#46 - The ULTIMATE Guide to Handle EVERY Sales Objection Possible
30m 27s
The speaker, Connor, addresses common pitfalls in objection handling for cold calls, drawing from his experience as a top SDR manager at Oracle. He argues that much traditional training—featuring complex probing and pain-stacking techniques—is impractical and undermines rep confidence. Instead, he prioritizes preventing objections altogether by using confident, downward-inflected openers and value statements that front-load relevance, minimizing tier two rejections like "not interested." For tier one objections, such as "we already use a solution," Connor introduces a simple two-phase framework. The first phase, ARA (Acknowledge, Reaffirm, Advance), involves acknowledging the prospect’s concern, reaffirming the value of a brief meeting regardless, and immediately proposing a time. This avoids trying to sell the solution and instead positions the rep as a future resource, often yielding meetings from 10-20% of objections. If the prospect resists, the second phase allows for deeper engagement. Connor stresses that maintaining control, using repeatable tactics, and focusing on the primary goal—setting meetings—are more effective than elaborate methods. By reducing variance in openers and delivering value confidently, reps can significantly lower objection rates and improve booking success.
Connor, back at it. Back at it. It's going to be a continuation of our call call video where you have laid out your entire framework. That's a great video for reference. Specifically for this, we are going to dive really deep into objection handling. The overall frameworks, I think, oftentimes a lot of people we speak with are so worried about, how do I handle? I don't have budget or I'm not ready to meet yet. And obviously, we're going to get into specific examples. But I know you've taught thousands of reps at Oracle. You're the former number one Oracle SDR manager. You obviously use this on a day-to-day basis yourself. And we're going to dive really deep into the frameworks and then how that translates to every possible objection you might get on the phone. Connor, hopefully I've hyped you up enough. Maybe set the stage for us and we'll dive in. Yeah, not looking forward to this one. I'm all about simple, repeatable, easy to implement. Usually less is more. And I just remember being a new SDR being so overwhelmed by a lot of the common objection handling training where it's like probe, extract, problem stack, and stuff that sounded good on paper. And then when I would try and actually implement it on live calls, would just fall flat on my face. I didn't feel like I had a repeatable framework. It caused me to be less confident on cold calls and gave me cold call anxiety and didn't want to make as many cold calls. And it wasn't until I found this repeatable framework that I've seen work for myself starting out, but then hundreds and into the thousands now of reps I've taught it to across a variety of different companies and verticals industries. So pretty confident these techniques are going to be applicable to you and hopefully you get some good value out of those. I'll talk today. Yeah. Yeah, let's dive right in. I think I would love to set the stage and I think something that really helps highlight what you're doing and the effectiveness is actually starting at what you were talking about with common training. Maybe give us a real example of things and common training that sounds good on paper. But then when you're actually talking to a prospect, it doesn't really hit as you would expect. Yeah, I just-- I see all these different methods being taught where it's like a five step or a seven step process that it sounds good on paper. And I almost joke and compare it to economists sometimes who they have all these forecasts of how the economy is supposed to work if imports are this much then consumption should increase. And then in real life, it just doesn't play out that way. That's how I view a lot of this objection handling training is, oh yeah, if they give you an objection, you got to ask two or three probing questions and begin extracting pain and then stack a few different pain points. And they're just going to realize how much pain they have and all of a sudden they're going to be open to meeting with you. But then in real life, when you actually go to implement it and you're like, curious, where are you using more? And I'm like, what are you using for that? Or how's that been going for you? And they're like, we're good. And you're just like, where do we go from here? That's not how it worked in training. So a lot of the training I see, it removes control from the rep. I'm all about maintaining control on cold calls. We've generally interrupted these people's day. It's our job to deliver value. I also like to keep the objection handling focused on the task at hand when cold calling, which is setting a meeting. That's what I view as the objective is your cold calling. An ICP that you've decided, if I'm able to set a meeting with this person, this is going to be a good meeting. So I make the objection handling around setting the meeting, giving yourself a shot on net or a percent chance of actually booking the meeting, not just asking some open-ended probing question, extracting, taking them down some pain funnel. Again, that sounds good on paper. But it's not repeatable. I just remember being the rep in that shoes where I'd get the objection. And we're not in training anymore where the trainer, whoever I'm roleplaying with, is playing nice. And I know they're just going to go along with it. Tensions high, blood's flowing. And you're just almost so concerned with what to say next. You can't actually execute on it. So I'm all