Phil Whitebloom on Objection Handling, Better Questions, and Margin

Transcript

0:03 We have another episode of Tailwind. Today we're joined by Phil Whiteb Bloom.

0:07 Phil, tell us a little bit more about yourself. Hi. Well, Austin, it's great to be here. Thank you very much for the invitation.

0:14 So, uh, I've been in sales my whole career going back to 1980, which is a

0:21 long time now. So, we're closing in on 50 years and not too many more years down the road. And in all that time, uh,

0:30 people think of me as the sales guy. Uh, but I've actually been in sales leadership much longer.

0:36 So, I was, uh, I've seen so many technology changes. I call them disruptive technologies going from I was

0:44 always in in the high-tech world and going from typewriters into word processors into all kinds of workstations and then through

0:54 analog into the digital and high definition and in but the real cool thing that I've done is that I worked

1:03 with very interesting applications over the years and especially because especially when I was

1:11 with Sony for 23 years. I was part of their government business for 22 of those 23 years and I ran that business

1:18 for almost 20 years for them. So all the different government agencies and my primary hobby is astronomy and getting

1:25 to work with NASA and the astronauts and all the things was very very cool. But the the real deal here is though that

1:33 I've been in sales and sales leadership managing teams um in the United States and throughout North America, even some

1:41 in Latin America and work with people around the world during that entire time. So, one of the things that um people like to say, you know, to talk

1:50 about is that I've me and my teams combined uh we've sold over $1.5 billion. And I reuse that low number

1:58 because that I could if somebody ever held me to the fire on that and said, "Well, tell me where that came from." I could do that. Yeah.

2:05 But it's probably over two and a half billion. And I couldn't figure out where the last billion came from exactly. But for the for that one, I could. And so

2:12 now I retired. I failed at retirement. I started uh uh the sales coaching business to help others and to give me something to do during my retirement.

2:22 And it turned into an entire business. I have lots of clients that are very diverse in all kinds of industries and

2:30 all kinds of professions as well as uh 72 of my own podcast out with my podcast partner Brianna Henley for the Been

2:37 there sold that podcast. I've authored two books, one we're going to talk about today. Um, and the other one's called

2:44 the sales fixer and doing workshops, one-on-one coaching, uh, group coaching, all kinds of things

2:52 to help them out, you know, help anybody out with what they need and with a variety of price points. So, one group is focused on small businesses and

2:59 slowreneurs, and then I've got a larger business focus, too. Yeah.

3:04 All in the same area, though, sales coaching. So I do want to talk about objection handling but for anyone who enjoys what you have to say today and

3:12 then you know maybe is interested in what the other book is about sales fixer you mind just giving a quick synopsis on that so people can check that out if it

3:19 yes so uh I I'll show so this is the handling objections book and I have a course coming out uh by the time you

3:28 watch this because it's completed uh there's a course that goes with it you don't need to have the book to have the other one or vice versa and this

3:36 book is a how-to book. It's about how to handle objections. And there's lots of stories in there and examples. So, it was very specific for that. And I get a

3:44 lot of great feedback. It's uh available on Amazon and it's also through Barnes & Noble online and and some others.

3:53 But people read through it and then they use it as a reference. They carry it with them. And that's why it's intentionally at that size. So, you could easily drop it in a coat pocket or

4:01 some kind of bag or purse. Goes in there very easily. And I get all kinds of very cool uh emails and communications about

4:10 how it's helped them, how they use it for things that are way beyond sales, helping people with their divorces. It wasn't written for that, but it helps them with their negotiations, helps

4:18 somebody with their their kids, and it's just amazing. Even with working with the clergy on how to handle certain

4:25 situations, they like the book. So, who would have known, right? So, that's what this book is designed to do. The sales fixer.

4:33 Yeah.

4:33 Is this book right here. And this book has a different mission. So this book is designed to uh talk to CEOs, sea-level

4:43 executives and larger businesses to talk about what their issues look like that are related

4:51 to sales, what they look like when they're a problem and what they look like when they're fixed. and to let them know there's a solution and that's to

4:59 call me and call been their consulting services which is the name of my company which I didn't mention and with that then I go and I start working with them

5:08 in helping them to solve their problems in in the area of sales um I got to read both your books uh but

5:16 first I want to learn more about uh the objection handling so one of the things that I've been kind of learning on my journey as I'm trying to become a better

5:24 salesperson and I'm very much early in that journey, but I've been enjoying it.

