Use the Ledge Technique for Overcoming Objections (Ask Jeb)

Join us for the fanatical prospecting boot camp that will help your team 5X their pipeline in 90 days or less. We'll be hosting in March 10th and 11th in Atlanta, Georgia. Go to salesgravy.com/live. That's salesgravy.com/live and use the code podcast to save $100. This is the sales gravy podcast. Hi, I'm Jeff Blunt. Guess I'll link off their fanatical prospecting objection sales EQ and Aint and I'm here to help you open more doors, close bigger deals and rock your commission check. Welcome back to the sales gravy podcast I'm Jeb Blunt Jr. and this is Ask Jeb where you ask your toughest sales questions and Jeb Blunt he gives his best answers. Those answers they come straight from the trenches because Jeb's not just teaching sales. He's out there prospecting, closing and leading sales teams every single day. So let's take that next caller. All right next up on the show is Rick Van Ness from one of my favorite places, Alper Kirky, New Mexico. That's where my wife is from. Tell me what's going on in your world Rick. Hi Jeff. Thanks for having me. I co-founded a company that works in healthcare claim filing. We primarily focus on the older claim. So where providers want to have difficulty getting payment, we try and help them but our goal is to augment their operations, not replace. And there's a polarizing view of replacement in the healthcare industry with the term outsourcing. And so the majority of people that have outsourced are either trying to get out of it or had a bad experience and don't want anything to do with it. But when I do a cold call, when I try to introduce myself, I'm immediately stereotyped within five seconds into that. So I'm kind of curious on your thoughts on how do I do better job at trying to convey what we do by communicating augmentation, not replacement. So I'm reading some notes that I got about your business. Like you're calling up and they immediately think that you're an outsource billing company. And what you're really doing if I get this right is there's claims that sit out for too long. So you build the claim but you're not getting paid for it. You've got a system in a process that helps a practice go in and collect that money that's sitting out there that they otherwise might not get to because their billing function just builds, but it doesn't actually know how to go out and pull that money in from the insurance company that I get there right. Yeah. Okay. So you call up, you're doing a cold call and they're immediately, hey, we already got billing, we don't need that. Okay. So start me off with for the cold call. Who are you calling specifically? You really like a billing director or manager. Okay. So start off with the first of all, you're calling a billing director. The billing director and tenants are already up because outsourcing billing means that they lose their job. Immediately you got that going on. So they're already listening for what they want to hear is, no, we don't do that. We're good. So that human being is interested in not having you there. Is there a reason why you have to talk to that person versus someone else that's more interested in what you do? That's a good question. I mean, the CISR maker would be the fee of foe, but getting a hold of that person or getting an availability with an executive is a little bit trickier. I tend to gravitate more towards the manager director because at least I do get my 15 seconds. So I mean, that's a good question. I should try to unravel if someone else like, feel like if I go to the lower, you know, not the demeanor diminish, but like to go to the lower to your actual claim adjuster, they're not a Diffus maker and, you know, they're not going to help me much in terms of going up the chain. What they can do though is they can give you information. So if you go lower in the organization, let's say to a claim's adjuster, that person doesn't care what you're selling or how you're selling it. But if you went to them and said, hey, I've got a couple of questions for you. Can I grab a few minutes? They might, they'll probably say, yeah. And you said, how much money do you have sitting out there that is over 45 days old with the insurance companies that you're struggling to collect? And if they said, you know, let's just say that it was a significant number. We got, you know, $5 million in claims that are sitting out there 45 days. I mean, all you got to do is just do the present value of money on that and you can go like, this is what you're losing because that's profit that you don't have in the practice or in the organization. That gives you a story to bring to the CFO. The insight that you're giving the CFO is an industry insight is insight in their organization. So you go to them, you're probably going to end up leaving a voicemail. You're going to connect with them on LinkedIn or you're going to, you know, send them a direct message, send them an email, but at least you're able to connect with them on something that they may or may not know is happening in their business because they may not be aware of the fact that they've got $5 million and receivables that are sitting there over 45 days that are collectible. So they're going to care about that, right? Because the CFO cares about the profit and loss statement. The director of billing only cares about their job and their, their, their whole world is protect my job from being just intermediate and also if we think about in the age of AI, a lot of white collar workers right now are like really on edge because they're like waiting for the shooter drop and, you know, the CFO comes on and goes, Hey, we got a robot that's going to take your job in billing. You know, they're all waiting for that. So that would be one way to shift that. What I would recommend is don't stop calling