about breaking things down, keeping things simple. I'd rather, even if you might leave something on the table by not having this perfect framework laid out, like, what's that worth if you can actually execute on it? And it makes cool calling too difficult. So-- Yeah, 100%. I think there's several symptoms I see. I think you laid that out extremely well. And I think oftentimes, in this transition to our next point as well, it's like, sometimes, I remember when I was an SDR calling into accounts, they're like, oh, we're using this product, and we only pay $10,000 a year for it. So quite frankly, maybe you could do something better. But the cost of that, even if it's $5,000, the time it's going to take to switch is not even worth it. And it's like, that kind of makes sense. And it's like, you don't want to waste time for say, there's tons of symptoms. I'm sure we're going to get into. But that sets the stage for, I think, you often take a nuanced approach. It's not handling or overcoming the objection or necessarily, like, lodging your way. Well, like, oh, well, you're using this. But if you could do this, all those types of things-- What does that do for your business? Yeah. Dude, I don't care. I have a meeting in two minutes. What are you talking about here? I think these are all great points in symptoms. And that's kind of the next question of, where do you or how do you train overcoming or handling objections? Or how do you even consider that in the first place? Yes. So the first place I start is how do we avoid objections in the first place? I don't see this talked about anywhere in any objection handling training. Generally, it's receiving certain objections. Like, I'm not interested or take me off your list. And then what to say to that once you receive it. And I'm like, well, not all objections are created equal. I have two buckets of objections. I just call them tier one and tier two. A tier two objection is something like, yeah, take me off your list. Or I'm not interested. Where they're not really objections, they're rejections. They're rejecting the very premise of your call, where a tier one might sound like, oh, yeah, we already use a solution for this. Thanks for reaching out. But I don't see why it makes sense to me. In that scenario, they're actually engaging with what you said. They're just giving you a legitimate reason to why it doesn't make sense to me. What I find is that tier two objections are very avoidable. And a lot of reps put themselves in positions where they're unnecessarily facing these. A lot of times, it happens first at the beginning of the call at the opener. This is why I like to reduce variance at the opener. I give an asumped of formality. Like, here is Conor Murray calling for Max Weisee Company. How are you? Good, how are you? Good, yeah, I'm just reaching out because-- and then you go right into it. Rather than, hey, Eric, this is Conor Murray calling for Max Weisee Company. Did I catch you at a bad time? Like, look, you can get away with that. But a lot of times, you're just opening the door, like, 90% of cases. I see it all the time where it's like, yeah, I'm going into a meeting. Who is this? And they just start giving you a defensive tone and you give time for the thoughts to start swirling in your head. So that's why I personally don't use permission based openers. I see people use them effectively. And what I say, use what's comfortable for you. So people who use permission based openers, for example, a lot of times, the people who are good at them don't realize it. But they're actually using it as an asumped of formality. Where they're really good at just getting, like, yeah, sure. Back is a response. Like, hey, do you have 30 seconds for me to tell you why I'm calling, yeah, sure. And then they go right into it. So I try and avoid, did I catch you at a bad time? Another one is, hey, am I speaking with Eric Finch, the blank title at blank company? Yeah. And what I tell people is you don't need to don't confirm that. There's more downside to that than upside. I get what you're trying to do. You don't want to waste time if it's not the right person. But you're going to learn that anyway. Like, if it's not the name or if it's not the title, they're going to stop you very quickly into the call. And instead, you oftentimes get these defensive tones, like, yeah. And I just tell people, picture yourself if you received a call. Like, hi, am I speaking with Conor Murray? I'd be like, all right, you're not a friend. You're probably not a colleague. And then I'm like, did I forget to pay some bill? Yeah. And you get nervous. And now you're unnecessarily setting off the call on like a tough note. Now you're dealing with that defensive tone, which is an objection in itself. So that's one area you can avoid objections is just by getting right into your value statement quickly. And then the value statement itself is designed to proactively prevent objections, because you're telling them who you are, why you're calling, and what you want. You're front loading the value. You're making the intent of your call very clear. And you're avoiding a lot of questions. Like, where did you say you were calling from again? So what do you guys do exactly? Look, you're always going to get objections like that. But you can minimize it by giving us some deformality and getting right into it. The last piece to this of proactively avoiding objections is your tonality, your pacing, your confidence. If you sound confident, like you've been here and done this before, you're less likely to get those tier two objection rejections. Like, yeah, I'm not interested. Take me off your list. Because if you're getting objections like that, excessively, it's usually a sign that you actually