Objection! Overruled? No, not quite the right tack. Learn the 2 categories of objections you may encounter, the 5 points to being a phenomenal listener, the 3 best times in the process to handle an objection, and how to identify a stop sign vs. a speed bump.Discover what sets ThinkingAhead apart, hear stories from recruiters, and browse opportunities by clicking here.
Hi, this is Stephanie Moss. Welcome to today's Talent Trade. Today, I am going to talk about one of my all-time favorite topics. Today's topic is the idea of handling objections, although I don't love the word objections. In fact, I've heard other things, recruiting resistance, pushback, or whatever the case may be.
I personally haven't found a term that I'm completely in love with yet, even though I don't have the perfect term. The idea today is we are going to talk about when you get in a mode where you are approaching either candidates or prospects for potential business, How do we handle pushback?
I will say that having spent the last 24 years plus some years in college in sales, objections were always something that mentally were like, they fell into one of two categories. I am very non-confrontational. Now, if you know me, that might surprise some of y'all. I've learned through the years how to confront when needed, but much prefer setting boundaries so I never have to confront.
So in sales, I typically find people have one of two mentalities when it comes to objections. They either want to bulldoze them and shut them down, annihilate them. They just have this really aggressive approach. Or they're more like me where they kind of want to pretend like they don't exist because we get super uncomfortable when we think we're facing some resistance in a conversation.
I'm going to say about maybe 15 years ago, I got introduced to a different way, a different mentality, if you will, thought process of working with conversation resistance. And that's what I want to share today. The second part of today is going to focus on not the how we handle this, but rather when do we handle this?
We here at Thinking Ahead have been using this pretty religiously, and it's made a significant impact, not only in the quality of the work that we do and how we serve others, but I think it's also really helped us have a healthier mindset when it comes to conversation resistance. So let's dive in. First and foremost, you've got to get in the right mentality.
When it comes to handling conversation resistance, what we have to understand is this is really an opportunity for us to put others at ease, put our listening caps on and be sophisticated enough to navigate a conversation in a way that is productive.
let me take the mystery out of all of this first and foremost you have probably heard me say good recruiters are good listeners great recruiters are phenomenal listeners and this is one of the first opportunities we have to really show what incredible listeners that we can be this is often where trust and true rapport not hey how's the weather how are the kids but very sincere rapport can be built
And that is when we come up against conversational resistance, how we handle it. And the key is handling it through the science of listening. There are five points to being a phenomenal listener when it comes to handling conversation resistance. It spells out the acronym CONVERSATION. Laces. L-A-C-E-S. I'm going to break it down and then we'll give some real world examples. Laces is listen.
I cannot emphasize that enough. Listen, listen, listen. And understand what we are listening for. is not just what people say, but we understand people tend to speak in half sentences. And we are often, especially as recruiters, you know, I love us, but it's true.
We are often so anxious to talk or to communicate what's rattling around in our brain that when people get the first half of a sentence out, we immediately jump in. And where a great recruiter shines is they allow for a pause to see if the person who's speaking will jump in with the back half of their statement. Second part of LACES is acknowledge. This is also like validation.
Third part is the C and that's clarify. E is expand and S is seek agreement. This is a little bit counterintuitive to a natural way of listening. So we are going to have to practice this for it to become natural to us, intuitive to us. I strongly encourage you to write out a script that you can follow along until it becomes old hat, second nature.
So let's go back and start again at this listening. Again, the idea here, good recruiters are good listeners. Great recruiters are phenomenal listeners. We're listening for the back half of what people say. We're listening for what people don't say. And a couple of thoughts on the art, if you will, of listening is being able. patient listener.
Again, we as recruiters love to jump in and start talking and start sharing. And especially if you came from that old school mentality where you jump in and want to immediately annihilate a quote unquote objection, or as soon as you hear resistance, you want to squash it. Instead, I want to strongly encourage you to give it space, to let it fit.
I'm a big fan of hitting the mute button so that you have to bring a ton of intention and consciousness before you start speaking. Or even better, you start speaking, but you're on mute so they don't hear you. So then they start speaking again. Patient listening just needs to be practiced with discipline. And my favorite way to do that is through the mute button.
Once we listen, then we want to acknowledge. And this is where we really are validating what we think we heard and validating to the speaker that we are really trying to hear them. Easy things are when you're in the midst of conversation. Hey, John, I really appreciate a couple of things that you just shared with me.
I have some questions, but before we move on, can I just repeat back what I think I heard? And please correct me if I'm wrong or if I missed something or if I'm not quite getting it. What I think I just heard you say was dot, dot, dot. And then you repeat back. Now, you may repeat back in summary, but that's certainly fine. And you repeat it back. And one of two things is going to happen.