the director or the manager. So I mean, if you can get a meeting with them, get a meeting with them, but unless ultimately they can make the decision, which they might be able to, they might not be able to if they can. That's great. Try a bottom up top down approach, right? So call the, you know, call the claims adjusters and just have conversations with them. That's just basic early discovery. Find the stories that are inside that organization. We call them narrators, find people who will narrate for you. What's happening in the organization? And then you can use that information, both with director of billing and with the CFO, but I would take all those routes because you're not going to step on anybody's toes either way. If you can get to the top and they push you down great. Now you've got the CFO said we should talk. If you can get to the bottom and you can get information, you can go to the director of billing and say, listen, I hear what you're saying. What I found out is you guys have five million dollars and receivables that are sitting out there. I'm like another excited hands that can help you get that. It's a way of changing the conversation. Now when you get the director billing, let's say on the phone, like you picked up the phone, you called them, they answered the phone or you sent an email to them. Either way, are you sending a LinkedIn direct message to them? What is your message? What's your pitch? What's the cause of the reason that you tell them they should meet with you? The reason I tell them is we can help you. We are an assisting firm when we can do it at low risk. So, or zero risk usually, but we'll pitch of the idea of you don't have to pay us until you collect. Or an extra set of hands without the FPE or the increase in operational cost unless we collect for you. The pitch is usually we have automation that you kind of mentioned, robots or manual expertise that it's a way to elevate, to enhance what you do. I love that. That's how I overcome an objection. Hey, we already got a billing department. I go, that's perfect because almost everybody I work with already has a billing department. What we operate as is a source that complements what you're already doing to help you get money that's much harder for you to pull back in because it conflicts with today's billing. So, that's a way of handling an objection. And again, I want to be clear for the audience who is listening and to you. We're just talking about this. Messaging isn't perfect and there's no right or wrong, no black or white. But what I would do is just step into anybody's shoes like the billing clerk's shoes or the CFO shoes. As soon as you say no risk to you, it doesn't cost you any money until we collect. The risk side of people, that antenna comes up. They're like, well, does that sound too good to be true? Or that sounds really cheesy. Is that really a selling point for me? And are you creating objections by using that language versus focusing on what the problem is? Because that would be something that I would want to have a conversation with when I'm negotiating with them, assigning an agreement, not really as a walk through the door pitch. Because the pitch is, I can help you increase your profit. I can help you increase your top line. I can help you reduce losses by focusing on the part of the billing practice that often gets ignored because it's really hard. And on average, we're able to through the systems that we have in place, pull in a minimum of 80% of that money and get it in 40% faster than most of the billing organizations do. And this isn't a hit on billing organizations. The billing department is focused on billing. They bill now. But they're not normally a collections department. They're not very good at that. That's what we focus on. So if I was talking to a director of billing, I might say something like this. I might say, "Hey, Rick, I talked to a director of billing and practices all over the country." And one of the themes that I hear over and over and over again is that they're so consumed with getting billing out today that some of the claims that they have with the insurance companies just sit and sit and sit. And the thing about the insurance companies, they're happy to make it sit. They want to make it hard for you. And so we partner with directors of billing to help them go get that money and we make it a lot easier. easier without interrupting what they're currently doing. And I'd like to schedule a few minutes with you to learn a little bit more about what's happening in your invoices that are 45 days out that are sitting with the insurance companies to see whether or not what we do would even be a fit for you. How about Thursday at two? Does that make sense? So all I'm trying to do is get them to come to the table to get past the reflex response. We already do that. But if I can have some statistics or I can have some numbers or if I can have some way of showing them the problem, it's easier to get them to meet. Then like if I'm in a first time meeting with them and they go, well, how much is this gonna cost me? And you say, here's the good news. The way that this works is we only get paid for performance. So if we don't perform for you, there's no cost for you whatsoever. And if we do perform for you, this is our fee. Rather than having that up front which can create a little bit of, that's done's kinda weird, is that? - Yeah, that's really resonating. Okay, I think you're right. I think gravitating right to the price, you're right, create skepticism. So to continue to hold it in on the problem and get more information on the problem, I think it's a really good education for me. I appreciate it, Jeff. - Good. The final thing is when you do get pushed back, right? So you get pushed back, we already do this. The way that I would handle that is we call this