5:28 Um, is around like mindset for me has been like a big thing to really lead with so I can get in the right head space when I'm doing that. You know,

5:36 what would be like a mindset or how should I be thinking about objection handling even before I even practice like any of the techniques or, you know, try to do it on a call.

5:47 So, objections should not be looked at as a bad thing. In fact, I've intentionally named this book, Handling Objections: Clues for Closing the Sale.

5:58 So, there's a very good chance that when somebody brings up an objection, that that objection is related to something that's very important to them.

6:07 Mhm.

6:07 And if you miss that, it comes up as an objection in a way for for various reasons. One is maybe they didn't see

6:15 that you had the solution that you did you don't really work with what we do and maybe that's because you as the

6:22 seller did not communicate that properly or you didn't do enough good work in the information gathering stage.

6:32 So they're bringing that up and that should be a clue that something's been missed. The other thing is that they may have a preferred way that something

6:40 works or the way that something's been done and you're showing something else and they come back and say, "Hey, I would rather do it this way." Mhm.

6:48 And your product or your solution does it this way. So, you don't overcome that objection or validate that objection as

6:57 being a real objection, then you're going to probably not get the sale, no matter how personable and how great the meeting was. And then they're going to say, "Hey, you're a

7:05 great guy, but we went a different way." Yeah.

7:09 So, there's all kinds of things that happen when you don't handle an objection properly or you hide from

7:14 objections because it's generally the one of the major causes why you won't get a sale because they're not handled properly or at all?

7:25 What do you mean by hide hide from the objections? Like ignore the fact that they brought it up or try to like avoid the conversation around it? like what what exactly does that look like?

7:34 Yeah. You know, sometimes uh people will blow them off in a way. Mhm.

7:38 They'll say, "Well, that's not really as important. We do it better than everybody else and they don't handle it." And so, well, all you've really

7:46 done is aggravated the person you're talking to or they've already just dismissed you and they're no longer listening. So, and these things happen all of the time.

7:55 Yeah.

7:55 So, that's what I mean by not handling it or people get argumentative and that's the one of the worst things you could There's lots of bad things you could do in this situation. That was one

8:03 that's depending on how you want to call it at the top of the list or the bottom of the list. It's not good, you know, getting into an argument about somebody

8:11 and what they're what what they want to do. So that's Did I answer your question?

8:16 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. Um, I mean it seems like really what's happening in an objection is just that's maybe part of the style their communication style

8:24 whereas like another person might frame it more as a question rather than an objection or they might be a little bit more collaborative and having the

8:32 conversation and hey as a salesp person you got to adapt to that person's conversational style or their approach to bringing up their

8:40 correct and I'm glad you said that because I was literally just thinking about what you just said waiting for the opportunity to talk to that that when

8:48 the person you're selling to or the persons you're selling to ask a question, questions could be just questions.

8:56 They're not objections. Not all questions are objections. And you can't get defensive. It's just a question. But the thing that people do is they answer

9:03 the question, but they don't know what question they're answering because the question was asked, but what does that mean? And one of the great

9:11 things, one of the examples I love to use when I'm in person and in public doing things is I'll talk about um I'll

9:18 ask people, "How many of you like my shirt?" Raise your hand. Yeah. How many of you don't like my shirt?

9:26 Raise your hand. Okay. So, there was really a question about who likes my shirt and who doesn't like my shirt. But what does that tell me? What does that

9:34 tell you? It doesn't say anything about why they like it or why they don't like it. So people will go in there and they'll say, "Oh, well, I like it for

9:42 this reason or I don't like it for that reason." But they won't say that.

9:45 They're just going to say yes or no. And then you're going to the sales person will just go on moving. Oh, they like this. But that doesn't mean they want it, right?

9:52 Yeah. Yeah. So, so you you have to ask these follow-on questions and you have to get the ask you there's a difference

10:00 between close-ended questions um and open-ended questions, which many people already know that a close-ended question

10:07 is one that could be answered with a yes or a no, or it's kind of binary. It's on or off. And the open-ended question is

10:14 the who, what, where, when, and why. And it's better to get people talking about using open-ended questions because

10:22 you'll learn more. Then there's something else that I I coach on all the time which is called high impact questions. And that's learning that's an

10:29 open-ended question with another question associated with it to really find out what's behind that and what are

10:37 the reasons behind that because then you're going to find the real reasons behind something and what is it you like

10:44 you have a a product offering yourself Austin and it's very cool it's very simple and which is a high compliment

10:51 and and people say oh that's really cool but if you don't know what you know why did you find that interesting if you don't dig down deeper and find out, oh,

11:00 you see that's really simple. It's great. Tell me more. Yeah.