You're going to hear John go, yeah, yeah, that's exactly what I'm trying to say. Or he's going to say, well, I'm not sure. And then he's going to keep talking and he is going to naturally move us into the next step, which is the clarifying step. Now, if he goes, yes, thank you. That's exactly what I'm trying to say. You go, awesome. Okay, I just wanted to make sure we're tracking.
And then you guide into clarify. And a way that you do that is phrases such as, hey, now that I think I understand, let me ask you a couple clarifying questions. Or can you tell me more about this? Or you mentioned the commute could be an issue with this opportunity. Can you tell me more about that? Or if you're in a business development call,
Hey, you mentioned that you might have a need for your team in the next six months, but you weren't sure you were going to need a search firm to help fill that. Help me understand what's happening. Where's your bench strength coming from? Walk me through that. Or, you know, hey, you've been super successful hiring on your own their last couple of hires. Clarify. Help me understand.
What's your secret sauce in this incredible talent race? We are hearing folks are really struggling. What are you doing well? Help me understand. And clarifying what you're hearing, things like, help me understand, can you tell me more about that, etc. And again, keep in mind, this is when we hear objections, resistance, etc. So then we want them to put a little bit more meat on the bone for us.
Then we can come in and expand the conversation further. Expansion can look like, hey, John, so again, if I'm hearing you right, you might have some talent needs down the road.
However, your system to recruit on your own, work through internal referrals, work through your internal talent acquisition team has really provided you with the level of talent that you've needed to fill your back couple positions, right? And they go, yes. They go, question, if that wouldn't work, What would you do? Or if that wasn't working, what would that look like?
And you just try to expand and you're not necessarily providing solutions, but you're asking them to guide the conversation on what's a plan B and how would they come up with a solution to their problem? Same thing if you're in a recruiting mode. Hey, the commute would be an issue.
Right now, you've got a commute that is 30 minutes and it gives you the freedom to drop the kids off at daycare in the morning and your partner picks them up in the afternoon and it works out great. If you take this new job, you're going to have to rearrange because the commute's in an opposite direction, dot, dot, dot, dot. We don't offer to solve that challenge for them.
Instead, you say, OK, tell me more about this commute. How would you see if this really was the right fit for you right now? How would you handle that? And you get them to talk through some things. If it's about challenges of an organization. I was talking with somebody earlier today and they really like the hiring manager.
However, they know the organization is really challenged and they're talking through like, gosh, I would love to go work for this person. I think they're awesome. But the organization as a whole is really challenged for numerous reasons. So again, they haven't asked for help. My help.
I'm just guiding a conversation and they haven't told me they don't want the job, but these are reasons they may not take it. So how would you handle that? Tell me when you think about that. You love to hire your manager, but you're concerned about the organization. How do you process that? And just listen, listen, listen. Then we can start talking about seeking agreement.
And this is where if we've done our part, we are often invited, which is best case scenario, invited to share our thoughts.
and suggestions and an invitation often sounds like i don't know stephanie i mean you know my wife could take me in the morning i could leave early and just go in the other direction and fight the traffic going back i don't know i mean do you think the client would let me come in 15 minutes late every day so i could do that do you think they let me work from home and that i don't know stephanie what do you think or hey what have folks done in the past but anytime they turn it around and start asking you for your input that's the invitation if we don't get an invitation
we can ask for it. Hey, John, I can see you're really struggling with this. May I offer up a couple of suggestions that I've seen folks similar in your situation do? May I offer up a couple of thoughts? If you're in a biz dev call, hey, it really sounds like you've had great success in the past on your own. However,
If you needed to do a search and you didn't find the talent within 60 to 90 days, that would put you in a little bit of a compromise scenario. May I offer a suggestion for how we could handle that? And by the way, a simple suggestion would be, let me call you in 45 days. Let me just see where you're at. How would that sound?
Would you be willing to take my call in 45 days for me to see how you're doing? God willing, you're doing great. You just don't need me right now. No problem. No foul. We'll talk again in the future. But most of the time they go, yeah, that would be great. And now you have an agreement on where we go, what we do next. Go back to the recruiting scenario.
Hey, let me give you a couple things to think about. You offer some suggestions, and then you set a follow-up call. Hey, I know I've given you a couple things to think about. Before we move forward, let me have you noodle through that. Let's connect again tomorrow morning or tomorrow afternoon, and let's talk through really what makes sense, if anything, in terms of a next step.
This is how we work the LACES model. Again, keep in mind it is based on very active, intentional, and patient listening. This is how we start handling conversation resistance. And by the way, if you've been in the search business and made more than five phone calls, you know unless you're getting five voicemails in any given conversation, There is going to be some resistance.
