

And then they'll regret the decision. And then again, we'll be unhappy in your container. But if you're looking at things from a pure heart-centered place and you're selling from that perspective, you've gotta look at it as a collective whole that you and that person are in partnership. And so you've gotta understand.

Where they're coming from. And so what would've been really beneficial in my opinion, is if this particular person said, okay, I hear that you're saying you can't afford it. Can you tell me more about what, what you mean by that? And I would've gone into the discussion, but I was feeling like I was being made to feel bad about my decision because it quote unquote, wasn't about the money.

And that is where I think sales calls can go sideways. And or be out of integrity because we're starting to make blanket assumptions about the person on the other end. It's never about the money. Well, actually it was 'cause my nervous system couldn't [00:18:00] hold that investment. It was too much of a stretch for me from a risk perspective.

And I know myself better than anybody else knows me. And I knew that if I said yes to it, that I would get into that experience and I'd probably go into a state of fight or flight, which is what? My nervous system usually defaults to, it's usually flight. I don't wanna do this anymore, I'm gonna burn it down.

Like I can't handle this. Ah, that's what my nervous system does. And then I try to escape the situation, and so I know that about myself, but I also know my risk threshold, and so I know where I'm bumping up against that within my nervous system. Not everybody on a call is going to know that, which is why I said you'll never get to the bottom of someone's full money story.

And sometimes people can't articulate it. They just know viscerally, I can't do this. And so from an integrity place, if you're wanting to sort of get to an understanding, a deep understanding, number one is [00:19:00] I always start the call really trying to understand who this human is and what they desire, and.

Why they desire it, like, and not just like, oh, I wanna start a business, or I wanna lose the weight, or I want to heal my generational trauma. Like I'm half sort of giggling at that because it's very surface level and for my depth workers, you understand that usually what's given on the surface, there's usually more to it, but it's about unpacking and unraveling it.

So from a place of curiosity. A place of non-bias. I would go in and say something along the lines like, okay, I hear that you're saying you can't afford it. Can you share more about that? Because you book this call for a reason and if money is quite literally the only thing stopping you, let's have a conversation about that and not from a place of pressure.

And they will feel the pressure, [00:20:00] right? They will feel the pressure if, um. You're making the assumptions if you're just trying to answer them with a solution every time, and you've probably been on the receiving end of that. When you show up maybe on a call with your coaches or your mentors or a sales call where you're just riffing and you're just sharing, and the person's instantly jumping in trying to fix the problem, and you're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

Just hear me out for a moment. Right. That can be, um, really felt on a sales call when someone's just trying to answer. They're, you can tell when they're not listening, and I've had to hire for a sales call position in my business. And why this is important is because when I first went to hire my sales call girl.

I was like, I don't know how to replicate what I do. And I had somebody audit what I do, an outside perspective to give me perspective. And she said, you were so leaned [00:21:00] back in those calls and if you actually have been on a sales call with me and or, um, you've seen any of my sales calls or whatever. You will know how lean back I am.

I'm not afraid of awkward silence. I'm not afraid. I don't fill the, the void of conversation. I don't try to jump in. I really let people sit with their thoughts. So there's often really long pauses when someone says, I can't afford it. I just sit there and I wait for them to like share more with me. So I am, I talk the least amount on a call.

And that is something that I think one allows people to unravel more, but two, shows them in a way that I'm not here to just sell them on something. And in fact, I don't want to, you know, I'm not here to convince, and I'm not here to try to prove that this is for them. I really am here to try to support them, which is why I start the call really [00:22:00] getting to the roots and the depth of what it is they truly want beyond the clients, beyond the.

Successful business beyond all of it. I get to the root of it and I sit there and I go, but why? Right. And usually it's like there's so much more that comes out. You know, I wanna show my kids that this is possible. I want to be able to travel with my family. I wanna leave a legacy for my kids. I want to, there's usually more to their mission and their why of why they're doing it and why it's important to them.

And then when we get to a point where we transition into the sales invitation and they say they can't afford it, then I start to unpack that around their why. And then I try to gauge where the story actually lies. Do they actually not have the money? B, is it their risk threshold that's being asked to stretch beyond what they have capacity [00:23:00] for?