11:04 They're not just going to say, well, it's just simple. They're going to say, they're going to tell you what's going on. You say, well, why is that important to you? Because everything else we've used has been so complex and everything

11:12 else has got 98 things we don't need and we can't figure it out and then there's updates and we can't keep up and we don't know what's going on. It's just too complicated and we get rid of it.

11:21 Yeah.

11:22 Oh, okay. So, why is how would you use it if it was really simple?

11:27 And now they're telling you how they're going to use it. And when they're telling you how they're going to use it, they're starting to take ownership. Yeah.

11:33 And you're going to find in those environments, you're very rarely going to have to ask for the order because they're going to ask, "What do I have to do to get it?" In fact, most of my

11:41 clients come to me without me having to I mean, through the process when they when they hire me, very rarely am I actually asking them if they would

11:50 become my client. At some point they're telling me that they want to get started either because of a trial close or just because they're now excited about it.

11:59 Yeah.

11:59 In fact, that actually happened with a member of the clergy. Believe it or not, as a sales coach, I have a clergy client because they have that they're not trying to get more people to

12:08 join their religion, but they have to go out and do fundraising and they have to go get grants and do these other things and they have competition for that

12:16 money. the people that they're going for and the businesses are going to to get these funds, they have other they have their favorite charities. They have other places where these are allocated.

12:25 So, they have to overcome objections all the time and they have to compete for limited funds. Yeah. So, am I am I

12:33 tracking this correctly? That as you run into objections, your response as a salesperson is to be inquisitive and use

12:41 questions as a way to navigate that and maybe not even try to directly speak to what you think you hear during that objection.

12:49 Well, there's a process.

12:51 Okay, tell me more about the process is in the book and I'm going to share that process with you and all your uh viewers and listeners right now.

12:57 Yeah. So the process is the f I'm going to tell you what the process is then we could step back through it again at a little bit slower pace. So the process is first you acknowledge the objection.

13:08 Mhm.

13:08 You acknowledge it so they know that you heard it. So you acknowledge it and then you start then you ask other questions

13:16 about to learn more about what's behind the objection.

13:20 And then you do validation throughout to make sure that you are understanding it correctly and they know that you're understanding it correctly. And if they're not, then it gets corrected.

13:29 Once you learn this information from them about what's behind it, then you could present or demonstrate against

13:36 that objection, you know, to to over to overcome it. And then you have to validate that you have successfully

13:44 overcome it. And if you haven't, you start back over again. Uh or you may not be able to overcome the objection. And sometimes it's much better to fail fast

13:52 than keep on going and going and going for weeks and months or whatever when there's no way you're going to get the business because they have to have something that's going to fit in this

14:00 particular spot. And no matter how great your product is, if if it can't be installed here, it's never going to help them because it has to be

14:09 installed here. So that would be something that you would learn and say, "Okay, this is good. You helped yourself and you helped them because you're not going to get the order. you're not going

14:16 to waste your time and you're certainly not going to waste any more of their time. And so then once you've done all that and you've overcome the objection,

14:25 you've got validation, then you could move on to whatever wherever you are in the process to continue on or to um

14:35 stay where you're at because you can no reason to move forward if you've got a problem. And the other thing you do during this process is you have to

14:44 determine whether the objection is real or if it's what we call a red herring. It's a distraction from something else.

14:50 And those things happen. I mean, once in a while, I always joke around. I said, you know, sometimes customers lie and

14:58 everybody's shocked. What? I've never had a customer lie to me. Yeah. And it's not that they're just lying to you, but it's just that they don't want to tell you exactly what's going on because

15:06 they're embarrassed by it or some other reason or they're just in denial. Yeah.

15:10 And um and some people just interested in things because they're interested and you're sitting there talking about talking about taking 80% of the

15:18 conversation talking about this and you know what they're interested in relative to their decision? Less than 1%. It was just a curiosity question and people

15:26 take it like it's a big thing. So, you need to be able to identify how important this is relative to solving their problem and you getting in order

15:35 and them getting their their problem solved. Do you have any guidance on how to uh to identify as well as navigate a red

15:42 herring and then like figure out how to move forward with it?