need to work on your tonality and your confidence or the value statement itself, and whether it lands and how relevant it was to them. So these are some of the areas where it's like, yeah, I can tell you what to say if I'm not interested, you want to know what I do in that situation? I would make them give me a more legitimate tier one objection. I'd say, God is that because there's no budget in place or there are just other initiatives taking priority right now. And I try and elicit something I can actually work with, rather than I'm not just I'm not interested. But what I tell people is that's a Hail Mary. Like, yeah, you can be prepared for take me off your list. I'm not interested. But in reality, you're just putting a bandaid on a massive wound. Like what you really need to do is stitch up the root problem. And a lot of times it's you're opening the floor to objections or you're just not delivering your value statement confidently. And that's why I always talk about that downward inflection as opposed to an upward inflection. That's where a lot of reps get it themselves into trouble is everything they're saying is good. But they use passive language like, yeah, and I was hoping to set up some time next week if you're interested. And it's subconscious, but you just make it easy, the path of least resistance for the prospect to be like, ah, just send me an email. I'll circle back if it looks good or if it's relevant. So that's where I start before I even get into, here's what to say with certain objections. It's how can we minimize the amount of objections that we're receiving? Really well said. I think across the career path, whether it's cold calls, whether it's discovery calls, you can avoid so many light weight outright rejections and/or objections just by actually structuring your call and being on point.
And I think also to be clear, it's like we know that part of this, especially if you're brand new, you need to make calls and you need to fail. And you need to really see what it's like in the trenches game time situation. But I do agree, like there's so many people who are not even able to get past the just the opener. And it's actually, if you had delivered it confidently, there's so many different theories, there's so many different approaches. But even I think one major takeaway from listening to all your content and obviously seeing what you've built with cold-call mastery and things that nature is there's so much power in downward inflection and/or just delivering something like without wavering whatsoever. Yeah, matter of factly. 100%. And I mean that goes for all facets of life interacting with people. I'm not going to blow this like meta-wide. Yeah. But yeah, really well said. And I think I don't see that at all. People are like, you know, they make a TikTok. It's like how to overcome the objection. I need to talk to my wife. You know, and maybe that's not specific for like tech or software. But it's just like, dude, you haven't even consistently gotten there. Like, let's not even worry about that right now. And that's a great segue to now, okay, we are getting the opener. We are starting a lot of genuine conversations more so than we were maybe a month ago because we're implementing what you're talking about. What are some of, correct me if this is the wrong question to ask. But maybe lay out some examples of those higher quality objections and now how you actually train people to overcome them. Yeah, no, that is, I think that is the right segue. So where it starts to, I'll run through a value statement. The one that should be similar to the the coal-call video that this is kind of a follow-up too. So if you deliver a value statement to like a finance persona and it's like, hey, I had this Connemary Conf, XYZ Company, how good, how are you? Good, yeah, I'm just reaching out because I'm part of the financial applications team here that supports XYZ Company. And I'm specifically reaching out because we work on priorities related to strategic planning, budget forecasting and scenario modeling. Usually by reducing the reliance on spreadsheets and automating a lot of those monthly financial reports. And I know I kind of called you out of the blue here. So I was actually more looking to set some time either later this week or next week just to get introduced and align you with our team going forward. How's your calendar look on Wednesday or Thursday? So very basic example. But now what you've done here, if you physically get that out on the call, this is why I like to front-load the value. Now there's only three possible outcomes to that. Best case scenario, there are a lot of times when you get good at it, this happens and they're busy and they're like what you said sounded interested. So it's either a yes and they're like, "Uh, yeah, next Tuesday's a little, actually let's set it for Wednesday, cool." And you can book the meeting with them, but you don't really need to be prepared for that outcome. Just book the meeting and you can qualify a little further if they seem open to it. So that's one outcome. Just want to clarify there for anyone listening. So you book the call, you send the invite and then once they're still, they've accepted the meeting and they're on the call, you're then going to do a little bit more discovery and tell them about it or you're just booking the meeting and hanging up. No, you're not just booking the meeting and hanging up. Like if they're really busy and they're signaling that, then yeah, I'd rather just book the meeting than not book the meeting, but otherwise you can book the meeting first and then do a little qualifying to make sure you get the most out of the call. But the point with the judgment handling is that's one scenario. Book the