Hey 👋

In the last edition of the SFB newsletter I spoke about ‘The Hero’s Journey’ as it relates to business owners. This principle is all about the mindset pillar, our journey as business owners and how we just may have more in common that we think…

In the context of your business your story is important. Most people ignore this stuff and it’s the reason their businesses are a bit limp. Just think of your business heroes… I bet you’d be able to tell me their story, or at least the key parts of it.

A small mic drop moment for the power of story.

If you haven’t checked it out - you can do that here >

Over the next couple of months, I’ll be diving into and out of the specific pillars.

I have a couple of series lined up, for example, where I break down: the three different types of marketing; ‘Organic Marketing,’ ‘Lead Generation’ and ‘Sales Funnels’ - I’ll cover the different use cases for each, how they work and why you actually need all three of them to succeed.

I’ll do that one over a 3-4 newsletter series. I’ve already got the examples of the funnels and businesses to show you. It will be a cannon of breakthroughs on the marketing pillar.

Coming soon…

I’m really enjoying going much ‘longer form’ in this newsletter because it allows me to build on concepts and I think you’ll get a lot more out of it in the long run. The pillars may only be a metre wide… but as you’ll soon see - they’re a mile deep.

I’m turning the newsletter into a book, so if you’re wondering why and how I can give away so much value for free - I have a series of hidden benefits in that I can workshop the ideas and build an active audience for the ideas around my book.

I can also generate partnerships with people who love the materials and want to take partner with me to take 100% of the profits from any books they help me sell.

Anyways… In the way I want the book to be read, there is an introduction to the 6 pillars, but then I want the people reading to be able to jump to the pillar that is the most blocked.

Once they discover it I want them to put the book down, work to unblock the pillar by using the systems and exercises I share, and then come back to work on the next one.

It’s like a MBA - except it’s built by business owners, for business owners.

I realised early on that the masses are willing to spend $100K on ‘university education’ that teaches you how to be a cog in a system but unwilling to spend $5K or $10K to learn how to build the system itself.

A strange dichotomy…

When I met my mentor Lachlan Cameron, I learnt more in one conversation with him than I did my whole degree so as a matter of principle I dropped out of university with one subject to go. I’ve never looked back.

Anyways on the book, over say a 3-6 month period - it will guide you through the complete solidification and mastery of your pillars. Perhaps you’ll even observe your own principles in those areas and partner with me and one day we’ll start our own education system. 😀 

This edition of ‘The Systems for Business Newsletter’ is sponsored by my first book ‘The Business Owner’s Guide to Profit.’

You’ll receive $662 of bonus materials! You also get the digital version of our journal, workshop and ‘7 figure Scaling Tools’ online course all for just $20.

The Single Most Important Sales Principle

Today, we’re diving into the Sales pillar, and I have a banger of a principle to share with you. There’s a great old saying, ‘once you set foot on the path, you begin to see it everywhere.’ This principle is one of those. Once you see it you can’t un-see it.

Somewhere around 2015 I went to a 10 day sales retreat.

The idea was this… Show up, spend 10 days making sales, arise on the other side a hero with ten’s of thousands or even hundreds of thousands in sales. The investment to come along was $20K / person - both my brother and I attended.

Some of the event was even live streamed.

On day 1, our mentors sat us down and said… ‘You are going to see some patterns here over the 10 days. There are only 5 objections you will hear coming through the phone.’

1. Money

2. Time

3. Information

4. Trust

5. Partner

I didn’t think too much about that - I was just focused on trying to make sales.

We spend the first half of day 1, preparing our scripts and getting everything ready - We had a list of 800 leads we’d collected - they weren’t warm in any way. So we just printed them off and got dialling…

What proceeded to occur over the next 10 days - waking up at 7am to catch the US timezone - drinking volumes of alcohol by 8pm to drown my sorrows, only to wake up again the next day and do it all over.

I made thousands of dials and zero dollars.

I fucking hated it and it was super embarrassing.

So I went home with my tail in-between my legs questioning if I was ‘made out for sales…’ I remember, trying to get my head around everything - I was sitting in a restaurant and pulled out my journal and wrote in BIG CAPITALS at the top of the page….

WHAT DID I GET OUT OF THE RETREAT..?

Here is the what I wrote…

‘AT LEAST I KNOW THERE ARE 5 OBJECTIONS’

You see… There is knowing, there are 5 objections - then there is making thousands of dials - and having them come up over, and over, and over again…

‘Ben I’d love to do it but I can’t allocate the money’ - Money
‘Ben I’d love to do it but can you call me back next week’ - Time
‘Ben I’d love to do it - can you send me an email with all the details?’ - Info
‘Ben I’d love to do it - can I speak to your existing clients’ - Trust
‘Ben I’d love to do it - I just need to speak to my business partner’ - Partner

Those objections were stamped into my brain, and I’ve never forgotten them. I literally heard them hundreds of times with only slight variations.