LDA, but Ledge just rupt in ask, right? So you need a Ledge statement. The Ledge statement is just something to get your brain to sort of settle down in the moment. And it's just something that you say wrote. So when the person says, I'm sure like, you know, we're happy with what we already have, but usually they go, we already do billing. Like we don't do outsourcing. If they say that, you go, that's perfect. Because none of my customers do outsourcing. They all have internal billing departments. And what we act as is an extra set of hand or what we do is compliment what they're already doing by picking up the really hard things, like collecting on insurance claims that have been sitting for 45 to 90 days and getting them paid faster. And look, I don't know if we're even the right fit for you. But wouldn't it at least make sense for us to take a few minutes? Let me learn a little bit about what you've got sitting. I can walk you through our system. And then you and I can make a decision from there whether or not it makes sense for us to keep talking. If you notice what I'm doing, I'm just lowering the tension. I'm not getting enough fight with them. I'm agreeing with them. You know, we already do billing. Perfect. All of my customers do their own billing. Perfect. I don't work with outsource billing. I only work with customers that are currently doing their building. That's awesome. That's exactly what I expected you to say. Because everybody I talk to says they don't outsource. And that's why we should be talking to each other. Because what we do is this. It's just learning how to deal with that language, understanding that when you call the director billing, your number one job is protect my job. When you call the CFO, their number one concern is, is this worth my time having a conversation with you? And if you call somebody lower in the organization, the best thing that they can do for you is narrate what the problems are so that you can use that to hone your message for the two other constituencies. You make it sound really easy, my friend. (laughing) Well, you know, sometimes when you're not in the middle of the trees, right? In your standing on the other side, it's a lot easier to work on those messages. You know, I'm sure that if we were sitting there talking about one of my problems, and we would be having the same conversation, I'm like, how do I get people to pay attention to me? But I think the message for you and for everybody else is, when you're like running into problems with getting through to people, where I always start with is, let me step back and sit and stand in their shoes and look at the world through their lens and their perspective. And to think about what would resonate with me or what would cause me to pay attention versus thinking about it from my own point of view. And that's easier to do when you're not in the middle of the battle, like you are, especially when it's your business, your baby, and you're trying to make the thing go. I know exactly what that is. I've built this business, started this business 20 years ago, and I've fought those same battles, so I totally get it. - And pivot on your point, Doug Jeva, I think your point. I was, you, too narrow minded, you know, too immediately judgmental, like everyone in the organization can help play a role in me scoring that deal. So I, you know, thanks for bringing like that. - Very good. - Albuquerque, New Mexico, which I'm in Georgia, that's considered the West Coast, and you might not know this, but this would be a great opportunity, maybe for you and your partners to come to the Outbound Conference, which will be in Las Vegas at the Red Rock, which is an awesome resort, and November of 2026, you can go to outboundconference.com, outboundconference.com, grab your ticket this year, we're running a full leadership conference, and we've got two days, and this is the theme of the conference this year, Rick, it's breaking through buyer resistance. And some of the top speakers and sales trainers will be there, plus, the beautiful thing about Outbound is that we've got plenty of time for networking. So it's a great opportunity, like to network and mastermind with, you know, top sales people from all over the world. If you want to go grab your ticket, I would suggest it for everybody who's listening, go to outboundconference.com, love to see you there, shake hands, there'll be more opportunities to ask me questions like this. - Yeah, I appreciate it, resistance is my biggest thing right now, so attending that would be pretty faceable for me. - Awesome, very good. Rick, thank you so much for joining us on the SalesGrabby Podcast. If you've got a question for the show and you wanna be on the SalesGrabby Podcast, go to salesgravy.com/ask. That's salesgravy.com/ask. And one of our producers will reach out to you to schedule your time with Jeff. - One of the most common malpractices sales people make when they are prospecting, especially when they're in a space that's heavily commoditized, is that they argue with prospects. Look, what Rick is asking is what most salespeople have gone through at some point in their life. They call a prospect and then they get the answer that we already have the service that you're selling. The easiest way to turn around the subjection is to agree with them instead of arguing. The best thing to do with directors in this case is agree first. Everyone we help already has internal billing and then pivot to the gap that you fill, age claims that conflict with today's workload and lead with a problem and save the pricing mechanics for later. Remember this when you're going through your prospecting calls and remember when you're tired and you're ready to go home at the end of the day, always make one more call. We'll catch you next time on the salesgravy podcast. (upbeat music)