And if so, then. Then they need to go create that capacity because of the downfall that will happen in the client re client and customer relationship and experience if they don't, and C, is it just a fear that they are having a hard time seeing themselves in the work? Right? Saying, I don't have money is a very easy way to say no.

And I do think that, again, some people just don't have it. Some don't have the risk capacity for it, and others don't see themselves in the journey. They don't feel like it's gonna work for them. And that is a beautiful realization on a call, and that is okay, but when we're approaching it from the perspective of I just have to sell them on this, they might have come to the realization on the call with you.

That the pathway, the journey, the method, the approach actually isn't a fit for them. And I've been on the receiving end of those calls as well, where I get on a call with someone and [00:24:00] I'm like, I'm, I'm half sold on what you do. However. When I got on the call, I realized it wasn't for me. And I'm talking about this sales call I had a year ago, like I was half sold on it.

I was like, yeah, this seems like a really great, uh, ex one-to-one experience where this person's gonna help me expand creatively, which is what my mission and my goal was. And it was more of that creative expression that I was wanting to step into. But then when I got on the call with her, it was very much around the money and making money and how much money do you wanna make?

And I was like, I don't know if this is for me. Then when I heard the price, my nervous system was like, this is a stretch and I'm not certain that you can deliver what it is I actually need you to deliver. I'm not sure you can hold me in the capacity that I'm bringing to the table and what I actually truly desire.

And that's for me, was a mismatch that I sensed on the back end of that. Because of how she was talking and who knows, maybe I would've got into that experience and it would've been a amazing, [00:25:00] but it probably wouldn't have been because of the threshold of my risk. So if I was to sum this up to me, there's no black or white either or this is how you handle sales objections specifically around money.

To me, it's more a holistic approach. It's an internal and an external. It's. Equally, how much are you showing up on that call and how are you navigating that call and how are you navigating that conversation? Are you leaving lots of space for that person to sit with that response of I don't have the money?

Because naturally what people expect, I think in sales conversations, which is why people hesitate even getting on sales calls 'cause they're fearful of what's gonna happen. I'm gonna be pressured into buying something I don't want is that they're not used to the pauses. If they're not used to somebody not coming back right away with an instant solution, right?

Oh, you don't have the money. Okay, well let's get to the root of that and da da. Like [00:26:00] they're used to that. And when we can be the glitch in the matrix in a lot of ways and do things that are counterintuitive to how a sales call is navigated, like just not speaking when someone says that, just looking them in the eyes and holding that space and being very leaned back in your approach, but, but being the leader on the call, like you leading that conversation that is.

Instant trust building, but also it's such a different experience on that call, which if trust is even an issue, right? If they're not necessarily trusting themselves that they can get the results that you say that they can get, or they're fearful about it, then. They're naturally gonna say no, and they're gonna come up with a reason for that.

So to me, it's your channel. Where are your biases when it comes to taking sales calls and when it comes to handling objections, and what are those biases and what is your natural tendency when somebody says no [00:27:00] on a sales call, what is your natural tendency? Because I think this is a big one. Again, I've audited many clients sales calls, and oftentimes there's this awkward.

Um, when someone says, I don't have the money, they have their own money story running in the background that they're like, I don't wanna handle it. I don't wanna pressure them, da da da dah. And then they completely shut down. Right? So it's understanding your own biases, but also understanding your own response or reaction to that type of objection, whatever it might be, and then also ensuring that at the beginning of that call.

You've spent the vast majority of it really getting to the root of why they want this and why this is important to them and also. What, what they believe is the way they're going to achieve what it is that they desire. And when they say those things on the call and then they turn around and say they [00:28:00] don't have the money, or they don't have the time or whatever, then you can say, well, I hear you on that, and I understand that and I get that.

I just want to get a little bit more curious if you're open to it, to understand a little bit more, just for my own sake, so I know. But at the beginning of the call you said, do, do, do Duke, and you said this is why that, you know, you're, what's standing between you and, and that getting what you want. But now I'm hearing you don't have the money.