This planted a seed of thought… ‘Instead of trying to ‘make a sale,’ could I tackle this real enemy instead.’

Second to this…

There was someone at the retreat who did a tremendous volume of sales - over $500K in sales. I noticed the first few minutes of his sales calls were completely different to mine.

He knew these people - he had booked them in. The calls sounded more like a conversation with two friends - even the tone was completely different.

I started to realise that he was playing a completely different game to me.

And that’s when the second breakthrough hit for me… What if I could build a system to pre-solve these objections so that they didn’t come through the phone…

The Difference Between Inbound and Outbound Sales

With these breakthroughs, I had first figured out the difference between Inbound and Outbound sales.

Inbound: When someone books in with you. You attract them.

Outbound: When you initiate contact. You chase them.

If you’ve ever worked in sales for any period, either in your own business or someone else’s, you will know that having an inbound lead is much more pleasant - it’s more like being on a date vs an outbound lead that is more like trying to talk to some random person at a bar.

I realised there were 3 parts of the sale. The before unit, the during unit and the after unit. I discovered that if I spent more energy on the before unit, my life and business would become much easier.

Discover the 5 Objections that Come Up in the Sales Environment.

Objections occur by definition after you’ve presented an offer. They are the excuse blocking the immediate sale. If you run a service business, you will have heard these objections countless times in their various forms.

1. The Money Objection - Occurs when prospects don’t want to allocate the money you’re asking for, for your offer.

2. The Time Objection - My least favourite objection - It has multiple forms - ‘Can I get started in 2 months?’ Also, ‘I’m not sure I have the time to commit to this right now.’

Money and Time are Sales Based Objections: They come up because the prospect doesn’t value your offer.

Make it more valuable to them.

They are Internal Objections because the form they come is ‘I don’t have’ - meaning they are easier to solve.

You will want to handle those objections during the application process and on the call before you make your offer. If you know someone has these objections it’s wise to bring them up and talk about them upfront before you ‘run your process.’

If you sense these objections are insurmountable objects DQ the prospect.

3. The Information Objection - When a prospect asks for more information to help them make their decision. ‘Send me an email with all the details’ - Yet, if they need more information why don’t they ask a question?

4. The Trust Objection - This objection has multiple forms. ‘Can I speak to your clients?’ ‘I lost my credit card / I don’t give card details over the phone…’ are all examples. Never send your clients details to anyone - it’s a recipe for disaster and a complete waste of time.

Information and Trust are Marketing Based Objections: They come up because the prospect hasn’t consumed enough of your content. They are not clear on who you are and how you work.

They are External Objections because the form they come is ‘you didn’t give me / can you give me’ - meaning they see you as the underdog therefore these are much harder to solve.

Make them understand.

You pre-handle these objections by sending the prospect specific pieces of content to consume before the call.

The Partner objection is a logistics objection: They come up because you didn’t plan appropriately. You may be trying to automate your process too much.

If the partner objection exists, find it and bring that partner into the conversation.

** Note - I’ve been talking about the outcome of sales appointments, and making sales calls - however this same 5 objection principle applies to e-com and products too.

In fact if you build your sales and marketing materials to solve these objections VS. only trying to sell your product - you’ll sell way more of your products.

I’ll cover the checklist on this at the end of the newsletter.

If you perform a self analysis on your buying behaviour you’ll see it in your own life which is always interesting.

Why ‘Objection Handling’ Systems Don’t Scale

You’ve probably seen ‘objection handling’ systems out there from those characters wearing tight jeans, wanting women to ‘submit.’ Seems there’s a correlation.

In my opinion ‘objection handling’ is a dense operating systems - It’s simply not strategic. The way I see it, if the objections have come up you’ve already failed. Then you’re projecting your failure onto the customer and making them jump through hoops.

Pre-handle them instead. You will save yourself hundreds of hours per year and you’ll maintain your sanity, your self worth and you’ll experience more harmonious relationships also.

When I got back from the retreat, I started testing various different approaches to ‘knock down the dominos’ so they didn’t come onto the calls.

It took me over 12 months to master it, however since that moment my sales closing percentage has been 65% on average and I’ve process millions of dollars in sales.

I’ve also taught my process to hundreds of different business owners and on average they’ve closed well over 50%.

How to Pre-Solve the Objections and Get Your Closing Percentage Beyond 50%

This is the system I build to knock down the dominos so they don’t come up on the call. This is the ‘pre-unit’ of my sales system.

1. Various Lead Sources

You might have an email list, a podcast episode, a social media post, an in person meeting, a referral or any other lead channel. ALWAYS and I mean 100% of the time always - send the prospect through an application form.

Tap into your lead sources with great content and drive those people into formal appointments with you that they claim via application.

2. Application/Qualification Process

If you just open up your calendar it shows your prospects that you don’t respect yourself or your time. They’ll give you time objections.