One of the things, whether you're five years or five minutes in recruiting, I encourage you to do is script out what are your most common objections. If you're recruiting and your most common objection is, hey, I'm just not looking right now. What's a good response for that? How do we get folks to relax and still want to talk to us?
We here at Thinking Ahead take such a long-term approach to how we do search that Even if they're not currently looking to make a move, they're still, from my perspective, and I believe there's tremendous value in talking with me for another eight to 10 minutes. You just never know in this wonky world what's going to happen. So great.
If you're not looking right now, most of the people I talk to aren't. No problem. Here we still spend, I promise, no more than eight to 10 minutes just getting to know each other professionally. That way we know how to stay in touch for the future. And if anything happens, we know each other and we're comfortable working together. Are you okay with that?
In my entire career, I have only had two people ever ask me to never call them again. And by the way, one of them, I now talk to on a regular basis because after about five years, they reached out to me and said, okay, I got to be talking to you. Sorry, I was dense. Of course, I was very forgiving. But I'll never forget because it's not very many people.
Most folks may say, hey, I don't have the time right now, but I'd welcome. Let's set up a time. But again, what we're trying to do is to put people at ease and continue the conversation. Now, with that being said, let's talk about the when. When do we handle objections? There are three key times when we handle objections. The first time or the first option is before they even come up.
The second time is after it gets mentioned. And then the third time is never. And we'll talk about that too. So let's start with this.
If you know on a regular basis that you're going to get certain objections in a recruiting mode, if you know that you're representing an organization whose reputation has recently been challenged, or if you know the position's in an undesirable location, or if you know the hiring manager is a pill to work for, or there's always something. No place is perfect. No opportunity is perfect.
But it doesn't usually take us very long to figure out why somebody right off the bat might have some concern. It could also just be general, like they don't work with search firms or we don't have the budget to pay or I don't have a need. I don't need a firm right now. I don't need to talk to you. These are common objections that we know we're going to get.
So let's try handling them on the front end. One of my favorite ways to do that is in business development calls. It's just to come right out of the gates. When I'm talking to a decision maker, whether they're in HR or talent acquisition or they're hiring on the line or for the department, I like just to open with that. And again, this is assuming it's a pretty cold call.
And I'll say something like, hey, Tom, this is Stephanie Moss with Thinking Ahead Executive Search. Let me just right out of the gates. You and I have never spoken and you probably weren't anticipating a search firm call right this minute. Let me share with you who I am and why I'm calling. And you can let me know if I caught you with just a couple of minutes. And then they usually go, okay.
And I'll say, I work with a search firm, specialized commercial banking, commercial finance, specific to your market. I cannot imagine, Tom, that today was my lucky day and I called you and you're ready to give me a search. Instead, the reason why I wanted to call is we work a lot in the same space. I think we know a lot of the same folks.
And I just simply wanted to do a professional introduction. If he responds with, hey, Stephanie, thanks for calling. I don't have a need. I know he didn't hear anything I just said. Because I basically just said, I'm not calling to see if you have a need. And if he wasn't listening to me, then I need to go back. Oh, yeah, absolutely, Tom. As I said, I'm not calling to get a search.
I really just want to call and do a professional introduction. We're in the same space. Your world is my world. And based on who we know and the markets we serve, I thought it made sense for us to at least know each other. And you go from there. That's handling an objection on the front end. Same thing if you're cold calling somebody about an opportunity.
You can change the verbiage, but you accomplish the same thing. Hey, Pam, Stephanie Moss, sticking ahead executive search. I don't know that you're expecting my call right now. In fact, most folks that call are not actively calling. looking to make a move, but I specialize in your space. We know a lot of folks.
I am working on a really cool opportunity, but I have no idea timing wise, if it would make sense for you. The purpose of my call is truly just to get to know you professionally. And then if the timing makes sense or shoot, even if you're just curious, I'm happy to share what's what's happening in my market. You have five to eight minutes, super simple, super easy.
That's handling it on the front end. Now, let's say that you're representing a challenging organization. Then I say something to the effect of, hey, I'd like to share some details about the organization and the opportunity I'm representing. Before I dive in, though, can I get you just to bear with me for a second? I'm going to share with you the name of the organization.
And I know that they've had some recent challenges. So before you shut me down, would you be willing to hear a little bit more about what they've been through? And I can give you some insight as to what those challenges have been and what they're doing to deal with them. Because this really is a neat opportunity for the right person.
So again, if I say, hey, I'm representing ABC and they go, oh yeah, I've heard their challenge. Oh, totally. Are you open minded enough to let me share with you a little bit of the backstory there? There's a reason why we have the phrase curiosity killed the cat. It's because cats, but also humans are very curious by nature.
