#TDSU Episode 201:

⏱️ Timestamps:

00:00:00 - Intro

00:01:12 - Objection rebuttals: not just for sales

00:02:08 - Feel, felt, found: the persuasion playbook

00:03:51 - From customers to spouses: does it work?

00:06:20 - Chess match: uncovering the real objection

00:09:34 - When to back off: finding the magic word

00:11:45 - Multiple choice breakups: a new strategy?

00:12:50 - Wrapping up: was this actually useful?

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🤝 Connect with the hosts:

Dillon's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dillonryoung

JP's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeanpierrefrost/

Rob's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rob-zambito/

[Dillon] (0:00 - 0:46)

I do what I believe is the upper echelon of fighting where as soon as I disagree, I shut down completely and don't talk to her for 24 hours. That's so funny. Nobody gets hurt.

What's up lifers and welcome to The Daily Standup with Lifetime Value, where we're giving you fresh new customer success ideas every single day. I got my man Rob with us. Rob, you want to say hi?

Rob Zambito, University of Pennsylvania. And we, oh wow, he had to. Gross, gross.

And we have JP with us. JP, do you want to say hi?

[JP] (0:47 - 0:49)

JP, law and order SVU.

[Dillon] (0:52 - 1:01)

And I am your host. My name is Dillon Young. It's just the three of us, boys.

Rob, it had been a while since we were reminded of your pedigree, so thank you. It's not pedigree.

[Rob] (1:01 - 1:04)

Nobody knows what pen is. Oh my god, you were in a dog show, Rob?

[Dillon] (1:04 - 1:11)

Yeah. Oh goodness. Hey Rob, you came to the table with a topic today, didn't you?

[Rob] (1:12 - 1:22)

I did. It's fresh on my mind. I spent several hours this week in trainings on objection rebuttal documentation.

Objection rebuttal handling. Have you guys ever done that before?

[JP] (1:23 - 1:24)

Rebutted objections?

[Rob] (1:24 - 1:30)

Have you practiced it with your team and have you built documentation around it with your team?

[JP] (1:31 - 1:35)

A little bit in the past, like a sprinkle. Go ahead, tell us what it's all about.

[Dillon] (1:35 - 1:56)

I did a tour of duty in sales. I know what we're doing here. Go ahead.

But see, that's a good point in sales, right? I don't think the idea of rebutting objections changes much between the two. It's certainly the flavor of it, sure, and the depth of your relationship, but I don't think it changes much.

Prove me wrong. Go ahead, dude. Yeah, yeah.

[JP] (1:56 - 1:57)

Well, so- It's not rebuttals.

[Dillon] (2:02 - 2:07)

I'm going to start saying that when people agree with me too fast. Can't believe it's not rebuttals.

[Rob] (2:08 - 3:34)

So I want to share a little bit about what this is and why it's important, and also share a real example. Because I just had a client ask me, do you want to help me write an email to a customer who's canceling? And I said to myself, this seems like a good opportunity to do some objection rebuttal handling.

So the thing is, look, we're all surrounded with objections all the time. And those objections come up not just in sales, but I often ask CS teams, do you have an objection rebuttal doc? And they said, yeah, I think our sales team uses that.

And I'm like, yeah, but don't objections also come up in onboarding? Don't they also come up in renewals? Don't they also come up in upsells or whatever?

And a lot of us are just painfully underprepared. We either don't have the collateral, don't have the documentation, or don't have it memorized, don't have it rehearsed. And next thing you know, we're in a meeting, and we're maybe winging it, or we're just dusting off some document that in our Google Drives that we haven't looked at in seven, eight months, trying to cobble our way through a difficult situation.

So one thing about me that you should know is that I like frameworks. And the one that I want to talk through here is... So we've talked about, if I recall correctly, we've talked about the Feel, Felt, Found framework, and I've got some examples we can try it on.

So for those listeners who haven't tuned in, Feel, Felt, Found is a simple three-step method to handle an objection.

[Dillon] (3:35 - 3:36)

It's a method of... Rob, let me just tell you.

[Rob] (3:36 - 3:37)

Yeah.

[Dillon] (3:37 - 3:51)

If this is the first time a listener has listened to this podcast, they're already gone, brother. And they blacklisted us, all right? So this is for the diehard.

You can imagine they know every framework you've got.

[Rob] (3:51 - 4:25)

This is for people having arguments with their spouses. There we go. Broaden the audience.