15:45 Yes. Right. So, for example, somebody could be very happy with their

15:53 current provider, their current solution, and you're talking about, I'm just going to make something crazy up

16:00 here, but they're saying, I see your product comes in in green, but we really

16:05 want purple. And um so you say and and so do you have purple? Well, you want to

16:14 answer that question directly because otherwise you're just going to frustrate them. So, you don't have to dance around it. And so, you say, "Well, the direct

16:23 answer is we do not have purple." I am curious though as to what is it you like about the green and why is the color

16:32 important to you? Could you share more with that and tell me why? So, that took that it's an open-ended question now. And then

16:40 tell me why that is. And if it's if it's not if it's not real, they're just going to stumble.

16:46 They're going to say, "Well, you know, it's really not that important. I was just, you know, it's just, you know, we it it matches the color in that room a little bit

16:54 better." Yeah.

16:55 Okay. So, all right. That's all I care about.

16:59 Yeah. So, whatever that is, but it's not it's not a real thing. And you could flush those things out right away and then you could continue

17:06 to move on because you got to find out what's going on. You say, "So, all right. So, that one we just talked about the color isn't is is is important to

17:15 you, but what is important? What is your priority? And now you're opening this up and now they're going to tell you something that is important about the functionality or the quality of the

17:23 service or whatever it is. And now you've working for it and now you're they're telling you all the time. And by the way, how much have I talked about what we do at all?

17:33 Right?

17:34 Not at all. Nothing. But we got full-on conversations because it's all about them. And then when you go to show them,

17:41 you're only showing them what you've talked about in your information gathering stage and everything else so you can meet their needs. You don't need to talk about everything else or

17:49 anything else unless you're so sure that this is going to help them solve that problem. Then you introduce something that they didn't need. But to talk about

17:56 stuff that they don't need, then you're going to say, "Yeah, here's my price." And I said, "Well, dude, you got a great thing, but you've got 12 things that we're never going to use, and I'm sure

18:05 that's why your price is a little bit higher than somebody else's. So, we're just going to go with the other one that just does exactly what we want because we don't need all this other stuff." And

18:12 that's the that's kind of outside the objection conversation, but these things happen when we talk about talking past

18:19 the point of close. um that sales people have a tendency to have to show everything that their solution does when

18:29 the prospect only cares about what they need solved. Yeah.

18:32 So, but there is steps now to these steps inside. Yeah. And um go ahead.

18:39 Just real quick on that one. So, it sounds like you don't have to do any like guessing or like preliminary work to like try to identify red herring.

18:48 It's just it's part of the listening. as you're listening in, you can start weighing it. And that's really ask the same questions, approach everything the

18:55 same way, and then use your critical thinking, your listening skills to be able to start going, okay, here are the things that actually really do matter.

19:03 It's it's always about the questions. Yeah.

19:07 Getting your questions out, then being you have to be sincere. I mean, if you're not going to be sincere, don't bother.

19:12 But you have to be sincere and you have to be curious and you have to be focused on them. So if we take something specific that's common to almost every

19:20 business uh it's price right people object to the price. So I had a client

19:28 of mine was actually reseller for products that I was selling at one point and I'm just going to make up numbers because it's easy numbers to picture

19:37 like $1,000. And somebody would say how much does that cost? He goes, and he would answer. They drove me nuts, but he would say all the time, "It's $1,000,

19:46 but I'll give it to you for $900." Now, did you ask for a discount? No. So, this guy already gave away 10% a full

19:54 $100 off of the $1,000 when they didn't even ask. First, he doesn't even know if they want the product, and he's already discounted it. So, now if they're going

20:02 to try and get a better price and negotiate, guess where they're going to start?

20:06 At $900. [clears throat] Yeah.

20:09 and not at $1,000. They're going to start at 900 because you've already thrown that out there. But it's like why would you ever give away money that

20:16 nobody's asking you to give away and you always tell people when you give a discount or something get something in

20:23 return for that. But nevertheless, that's a whole another sales topic altogether. But in handling the objections

20:31 price comes up. So when somebody says your price is too high, the first thing

20:38 that many salespeople do and business owners do is they start justifying their price. Mhm.

20:46 Again, and so now you're in this big justification. You're defensive everything else. And those all of you who are listening, you might be bobbing

20:54 your head up and down. That's right. You know that's what happens. But there's no need to do that. So, when somebody says your price is too high, first step, acknowledge the objection.

21:02 So, you don't want to come back and say, "My price is too high." Because they're going to say, "Well, I just said that.

21:06 Do you think I'm an idiot or something?" No, you don't repeat it word for word. But you can say, "I hear you.