Even if they're not interested in the opportunity, they want to know what's going on. It's part of their world. It's in their professional niche. They will at least listen. And by the way, that's one of the services we provide to our clients is we, by doing the recruiting the way we do with lots and lots and lots of phone calls, we get to push the client's story out there.
And that's one of the reasons why we tell folks they should work with us. It's really difficult to push a story out into the market through an email, through LinkedIn postings. People don't read that much and they don't care. But when you engage and say, yeah, you know, if you'd be willing, I can kind of explain what's been going on over there and what they're doing to deal with it.
And again, even if they're not interested, most people are curious enough to want to hear what's going on. And again, this now extends the conversation and the opportunity still may not be right for them, but they may be more comfortable telling you what would be important to them. They may be more comfortable now giving a referral, whatever the case may be. So we handle it before it comes up.
The second is when it comes up. So, for example, on the recruiting side, it may be, let's say that we don't do a good job prefacing the I'm not looking. So we know that if you approach somebody and you don't handle on the front end and they say, hey, Stephanie, thanks so much for calling, but I'm not really looking right now. Again, we talked earlier about these half sentences.
Oftentimes the back half of that sentence. is what we don't give people time to think or definitely not to say. And oftentimes what they're really trying to say is I'm not really interested unless the opportunity would be significantly better than the one I currently have. So again, we want to practice patience.
When an objection comes up, pause, give them an opportunity to see if they'll keep talking. Or in that scenario, you have to deal with it before you can continue the conversation. Super easy way to do that is, oh, absolutely, Erin, most of the folks I talk to are not actively looking when I call them. I could only be so lucky.
However, most of them are least willing to have a conversation, even if it's just out of sheer curiosity. And again, since we didn't really know each other, I thought we could just spend a couple minutes professionally getting to know each other. I'm happy to share a few details and we'll just take it from there. That cool? Another thing might be, again, we'll go back to the commute.
That's a big deal in my market. So, hey, there's no way I consider an opportunity at XYZ. That's an hour, 15 minute commute day in and day out. Okay, well, I'm going to have a hard time getting that person to engage unless I can address that. And again, it's just conversational resistance. They're not saying absolutely no. What they're saying is based on the information I have, probably not.
So then you can offer up, hey, walk me through where are you commuting from? What would that look like for you? Get a few more details and then just ask, hey, if they had a three days a week hybrid where you could be home three days a week or only go to the office, would that make a difference at all for you? And again, we're just expanding the conversation.
We're getting people in an environment where they can relax and we can just have conversation. We are in a service business and that's what we set out to do is to serve our clients and our candidates. This is how we do it, by putting them in a place where they're comfortable talking to us about their professional challenges so we can potentially serve them, whether it's today or down the road.
So handling objections. By the way, please notice, There's nothing about my style that suggests bulldozing or super aggressive. Never do I say, well, let me tell you why that shouldn't be a concern. This opportunity is so freaking good that blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. They are so close minded at that point. They're going to hear anything you say. They're going to be offended.
And the next time you call, they're going to let it go to voicemail. Then the third time handling objections is never. This again takes some really keen listening and really intentional hearing with folks. A lot of folks that we talk with are verbal processors and they're especially going to be because we're on the phone with them. So we're setting up our relationship through the phone.
I don't want long, lengthy emails trying to communicate. That needs to be through a conversation. And when you get on the phone and somebody is verbally processing their thoughts, again, hitting that mute button and being patient, as they're talking through their interests and processing information, Let them talk. Oftentimes they will talk through some resistance or concerns or an objection.
And it's something that they can just handle on their own. But we're so anxious, we'll jump in and we actually make it a much bigger deal than it ever actually was. Or we take away the opportunity for them to solve that on their own. And to realize it really wasn't a big deal. So instead, what we do is we wait for them to bring it up again.
And oftentimes, if it's something they can solve on their own, they won't ever bring it up again. And we never have to deal with it. We just were an incredibly patient and respectful listener. and let them process through. Now, if they do bring it up a second time, this is a great opportunity for us to jump in with the laces.
Hey, Kim, that's the second time that you have mentioned that being of concern. Are you okay if we pause for a second and talk a little bit more about that? It seems like that might be really giving you some heartburn. And then you jump into the laces and you can help them determine, is this a stop sign or is this a speed bump?
We just need to slow down, find a solution, and then keep the process going. Again, works incredibly well on both the candidate and the client side. We here at Thinking Ahead are huge believers in scripts. This can all be scripted out so that you can practice it ad nauseum so it becomes just a part of how you talk with folks.
And that's really the name of our game is just being willing to have really open, honest conversations trusting conversations with folks so that we can serve them. And remember good recruiters are good listeners. Great recruiters are phenomenal listeners.