meeting, pretty self-explanatory. There's small details you got to be on top of, but that's one. Two, they could hang up on you. I call it a hard-nub. They hang up on you. They say, "You're a scammer. Click." Something where you don't even, they don't even really give you the capacity to engage with them, in which case, nothing you can do, make your next dial. And usually, again, a signal sometimes that you got to work on your tonality and your confidence. So either a yes, a no, or you receive an objection or a clarifying question or some hesitation. So that's really the outcome you now need to be prepared for. And you want to start by being prepared for the most common objections. So one is like, "Hey, we already, thanks for reaching out, but we already use XYZ solution for this. So I don't see why it makes sense to meet." My objection handling framework is two phases. The first phase is very different than what I see taught in sales enablement out there, which is essentially doubling down and selling the time, acknowledging their concern and telling them it makes sense to meet anyway. If you want an acronym, start and make acronyms for this stuff. I say, "Ara," which is acknowledge, reaffirm, in advance. So you're not trying to sell your solution or go into how's that going for you. Do you have any other initiatives that we can support? Do you have a renewal coming up? Because you're not your best chance of booking the meeting here, which is our objective, is to not convince them that that's going to happen by moving them off their existing solution that they've been using for who knows how many years and on to yours. That's not what's most likely to get them to take the meeting. What you want to do is acknowledge their concern and tell them it makes sense to meet anyway. So I would say, "Got it, yeah, that's actually why I was reaching out. We work with customers of XYZ solution all the time. So there's ever fit we can move ahead, but I still think it at least makes sense for us to align and introduce you to my team, even if it's just 15 minutes, because we'll be the main ones supporting you in this area or any other priorities you have in these areas going forward." So later this week work Thursday or Friday. So it's key to that. Again, I'm not trying to sell them on moving off their solution. I'm more positioning myself as a valuable resource for them going forward. And what's key is the last part, go for the meeting again. Don't just like throw it over to them. Give yourself another shot on net and don't wait for their response, because usually they're going to pause and come up with some excuse again. So I want to give myself a shot on net there. Now this isn't going to work the majority of the time, but when you get good at it and you really use that downward inflection, you can start to book 10, 20% of the objections you get using this framework out of the gate, rather than just skipping ahead to what is phase two and I'll go into in a second. To doing some more qualifying questions, you're missing a valuable opportunity to double down and sell the time. Because a lot of people, they actually find value in your value statement when you deliver it. And they're like, "Oh, this is all relevant to me. This is pretty interesting." They're just naturally inclined to not give out their time so easily. So they want to come up with an excuse. I'm probably not the right person for this. So we already use a different tool. And just by doubling down confidently with conviction, almost meeting them at the end of the sentence, you can pick off a lot of meetings this way and avoid a lot of roundabout calls. Like, I see reps lose calls all the time where they would have booked the meeting if they just double down and did it confidently there. Because then, if they say no to that, you always have the opportunity and we'll talk about this in a second. You always have the opportunity to then open up the conversation a bit, but that's the first line of defense. It's that aura. Acknowledge, reaffirm, and advance. And you can create flashcards for this stuff and you should for all of your top objections. Like, we don't have budget right now. Got it. Yeah, this wouldn't be a conversation around spend. This would more be to get aligned with your priorities going forward. So that when budget does open up, we're ready to jump in and support right away. So, does next Thursday or Friday work for you? Yeah. This is amazing stuff. And I didn't use this when I was in SDR as well. And what it brings to mind though is when I was an account executive at a different company, one of our SDRs had an amazing like 17-minute conversation with a prospect. And then at the very end, they were like, oh, hey, I totally forgot about this meeting. Got to go send me an email. And like, the best call call I've ever heard in my entire life. And they didn't even ask for the meeting. So I think this is really interesting. And I want to probe into this further because I think I agree. Hearing this out loud in my own experience asking for that upfront, if they object to that and you've already asked twice, I would imagine, correct me if I'm wrong, this is kind of the workflow now where they object to the meeting a second time, but then you open a conversation more about, like, qualified discovery. What are you doing today? I'm putting words in your mouth, but is that the structure? And then how do we take it from there? Exactly. It's like a straight line and an ideal world. So it's like, opener to value statement. You get it's either a yes, a no or an objection from there. You double down and sell the time. Now if they still object to that, and this is my key distinction with a lot of sales training out there, is now you have earned