I'm just curious like what are you willing to spend to get that right? Even that question is like a really great one. And I was working with a client two years ago and it was eye-opening because she was in the personal development space, anxiety space. People were looking at her like a therapist. So they were thinking, oh, this will be uncovered by insurance and it'll be a one-off session for $50, $90, whatever it is.

And when she went to sell her program, which is a couple thousand dollars, they were like. I was only expecting to pay a hundred, [00:29:00] or I was only expecting to pay a couple hundred bucks for a session or whatever. Right. That then shows and reflects the industry, the market, the type of buyers and what's sort of going on, and then potentially needing to spend more time prior to that sales call, educating what it is they're actually getting.

So. That is a huge piece of realization through your calls when you can get down to the root of where people are at and even ask the most pointed questions of like, what did you expect to pay, right? Or What were you expecting to pay? Or, what is an affordable price for you? Because that'll be really revealing and then digging.

Deeper to that. Right? Um, and then getting that sense of their own threshold without having to go down the icky tactics of like, how much money are you spending on coffee this week and how much money are you spending on takeout or whatever it, all those tactics that I'm sure you've probably been on the receiving end of it are like, I'm happy to sit on this call with you and fill out your [00:30:00] MasterCard application.

Like, I mean, I'm hoping that those tactics. Have sort of started to fall away. I haven't seen those tactics being used like they used to when I got into the online space and when I first got into sales calls. But there still are tactics like, well, I'm not gonna tell you the price and tell you say yes.

Things being put out there. Which again, are all. Often really shocking to me because usually when I get on a sales call with somebody, they know my experience, they know my background, they know what I do, and then to try to pull, I say the wool over my eyes in a lot of ways is just kind of interesting.

I'm also a very difficult person to sell to just because I understand the psychology of sales and I understand manipulation, and I understand all of it. So I can see on the receiving end and also the delivering end. Um, what's sort of going on behind the scenes? Um, so long story short is handling objections is more of a [00:31:00] holistic.

Approach, clearing your channel, understanding your biases, and really working to come into those sales calls in a very neutral place so that the biases don't sort of creep through. The assumptions don't creep through, but also that attachment to the outcome doesn't, and also. You're not looking at through the lens of mistrust, like, oh, they must not be telling the truth, or there must be something below the surface here.

There very well could be, and spending the due diligence on the front end of that call. Spending a hell of a lot more time talking to that person, understanding them, really trying to see the patterns, really trying to understand who they are, why they do what they do, why they, what's important to them, what their motivating factors are like, why are you motivated by this?

Why is this important now? Really getting to the crux of it so that when the objections do come up, you can circle back to exactly what they've said, and I never put words in their mouth. I quite [00:32:00] literally just paraphrase, but in order to paraphrase, you really have to listen to what they're saying. So to paraphrase, and often we'll paraphrase throughout the call, so what I'm hearing is blank.

Is that true? So what I'm hearing about why this is important to you, is that correct or is there more. Right. That is how I navigate those calls so that, um, I'm never assuming, and I'm always sort of getting their buy-in throughout the call of like, yes, that's true. Yes, that's true. That yes, that's true. So when it comes time to have the sales conversation, if what they're saying they want doesn't align with the objection in a lot of ways, then I can say, Hey, here's what I heard throughout the call.

Here's what I'm hearing now, and I'm not here to pressure you and I'm not here to just sell to you, but I wanna support you in making a decision that's fully aligned with you. Are you open to unpacking this with me a little bit more just for pure understanding? [00:33:00] Sure. Yes. Cool. Okay. And then it's like I hear you say you don't have the money, like.

Is like, can we get to a place of understanding around that? Right? You don't have the money. Is it that you don't have the money to pay for the full thing now? Is it that you, um, feeling scared or fearful to invest that much of the what if I don't make it back? Right? Like whatever it is. We wanna get to sort of the root of it, and usually it is they don't have the money.