21:12 Cost or investment price is always important to everybody. I've yet to meet anybody where that's not some kind of factor of importance."

21:21 And it's always relative to how important the job is. And but what does that necessarily mean?

21:27 So could you share with me when you say the price is too high compared to what? And then I tell everybody to shut up. When I ask the

21:36 question, when you ask the question, shut up. And I always say shut up. Not to be disrespectful to you or anybody else because if I say be quiet and

21:44 listen and God gave us two ears and one mouth and listen twice as much, nobody remembers that. But they do remember me telling them to shut up and let the

21:52 people actually ask the question, answer the question.

21:55 You know, let them and sometimes you have to think about it. If it's quiet, let them answer because they're going to tell you things. So, let them answer and let them answer fully.

22:04 And then when they do, now you've got something to say. Well, compared to what? And then I'm not a big fan of offering up alternatives because they'll

22:12 check they'll pick one of those and that may not actually be true. But in this case, they well, what do you mean? know did we sell you something similar in the

22:19 past that was less? Did um uh are you look do you have some other solutions in mind that cost something different? Is

22:27 it over your budget or is this what what what is what is the reason that you're saying it costs too much

22:35 and then you shut up because now you got something to talk to if you're just going to justify your price. If they believe it's too much, it'll always be too much when you're doing it that way.

22:45 But you could find out sometimes it's a red herring. And there are people, especially if you're working with people who purchase all the time because that's

22:52 their job. Their job is to get things at the lowest possible cost. And they will keep bugging you until you say no. Yeah.

23:00 I had a $2 million sale that I made to a government agency that I won't name here, but it was all good. It was great.

23:07 Actually, it's super cool. But when they said, "When this goes out for the next round of bids, how much more will you

23:15 give us off from the original quote proposal?" It was a great big monster thing. It took it took three years for

23:22 that job. And uh I said, "Nothing. I'm just going to change the date and send it back to you." They said, "Really?" We were down. It's down to two of us. One

23:30 and a competitor. I said, "Yeah, because I promised you the best price when we started working on this three years ago.

23:36 And that's what we gave you from the beginning. as long as it, you know, holds in the configuration and that doesn't change. And we won the business.

23:43 So, if we would have given them 10% off, let's say just for easy math, that would have been $200,000

23:50 of giving away. 10% is $200,000 on $2 million, right?

23:54 And so, it's a lot of money. And there was no reason. This was a fair price. It was within our business uh model. So, we

24:03 we're all in business to make money, to make a profit, not to break even or lose money. And um and it was competitive in every way and we won.

24:12 Yeah.

24:13 So the thing is when you understand what they're looking at because they may come and say, "Well, because we're

24:21 looking at something else and it's like 20% less than what you're showing us." Oh, that's interesting. Tell me more.

24:30 And shut up. Yeah.

24:32 And when they tell you more, you say, "Well, what do you like about that?" Wow, that's really cool because now you're learning the minimum that you have to do. And why do you like that?

24:39 Oh, there's a high impact question. And why is that important to you? That's even the higher impact question. And have you told anything yourself and

24:47 talked about it? No. You're just asking them and you're gathering more and more information. So then you're going to find out, oh, so what is it that this one does that you really like and why?

24:58 And then what else would you want it to do that maybe it doesn't do or doesn't do as well as you want? And then you shut up and then when they say, "Well,

25:06 it doesn't really do this." They say, "Well, why would you want it to do that?" And then they're start talking about now you haven't discounted a penny

25:13 of price because now you're finding out that that other product doesn't meet what they want to do, but yours does. Yeah.

25:20 So, you could be 20% higher, 25% higher because you've fulfilled the need. The other one didn't. So, why would you have given a discount? you would have still

25:28 got in the business because they would have learned that they've got you've got what they didn't what they need and where the competitor doesn't and you

25:35 didn't give away 25% [laughter] of margin. Yeah.

25:40 For something you were going to get anyways.

25:43 Uh but that's why you so that's the process that you ask in the how do you handle it and you go on you say oh so and you're learning and you do all this

25:52 and it works all the time. There's no tricks. Nothing I talk about is tricks.

25:56 None of it's deceptive. It is literally about asking questions, listening, and presenting. Yeah. Just good discovery.