So Feel, Felt, Found method is basically when you hear someone say something that you object to, you disagree with, and every bone in your body wants to tell them they're wrong. It's a strategy to express that you actually feel where they're coming from, and you've felt this way before. You've dealt with people who have felt this way before.

That's the felt part. And then you transition into what you've found. So it allows you to be more of a strategic advisor to your clients.

So I have an example I can share that I did.

[Dillon] (4:25 - 4:37)

I thought we were still holding on to the marriage analogy, and I'm like, I don't know if this works in an argument with... Especially you, Rob. You have a doctor of psychology, right?

Yeah. For a wife.

[Rob] (4:37 - 4:38)

She's fantastic.

[Dillon] (4:38 - 4:40)

I feel like she sees right through this every time.

[Rob] (4:40 - 4:51)

Well, the problem is she's just always right, and she's just kind of... So you never have a chance to use this. I don't need to, because she's a master of persuading me.

[JP] (4:51 - 4:52)

You marry Mary.

[Dillon] (4:57 - 5:12)

We do. So I do what I believe is the upper echelon of fighting, where as soon as I disagree, I shut down completely and don't talk to her for 24 hours. That's so funny.

Nobody gets hurt.

[JP] (5:13 - 5:14)

Everybody cools off.

[Dillon] (5:17 - 5:19)

So anyway, Rob, keep going.

[JP] (5:19 - 5:20)

Yeah, go ahead, Rob.

[Rob] (5:20 - 6:37)

So I want you to tear this up because, look, when I say feel-felt-found, whenever I say framework, it often stands the chance of the risk of being too formulaic. So this came up as a real text that was exchanged between me and a prospective client who I used to work with at a different company earlier this morning. It's his wife.

No, it's not my wife. So the objection I got from this prospective client was he wants to work together, but he said, I'm just too focused on overhauling another business area right now. I have to not piss off too many other people.

So I had to think I could just let this slide and revisit it later. But this conversation has been ongoing for like three months. So if I want to elegantly handle this objection, like the formulaic way to do it is like, yeah, I totally get it.

Been there before. I've dealt with people who have felt that way before. What I found is that now is a good time to engage in these initiatives.

But what I actually said was, I get it. Limited political capital. We've both seen that movie before.

Ha ha. Maybe that actually could be ideal timing. I don't know.

I tend to see change management usually comes best as a multi-part package as opposed to separate initiatives. And I pulled a JP here and I said, it's like the prefix menu or pre-fee menu, however you're supposed to say it, instead of a la carte. And I'm waiting to see how this gets responded to.

[JP] (6:38 - 6:40)

But I thought you knew.

[Dillon] (6:40 - 6:50)

So what he did was my strategy where he shut down completely and he'll come back to you once this topic is no longer on the table. It was an hour ago.

[JP] (6:51 - 9:34)

I'm going to jump in. I'm going to say, I think that two things came to mind when you talk about the objection handling. One of them is, how much room do I have to work with?

I feel like when I'm in a lot of times in CS, we're sort of told, we get some guidelines. I'm usually not given a directive like how much I really have to work with. And so if anything, I end up maybe partnering with sales to sort of figure that out.

And then they're going to come in because that negotiating bone is stronger in them. And I think a company may be thinking like, OK, maybe this is more worth it, especially with maybe some of the higher deals. But I do think that it's important to figure out, OK, what exactly is a person objecting to?

Because I may give you an objection that's really not the true objection. It's just me sort of giving something so I can just take the easy way out. I feel like a lot of times in business, I feel like it's rare for people to really just give you a straight up truth up in front.

It's usually wrapped in really nice language and going all over the place. I saw a response one time from somebody where they said they were churning and they said all this stuff. I saw pricing last and I was like, that's it.

It's the pricing. You know, they said all this other stuff. But to me, I could look and based on the context, I was like, well, it's really the pricing.

And that person might have wanted to avoid really saying that it was pricing, because if they did, then they're like, OK, well, maybe I am going to sort of rebut that objection and sort of get into something. So I think that some of those people are they're sort of playing chess right back, and they're trying to sort of get along with their day. And I do try to empathize with customers as much as I can in the sense of I never want to think that I am the product in their tech stack.

Right. I never want to think I am not your Netflix. That could be on a T-shirt.

I am not your Netflix. Right. But how am I going to prove and show value?