the right to open up the conversation. So now is when you can start asking some more qualifying questions and going into detail, the difference in how I see reps commonly taught and why they invite these objections on necessarily and deal with defensive tones from prospects is they do that too early on in the call. They lead off, they might get past the opener. And then they're like, Eric, like, so I talk to a lot of CFOs in the space and what they tell me is they're spending too many time on spreadsheets or they're looking to automate some of those monthly financial reports. Curious? Are any of these priorities top of mind for you? And you haven't told them who you are while you're calling what you want yet. You just interrupted a busy working professional who's probably got a meeting in the next two minutes or something they're deep buried in their head on and they maybe thought someone they know or the colleague was calling. And you haven't earned the right to open up the conversation yet. With this framework, you've now delivered the value statement, you doubled down and sold the time. And usually when you do that, if they're still objecting, like if they, if I delivered that object or if that response like, "God, yeah, we work with XYZ customers all the time, yada yada yada." And they still say no, it's usually going to sound, they're going to give more context. Like, well, I mean, we just implemented this solution two months ago and our contracts not up for three years. So I really don't see why it makes sense for us to meet. And now they're signaling. You're probably 90 seconds plus into the call at this point that they have time to speak. You've done your part. The burden of proof was on you to deliver value first before asking them a bunch of open-ended questions. Now you have earned the right and now is a better time to do so. So that's kind of how I look at it. And then this is where it starts to open up and change depending on where you work. But again, for the most common objections, you want to have, if we want to go into the phase two now, the acronym I use is A, which is ask, clarify, expand.
So what we're going to do with this question is not just ask a question. Like, where do you using that tool for or how long have you been on the tool and stopping there? You want to follow it up with a line like the reason I ask is or I only ask because I think it's one of the most magical lines in sales. So for the competitor example, it's like, yeah, we just implemented. Don't see why it makes sense to meet. So I'll give you an example during my time at Oracle. Like workday was a common competitor to us. It's like, oh, we just implemented workday. I don't see why it makes sense to meet. I would say, got it. That makes sense. And when you say you're using workday, is that adaptive for planning? And the reason I ask is we work with a lot of workday customers. And usually, yes, they're using it for planning. But then they're using black line for account wrecks and financial clothes. They're using workiva for financial reporting, power, BI, for analytics. I don't know what your tech stack looks like. But there's usually an opportunity to consolidate tooling and deliver a pretty meaningful ROI in the process, which is the reason I ask. It's a little long-winded. But what you're really trying to do here is, yes, there's the question. But you're trying to build more credibility in their eyes that it could be worth spending 15 to 30 minutes with you. If you ask a good question like that, and they're like, oh, you know what? We do use five different tools and it sucks. And it's too manual. You're saying you can consolidate that. Or they'll usually come back and say, like, when you say ROI, like, what do you mean? And how quickly can you turn that around? Something that intrigues them, because again, we're selling time on these meetings. We're selling the meeting. Is really what we're selling, not our solution. So we're just trying to give off enough, like, oh, they aren't just spraying and praying with this pitch. They actually do know what they're talking about. Maybe I can learn something from them. So you can come up with examples like that for all sorts of objections. We don't have the budget right now where there's other initiatives taking priority. Like, got it. Yeah, curious. What do those initiatives look like? Is it more around finance transformation, compliance? I'm just trying to understand how an ERP might fit into this in the future and like, go on about like something specific like that rather than just saying, got it. So like, what are you implementing right now? Or like, what do you implement it for? And just pausing. Because now they know you're just asking questions for the sake of trying to ask a question no matter what. But when you do a little teaching on the end, and that's why that line, Tony, guys try it. The reason I ask is, or I only ask because that's ask, clarify and then expand and then open the floor back to them. And then one last thing I'll say here is when you do, just remember the goal here is to set a meeting. So you can, that's where you can start to engage a little back and forth. But based on what they say, you can just say, yeah, that, and that's why I wanted to set up a call. I'm sure you're probably busy right now. I definitely want to introduce you to my team too. And we can go in more detail on this and just position yourself as a valuable resource to them going forward without trapping yourself and going to, to into the weeds. Because generally a call call is not the time to do that. Like, you call call these people, was training someone the other day who's showing me a recording and he's got the right person. It's like a VP of FPNA. And the