26:04 Um would would you say it's almost even like a seller should look at this and say, "Hey, if I'm getting objections, it's actually a good thing like this is

26:13 like this person's giving me reasons or like giving me opportunities to find out more. Uh they're at least giving me real things that they actually are concerned

26:20 about." And you know, maybe not, you know, every objection ever, but at the same time, it's like, right, you know, I feel like people like look

26:27 at that and they're like, "Oh, objection handling like that's a bad thing. Things are going wrong." And it's like, it seems like it's the exact opposite.

26:33 You're getting the trust for having them bring up their objections and to share with you and you're you're digging.

26:39 Yeah. I would say are I would say you shouldn't look at objections as bad things to say that they're good things. You

26:47 know, it's like if somebody slaps you and physically slaps you in the face to get your attention, they'll have your attention, right? But you don't think getting slapped in the face is really

26:56 well, you never go home and say, you know, that was a good thing because I listened to this person now. No, you got slapped in the face. You're pretty unhappy. And so, um, but you can't look at it as hostile.

27:08 Mhm. [clears throat] It's information that's calling something out that you as a seller have

27:14 not answered or or even brought up yet or maybe you would never bring it up if that didn't come up. So, you need to

27:22 look at it as that and you take turn around and you say, "Oh, there's something I missed and take responsibility for it." It's during the

27:28 conversation if you keep your sales um call as a conversational mode. It's it's like, "Well, I obviously missed something. Shame on me. Tell me more.

27:39 Right?

27:41 Neutral. It just, hey, this is just a thing. You need to address it. You here's how you address it. Don't overweight it either direction. Just

27:49 kind of It's not a big deal. It's part of the conversation. Yeah.

27:54 I was in a meeting one time with an executive from my company and we were visiting a customer site showing a um

28:02 showing a prospect what their installation looks like. and the executive from my company got in an argument with the customer

28:10 right there in front of the customer back and forth and because they had a difference of opinion on something. This wasn't even and the prospect was sitting there watching this whole thing and it

28:19 was a disaster because instead of just asking for clarification on something just shot right back at it and they got

28:26 now the and it it was it was terrible and it went on and on and on to the point where the customer ran out of the

28:34 room to get documentation to show my boss, the owner of the company that that this was different and that they were

28:42 wrong. And there's an argument that there's no winner because if you turn out as the selling company to be correct, then all you've done is

28:51 embarrass the customer, that's never going to go well. And if you and the customer proves to be right, then they lose confidence

29:00 in you and also that everybody's on edge. And those are very difficult to overcome. Yeah.

29:06 I mean that that situation. So if you just relax and ask the questions and then go through the process and validate and there's different ways to do that.

29:17 Yeah. All right. Well, I want to be respectful of your time. I only ask for a half an hour. So let's uh wrap on that. But I do want to ask before I let you go. Um besides, you know, reading

29:26 your book about objection handling, uh what is one thing that somebody should walk away from this conversation and say, I want to apply this to my sales

29:35 practice this week. and it's would be the highest impact for them to do that. I would look at an objection.

29:44 You have to listen for them and before reacting just ask for more information.

29:49 Acknowledge it. Ask for more information. Qualify you've got the got it right by asking questions like, "Wow,

29:58 if this is um now that we've had this explanation, I understand better and I've showed you this. would you want to

30:05 start next Tuesday or the first of the month? And if they answer that question, you might have it ready to close at that

30:13 point. If they say, "Well, wait, I didn't say I was going to get anything." I say, "Well, I wasn't asking you to buy it. I was just curious as to

30:21 when you would want to start. So, obviously, there's more to talk about.

30:24 What have I missed?" And then shut up and just keep going. So the thing here is what the takeaway is

30:32 is make sure you understand. Don't assume anything. Even some of the most obvious things, ask questions, get validation,

30:40 and then you'll be able to move on to the next step. Yeah.

30:43 So let me ask you, Austin, what did you like best about this conversation?

30:48 I like the uh I like the process that you have. It's very simple. It's straightforward. It seems very easy to apply. You know, it's just ask, shut up,

30:55 validate. Ask, shut up, validate. and I can repeat that in my head all I need to. Um, and then it's just a matter of really listening, making sure, and then

31:05 making sure it's the validate step. So, I love that it's just so easy to apply and start practicing. There's no complex

31:12 multiple step year-long training process to figure out how to get better. Now, obviously, you'll get better and better as you, you know, practice, but seems

31:19 like, you know, this week I can start using it for myself in my own sales practice. Very good. Well, thank you. Cool. Well, appreciate you, Phil.

31:28 Thank you very much. I appreciate you. Thanks for having me. Of course. Good selling, everyone.