B, they, the risk is too high for them to take out of fear. Um, and C, they don't see the value in what it is that you're offering for them and not because. You. Your thing is invaluable. It's just that they're not seeing themselves in how you can take them on the journey that they want to be on in order to achieve what they want, which then comes back to the articulation of what that looks like and being able to [00:34:00] really hone in on the value, which is why oftentimes on a sales call, I talk very little.

Because I don't ever tell them all the things they're gonna get in my program and all the da da bells and whistles. I listen to what they're saying they want. I listen to why this is important to them, and then I pick from my programs, my offering, my coaching, this is exactly what it's gonna help you do.

And I literally repeat what they said they wanted and why they said they wanted it and why the challenge. They feel like they have right now in achieving that is X, Y, and Z. Like I let them tell me what they sort of believe, and then if I can truly help them through what I do, then that's all I tell them.

I'm not sitting there trying to oversell my program to them like, oh, and spell bound. You're gonna get. A a curriculum with 70 bazillion videos and all of these frameworks. And all of these templates, and you're gonna get all of these calls and you're gonna get this Facebook community and you can ask [00:35:00] questions when you want and copy clinic and all the things.

'cause then they're sitting there going, oh my gosh, I'm overwhelmed and I don't think that I can do this. When in reality all they said was, I just wanna get really clear on my messaging. I'm like, so what's standing between you and getting clear on your messaging? Well, all of the other sort of frameworks out there don't really fit in integrity to me.

Perfect. Well, that's exactly what I help you do in Spellbound. I help you get really clear on what your messaging is, but I do it in integrity. This isn't about surface level solutions. This isn't about, um, grandiose promises. This is about bespoke aligned messaging that truly reflects you. And then I stop.

And then I let them talk. Okay, cool. But what about this? Yep. I do that and then I stop and I don't talk. Our natural tendency is to wanna oversell what we do, and that will overwhelm people specifically if they doubt their capacity, which many [00:36:00] people at a core level don't think they're good enough. That is a core wound, and that is what I mean about understanding someone's motivation, understanding who they truly are, but also getting to the core wound, right?

That not enoughness is a big one across the board, specifically for female visionaries and founders, high achievers, hypercritical, never good enough. So then if you start throwing all of this fancy terminology and language at them. Even though you know they have the capacity to hold it and even know, you know, they're gonna thrive and you see their brilliance, they do not.

And so they get overwhelmed by it. And I've experienced this most recently in one of my, uh, offerings. It's a plethora of amazing ai. Specialists that I've created and I have programmed, and I've spent 25 years cultivating my own curriculum and my, and and literally [00:37:00] programming it. And I'm like, these things are amazing.

And I've had women tell me they're overwhelming. They're brilliantly successful, powerful women that are looking at me going, it's overwhelming. And when I get to the crux of that, the reason it's overwhelming oftentimes, and what I've seen come through, not with all, but with some of them, is the fact that they don't feel like they're ready for it.

And that is what I've heard recently. I feel like you are a powerhouse and I'm not ready for it. That has nothing to do with me, that has nothing to do with the value that I provide. It's everything to do with the core wound of not enoughness. And I'm looking at them going, oh my gosh, you're a doctor, you've got a PhD in, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

You've got all these credentials, all these awards, all these things, and you don't think you're ready for me. I think you're a powerhouse. But I see their brilliance. And that's the, that's the difficult part is I see the brilliance, but I have to know when to [00:38:00] hold them, right. Hold back, and I have to know when to show what's possible.

And I have to understand what's gonna. Tip somebody over the teetering of like, this is too much for me, or I can't handle it, or I'm not good enough. Or what if I don't succeed? You'll see these patterns sort of come through. Or I want to be the straight A student. I've had clients tell me they feel like they're letting me down in a lot of ways.

I'm like. What, right? Like these, and it again, has nothing to do with me. It's everything to do with our internal wiring of not enoughness and being hypercritical with who we are. And that's what a lot of high achievers have built their success on, is that grit, that grind, that hustle. And so it's really understanding your people coming into your world and.

This is such a big topic in a lot of ways that for me to try to distill it down to like, here, focus on this and focus on this, and focus on this, almost feels like a disservice because there's so much to the sales [00:39:00] process that is to me. Something that we need to sort of consider because it isn't an all or nothing.