guys like in the middle, he's like, honey, can you get me a, like, can you get me a medium? Yeah. And they say, what do you say? And it's like, you're, that's why it's like, your, your default shouldn't be to qualify. Like the guys literally in like a, like align somewhere ordering lunch. It's like, you're probably not, your qualifying is probably not your best route here. You're just trying to intrigue them enough, build enough credibility with what you've said, your tone, your confidence, your conviction. If it gets to that phase two, like line of defense with the ace, like asking them good, targeted questions, you're trying to do what you can to build credibility in their eyes and for them to ultimately do the calculus in their head and say, you know what? Probably is worth me jumping on a 30 minute call with these people. Sounds like I could learn something. Yeah. Tons of great nuggets there. I guess maybe a couple questions going towards the close as well. I know you've talked about the ace framework and how to overcome objections. You obviously made that very sound, sound very natural with your experience at Oracle. Let's say I'm listening to this podcast or this video and thinking, hey, I sell, you know, cloud infrastructure or something complex. I know we can't boil the ocean here. And it's not as simple as, hey, know your product, know your competitors. But how do you prepare someone at a different company that's not selling what you sell to be prepared for any possible objection? It's the same framework. So the value statement framework in that layer of defense won the ARA acknowledged, double down, reaffirm anyone can that's repeatable regardless of where you work. Then that layer to the ace framework, it's the same framework, but you just need to be prepared for what the most common objections are. First, that's what I tell people is don't feel like you need to be prepared for every single objection under the sun. Generally, it's like the top five to 10 objections you receive account for 80 plus percent of the objections you get. And it's like, just make flashcards. What I tell people I joke, it's like, think about school and like all the time we wasted in biology and history, memorizing this random nonsense for hours to like take tests and stuff that we none of us remember. And it's like, now we're here, we're in the big leagues, where this is our full time career, this is how we make money. It's like, just take the time to make five to 10 flashcards and just remember, okay, if they start telling me they use your top competitor number one, here is the ace question I'm going to ask. And you realistically should have two or three prepared because a lot of times that's where you start to have some back and forth. But yeah, that's what I tell people is the keyword is framework. It's not just the exact words that I say, you got to use what's comfortable for you. But just remember, layer one defense is double down and sell the time you're not getting into your solution yet. Layer two is where you hopefully have a few questions prepared down. Look, you can even have it on a one note or spreadsheet if you're making coal calls in front of your computer as a guide at the start. But once you do it enough, you just put it to memory. And so yeah, like I've worked on this and create, like that's what we do in coal call mastery and FYI, the same framework also works in email too. I know this is more of a coal call one, but you just take the time to pre plan this stuff in advance. And that's what helps you feel confident on coal calls. Yeah, 100%. I think putting that work in up front, there's a line. I think it's worth getting the experience. Like if you've never made a coal call, I think there's going to be some value in taking the minimal takeaways here and immediately just hitting the phones and trying that. But as you start to get some reps, like really putting that concretely down and taking a lot of work up front, it becomes second nature, three, six months into your coal calling tenure. I guess maybe kind of in a final closing, if there's any recaps or takeaways, I'd love to hear more from the implementation side. If I'm a rep listening to this, this sounds great. And it is, it is. Don't get me wrong. But similar, you know, what if I'm a skeptic and I'm thinking, Hey, I've heard a lot of objection training. That sounds good. But I actually go to implement it and I don't. And that's my question for anyone listening. How do they take this away? Whether it's not cards, whether there's anything else you haven't discussed already. I actually get into a place where they can implement this and try this successfully. The note cards are big. And then that's why I said, talked about in the beginning, less is generally more. The best reps will take this, start with the base framework because it really is easy to implement. Like it's not a complex framework where it's like probe, extract, problem stack, excuse me, things like that. So I say less is more start with the base framework and the best reps will start to adapt it over time. But the base framework works and really what you need to focus on is your tonality and your conviction. It's not always logically what makes sense because you're getting, again, you're getting these people out of the blue. They're, it's a whirlwind. You're, you're talking a lot. Their head was just in something else. They're not always logically like a lot of people read these objections out loud and they're like, well, that doesn't make enough sense. I haven't stacked enough value. But everyone knows and it's like one of those common sayings that tone is 90% of your success on cold calls. If that's the case, don't agonize yourself over every little word and whether