Step 2 of the inbound sales process is an application form that is designed to pre-qualify the client. Here you will use a very specific set of questions - those questions are designed to give you a profile on the 5 objections and where the client currently is with those.

You then make a decision if you want to move forwards with this person of not.

Notice the shift?

3. The Pre-Work Page

Here you create a page on videos that pre-solve the information and trust objections. Basically you need three videos.

1. Info Objection: Video that explains the customer/client journey and how you produce results.

2. Trust Objection: Video that shares the case study results your products and services produce.

3. Trust Objection: Video that shares your ‘Hero’s Journey.’ This shares the context before the business and

4. The Sales Call

I have a separate model for this that I’ll cover at some point.

Here is the ‘strangest thing’ I’ve discovered about the 5 Objections.

The objections you give yourself in your own life and the ones that come up in the sales environment. You can have the best systems, ads and landing page on earth - but if you constantly give objections to yourself and others in your life expect them to come back and slap you in the face on a weekly basis.

In my opinion - this is why I believe people don’t like sales. It’s a mirror.

I’ve never heard anyone talk about this before - but it’s equally as important as anything else I could teach you about sales. It’s direct evidence for the intense impact of ‘your mindset’ on ‘your business.’

The real work of sales is to sell yourself on the life you want.

Some structural tips and pointers on how to pre-solve the 5 objections.

As mentioned this principle applies to both product and service based businesses. Here are some pointers to install into your business.

1. Pre-Solving the Money Objection

• Make irresistible offers: 10x the value of what you ask for.

• Understand the finances of your prospect: Meet them where they are.

• Ripple effects: In your copy talk about the ripple effect through time of your product or service.

• Pay your bills: otherwise you’ll attract customers and clients who don’t want to pay yours.

2. Pre-Solving the Time Objection

• Make irresistible offers: Link the offer to the goals of the prospect.

• Reward urgency: Give people a discount if they take action now.

• Create time based offers: Create time based offers.

• Use real scarcity: If you only have a specific amount of stock or a specific number of spots open this month - tell the client.

• Don’t give time objections in real life: Delaying that hard conversation? procrastinating? Waiting for ‘the perfect moment…’ If you give time objections in your life - don’t expect to be able to pre-handle them for others.

3. Pre-Solving the Information Objection

• Build models and intellectual property: like the models I use here in the newsletter to help your prospects understand your processes.

• Create your ‘client journey’ model: like I have done with the 6 pillars that illustrates the process your clients will take with you.

• Share the context and story of where your products, systems, ideas and services come from: Context is right brained and will bring more connection with your prospects.

• Don’t give yourself or others the Information objection: ^

4. Pre-Solving the Trust Objection

• Get a video profile piece of your Hero’s Journey: retarget everyone in your audience cross platform with this, add it to email sequences, your copy and your landing pages.

• Collect video case studies from your customers and clients: retarget everyone in your audience cross platform with this, add it to email sequences, your copy and your landing pages.

• Collect real social proof: things like text messages, slack messages, emails, testimonials and even stories from your customers and clients: retarget everyone in your audience cross platform with this, add it to email sequences, your copy and your landing pages.

• Trust yourself and others. ^

5. Pre-Solving the Partner Objection

• Speak about relationships in your copy: Step out from behind the logo. Talk about things like travel, that people often do with their business partners and life partners. We’re getting into the subtlety here.

• Involve partners in the sales dialouge: In your application form, ask about the partner, and then bring them into the dialogue if necessary.

• Sort out your relationships. ^

Here is a way to action this ^ grab every one of these tips I’ve given you. Block out 60 minutes in your calendar. Start at the beginning of your funnel, work through all of your marketing and sales materials, read your landing pages, your copy, your emails - all of it.

Score yourself out of 1-10 subjectively for each one. You’ll probably notice you’re just flat out missing some. You’ll may then notice those are the objections that consistently hold you back from getting more customers and clients.

Then commit to fix it.

I’m sure there are other ways you can think of also to pre-solve these objections too - one of my objectives of this newsletter is to encourage you to think differently and build your own systems. 

Talk soon,

Ben Slater.

This edition of ‘The Systems for Business Newsletter’ is sponsored by my first book ‘The Business Owner’s Guide to Profit.’

You’ll receive $662 of bonus materials! You also get the digital version of our journal, workshop and ‘7 figure Scaling Tools’ online course all for just $20.

Ps… There is one other way I can help you. I’ve used my Sales System to consult with and build hundreds of sales processes for my clients. If you or your sales team is not closing over 50% of your leads right now - I’ll be able to get you there in under 60 days. In fact I guarantee it.

If you want some one on one help to build your sales system to ensure you’re pre-handling the objections and closing more than 50% of your sales. 

Head to the page below and fill in the form… I’ll check out your business and if I’m certain I can help you I’ll be in touch with the next steps.