It isn't an either or, there isn't a black and white. And what I know about doing sales calls and sales calls, training and being on the receiving end of sales calls, training is many of it is very surface level, and many of it teaches you how to be the leader of the pers, like literally leading the conversation to the sale and not taking no for an answer.

And that to me is a very distorted way of doing it. And so I do things very differently in that I talk a lot less. Then I, the, and the other person is talking a lot more, but I'm listening wholeheartedly to what they're saying, and I'm also seeing through the patterns of what they're saying. And so if somebody was hesitant about price and we got to a place where they wanted to go and think about it, I wouldn't necessarily leave the call of like, cool, get back to me when you want to.

This is [00:40:00] where the leadership comes in and it's not about. Ruffling feathers or putting people off or anything like this, and this is a huge lesson for me in my own business, is that your time is equally valuable and you deserve an answer, a yes or a no, or a not right now. Right? And deserve might not be the right word, but there's a boundary thing here that I want many of my heart-centered business owners to get.

There's a boundary here when we leave things just unfinished. Open-ended. Yes, there'll be people that ghost you. I'm not talking about this, but I'm saying if you've spent an hour, 45 minutes, half an hour, whatever, and you've allotted time in your calendar, it's a free call you've gotten on that call.

You've had that conversation with this person there. To me, there's a level of respect. And that is a mutual respect, and that is, if you're on that call with me, I'm, I wanna walk away with an answer. And if [00:41:00] I can't have an answer on that call because you need to think about it, which is totally kosher, then I want an answer within.

Seven days or whatever. And so you can either do a second follow up call like, okay, cool, you need an answer. When can you make that answer? And if there's skirt tailing around it, then that means they're probably not interested and they just don't know how to say no. And then I would call them on it. I would say if you're, if you're a no, just say no.

Like I'm gonna give you the permission to say no. 'cause some people. Don't want to hurt someone's feelings, yada, yada, yada. Right? And so I'm not BSing or bullshitting around it. And that's where my leadership comes in. It's like for my own boundaries, for my own on onboarding, for my own time management, my schedule.

I'm not just letting people in whenever the, whenever they feel like it. And I'm just an open door salon here where it's like, come when you want. And I'm just sitting here twiddling my thumbs available for you. Nada. Right? So I wanna work with people who are committed and that's something I will express.

I wanna work with somebody who's mutually [00:42:00] committed to this partnership 'cause that's exactly what it is. And therefore I do require an answer, a yes no, not right now. And whatever you decide is perfectly okay. And then I will say, so I would love to have a call in two days or seven days from now where we can follow back up with your answer.

And if they're like, well, seven days isn't enough, I need like 40 or two months or whatever, then it, then I call 'em on it and I'll say. That's cool, but I need to have an answer before that so that I can open my books to other people and I'm really looking for someone who I'm, who's committed to work with me right now.

And if you're not committed to work with me right now, then it's a not right now, and that's totally kosher. We'll follow up or whatever in a couple months from now, and that's cool. But I'm looking for people who are wanting to say yes or no sort of within a timeframe. And these are some things that you can do on the front end of the sales call [00:43:00] experience, like have an application you can have.

The price point straight up front so that if there is a price objection when they get on the call, um, it's kind of like, well, you knew what the price was, right? So for example, one of the questions I have is, are you prepared to invest a minimum of blank if we decide this is an aligned fit? If they say no, then we're not getting on the call with them.

And that again is honoring boundaries and honoring your energy and honoring your time. And what happens when we start to do these things? We start to see the caliber of people coming on calls changing, meaning we're getting more. Committed people, but also people who respect and value your time as much as they respect and value their own time.

And also you're getting people on the call that understand like, I've gotta give this person an answer and I can't just call them up in a week from now and ask them to sign me on because they might not have the capacity, right? Like they get it. There's an awareness there, and that will start [00:44:00] to change.