logically in your head, what you're saying is like the perfect response. What's more important is that you get a good, you put in the work to come up with these base frameworks. Good enough responses to your top objections. And then you just need to rehearse them over and over again because when you start implementing it, you're going to probably still be a little nervous when you receive them. And that's the kiss of death. And that's okay when you start. But if the prospect, if it takes you one or two seconds to respond, now they know like, oh, they're just trying to come up with whatever they can say to keep the conversation going. Where if you more meet them at the end of their sentence because you're so prepared, like the second you finish that, we already use a different solution. Got it. Yeah, that's why I was reaching out. But if you're like, we already use a different solution. Okay. So yeah, that's why I was reaching out like you're done. And you can say the same thing with confidence after that. But just because you had that little pause, so that's what I tell people is like, you're not going to win them all, especially in the beginning. You're going to have some objections where you know in the back of your head, I need to set aside some time to prepare for that one because when I get it, I'm just not feeling confident. And that's okay. You're almost again, straight line value statement. That's your first shot on net. First objection, double down, sell the time. That's your second shot on net. And then try and be prepared for the most common ones with more value-based questions that signal your credibility and then open the door for you to go for the meeting again. So I say start small with your most common objections and work your way to those more niche objections over time. Yeah. Incredible. As always, Connor, and for everyone listening, regardless of which channel this is on, we're going to have both of our YouTube channels linked in the description. There's also a video we've referred to where Connor broke down the actual cold calling framework, whereas this was more focused on objections. So we're going to have that as well. Super deep dive, Connor, appreciate it as always. And lastly, for anyone that wants direct coaching from Conor as well at higher levels.
We do have a coal-called mastery program that Connor created himself and runs our weekly life calls as well So you can actually talk to the man the myth of legend himself and no Connor as always man This is amazing. I know everyone listening got a ton out of it Appreciate it if you have anything to sign off feel free, but otherwise man another great one. Thanks for thanks for having me back on good luck Implementing this everyone and see you on the next one
Podcast Summary
Key Points:
The speaker emphasizes avoiding objections proactively through confident tonality, structured openers, and clear value statements, rather than only reacting to objections.
Objections are categorized into two tiers
The recommended framework for tier one objections is the "ARA" approach
The speaker criticizes complex, multi-step objection handling techniques that sound good in training but fail in live calls, advocating for simplicity and maintaining control to set meetings efficiently.
A key strategy is to "sell the time" rather than the solution, positioning oneself as a valuable resource for future needs, which can convert 10-20% of objections into meetings.
Summary:
The speaker, Connor, addresses common pitfalls in objection handling for cold calls, drawing from his experience as a top SDR manager at Oracle. He argues that much traditional training—featuring complex probing and pain-stacking techniques—is impractical and undermines rep confidence. " For tier one objections, such as "we already use a solution," Connor introduces a simple two-phase framework.
The first phase, ARA (Acknowledge, Reaffirm, Advance), involves acknowledging the prospect’s concern, reaffirming the value of a brief meeting regardless, and immediately proposing a time. This avoids trying to sell the solution and instead positions the rep as a future resource, often yielding meetings from 10-20% of objections. If the prospect resists, the second phase allows for deeper engagement.
Connor stresses that maintaining control, using repeatable tactics, and focusing on the primary goal—setting meetings—are more effective than elaborate methods. By reducing variance in openers and delivering value confidently, reps can significantly lower objection rates and improve booking success.
FAQs
The discussion focuses on objection handling during cold calls, with an emphasis on a simple, repeatable framework rather than complex multi-step processes.
Tier two objections are rejections like 'take me off your list' that reject the call's premise, while tier one objections like 'we already use a solution' engage with the value statement and offer a legitimate reason not to meet.
The 'Ara' framework stands for Acknowledge, Reaffirm, and In Advance. It involves acknowledging the prospect’s concern, reaffirming the value, and suggesting a meeting anyway without trying to sell the solution.
Reps can avoid objections by using an assumed formality opener, delivering a confident value statement with downward inflection, and minimizing defensive tones to prevent tier two rejections.
Use an assumed formality opener like 'Here is Connor Murray calling for XYZ Company. How are you?' and quickly transition into the value statement to reduce variance and avoid defensive responses.
The three outcomes are a yes (booking the meeting), a hard no (hang-up or rejection), or an objection or clarifying question, which requires prepared handling.
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