And I think that there's, you know, so I'm just sort of speaking to why I maybe think the objection handling isn't as prevalent. But I do think that it comes up just in like different different contexts. I've seen it come up in different contexts in terms of like, you know, maybe somebody is wondering about a certain feature or or maybe why a certain feature is in this tier versus that tier.

And that becomes more of a persuasive value conversation where they are objecting to the value being provided. And so we're having more of that as opposed to more of a strictly churn conversation. And it's, you know, sort of pricing or different things.

[Dillon] (9:34 - 10:25)

So I'm interested to hear, Rob, at what point do you back off? Like, what is the magic word? Is there like a secret code word that a prospect has to say to you that you say, OK, yeah, I now believe in their decision or like, how do you think about that?

Because I love the idea of turn yourself into a trusted advisor by standing beside them and trying to look at and like solve their problems alongside them. But at what point do they say, hey, I appreciate you standing here, but I do really believe that I do not need this service or this product right now. What's the maybe you can't share this because you do have to do BD on a regular basis and you don't want your prospects to hear this and know what your kryptonite is.

But I just maybe how do we think about that secret code word is banana.

[JP] (10:26 - 10:29)

I know what that's a reference to. I know what that's reference.

[Rob] (10:29 - 10:30)

I don't even know what that's.

[JP] (10:30 - 10:31)

Mine is pineapple.

[Rob] (10:32 - 10:54)

Oh, boy. Anyway, I don't I actually don't have an answer to this. And I'm not trying to keep my cards close to the vest or anything.

But I think reading the room is one of the like the last human skills that we're going to have in this age of AI and whatever else. Like reading the room.

[JP] (10:54 - 11:01)

On email, though. Sorry, Rob, but on email. Sure.

It's a little more difficult to read the room on email.

[Rob] (11:01 - 11:02)

Right. It is definitely more difficult.

[JP] (11:03 - 11:04)

But you know, you got to get on a call with someone.

[Rob] (11:05 - 11:05)

Yeah.

[JP] (11:05 - 11:09)

Which is why I think some of that magic, some of that magic happens when you get on a call with someone.

[Dillon] (11:10 - 11:14)

That's one of the things I learned. Well, you answered your own question by saying like, yeah, no, it's got to be in person.

[Rob] (11:15 - 11:44)

Well, by look, it's even more difficult via email. But I like to give people an out. I like to tell people like, I like to preface by saying like, look, I don't want to be a pain.

Like, I'm not in the like, that's not a good use of your time or mine, which implicitly implies both our time is valuable. And then saying like, look, if this isn't a good fit, please feel free just to like, shoot me straight. I love direct feedback.

That usually gives really good permission for people to, you know, enter feedback mode. And it doesn't always work, but nothing does.

[JP] (11:45 - 11:45)

Pineapple.

[Dillon] (11:46 - 12:20)

I think your answer is a good explanation of the way in which you should treat these conversations, which is less of like a zero sum game and more of the building of a relationship. And how do you continue to move the ball forward without burning bridges or alienating people? And maybe your timeline doubles or triples in length if they're not amenable to what you're offering today.

But the last thing you want to do is tell them to F off. And if you don't want this, then you're an idiot. You want to always try to preserve the future of that relationship.

[Rob] (12:20 - 12:39)

I think you just gave me an idea. I might try this. I might send a multiple choice to a customer to make it as easy as possible.

It's like, look, you're probably in one of these states. Either A, pricing's off. B, timing is wrong.

C, you don't like me or something like that. Even throw in a joke. Who knows?

[JP] (12:39 - 12:39)

Who cares?

[Rob] (12:39 - 12:50)

And then just like have them like, there's a little humor in that. It makes it easier for them to process and just be direct with you. Or even like say, I think you're probably in A.

Like, is that right? Yes or no? Something like that.

[Dillon] (12:50 - 13:20)

I don't know. You can build that back into the framework, right? Like what I've felt this before.

And it's been one of these three things. Like, what is it for you? Maybe we can find a way through it or something like that.

Yeah. Boys, that is our time. Great, great top.

Well, I don't know if it was great. Jury's out. We'll see.

When I edit this, I'll let you know. I'll write it in the show notes what I actually thought about it. No, love you both.

Thank you so much. Come back soon. Bye-bye.

[VO] (13:26 - 13:57)

You've been listening to The Daily Standup by Lifetime Value. Please note that the views expressed in these conversations are attributed only to those individuals on this recording and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of their respective employers. For all inquiries, please reach out via email to Dillon at lifetimevaluemedia.com.

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