So hopefully this episode is being beneficial on how to navigate. Pricing objections. You can apply this to any objection to be honest with you, right? But pricing objection was the question, how do I do this with integrity? And this is how I navigate it. It's not a cookie cutter approach. You've gotta do the work and understanding who those people are and also really, um, look at yourself as that mirror, that energetic mirror that.

When you get on that call with someone, they're likely reflecting back to you parts of who you are and to try to really understand where they're coming from. From that perspective of not having the money, the risk threshold being too high for their nervous system and or they're fearful and or don't see themselves in the process.

They don't understand how they fit and you've likely, there's likely been a trigger on the call that made them go. Think, I don't know if I can do this, or I don't know if I'm ready. And when someone says they're not ready, [00:45:00] what they're really saying, and what I have found is that you are asking them to step up to a certain level and they're scared to do it.

And for a ver variety of reasons. Like I said, I've had clients who tell me, I feel like I'm letting you down. I wanna make you really proud, right? So you can start to see the themes and the patterns that are coming through, and it's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Like this isn't about making me proud. This isn't about letting me down.

This is about you. This is about your success. This is about your business, right? But when we are wired as high achievers for that external validation, we're looking to be the straight A student. We're looking to meet those standards. We're looking to have people go, yes, you're the best at what you do, yada, yada, yada, because our inner worth.

Is struggling and I, I know this because I am that high achiever that has had to work through a lot of that, which is why my sales call process has changed drastically from the beginning. And so is my sales calls, conversations, and how I look at sales in general because to me it's [00:46:00] not. Like a linear path, just like everything there is a, a complexity to human beings and a complexity to who we are, and usually what's sitting on the surface is really just the surface, and there's so much more below that for many people.

We don't, especially on sales calls, we don't spend the time to actually get to those depths. And if you're a depth worker, then you're a genius at this and you will know this and it's sitting with yourself and going, where am I maybe not stepping into my own leadership with this? And that usually is around, I don't wanna call somebody out.

I don't want to piss them off. I don't wanna da, da, da, da. But at the end of the day. You are taking the leadership role in that call, even if that is a more lean back approach and you are really stating your own boundaries of what you're available for and not available for when it comes to Yes, no, maybe so.

And just sending somebody, you know, like we used to send a care package with podcasts and all the things, [00:47:00] and I realized that like. That that is not the thing that's gonna move somebody over the line. And it, and it didn't, after two and a half years of, of doing that, it didn't. And so I'm sharing those things with you because to me it's a yes no and it's.

A decision that's being made in the short term. That's why they took the call. This isn't, I'm gonna get on a call with you so I can decide in a year from now if I wanna work with you. No, like, come back in a year, then you know I'll be here. But this is like, do you wanna work with me in the next 30 to 60 days?

And if not, then the call isn't reserved for you. And those are hard. Things to start of like start to flex. I remember the first time I took a sales call for this company. Um, they were an eight figure brand, phenomenal. And their boundaries were tight. Like if someone booked the call, we followed up with them to confirm that the call was booked.

And if they did not respond, we canceled the call. And it was, it was written in that email. If you do not respond within 24 hours, we were canceling this call. It was like, and I remember my nervous system being [00:48:00] like, whew, that's harsh, but then I'm like, no. Because they're paying sales calls people, they're getting a volume of calls.

That was crazy. And they didn't have the capacity for no-shows. Like sure, there were still people that were gonna no-show, but it was like. No, we're just gonna cancel it because I don't want anybody wasting their time and I value my sales call people to not waste their time. And that has been my biggest lesson in a lot of ways around sales calls is like, where are my boundaries weak, and where am I leaking my energy?

Out of the, um, you know, in order to try to appease and accommodate and be friendly and nice and kind, where am I doing that? And that's where I've tightened up a lot of things and I've started to see the shift in the types of calls that we're getting. So with that. There's so much more I could unpack and I'm always willing to do more episodes.

If you have any more questions around sales calls, objections, those sorts of things, always happy to answer them for you. [00:49:00] And with that, I cannot wait to see you next week. Cheers. 

INTRO: Thanks for listening. We'll see you right back here next time. You can also find us on social media at creatively owned and online@creativelyowned.com.

Until next time, keep showing up as your authentic self.