The objection is not the reason

A seventeen thousand dollar replacement, a presentation that went fine, and then the customer says the eight words every advisor knows. I need to think about it.

Now the software asks the advisor to pick a loss reason from a dropdown. Price, competitor, timing, financing. Here is the problem. He does not know. The customer might be worried about the payment, waiting on a spouse, expecting another bid, or just uncomfortable saying no to a person standing in the kitchen. The true reason may not exist yet, because the customer has not decided anything.

Two facts, not one

There are two separate pieces of information in every unsold estimate, and they arrive at different times.

The objection is a working note. The final reason is a verdict. A shop that demands the verdict on day one gets neither, because the advisor fills the field with whatever lets him leave for his next appointment.

How required fields create fiction

Make the loss reason mandatory at the appointment and a predictable thing happens. Price gets clicked on everything, because price is always sort of true.¹ Six months later the owner reads a report saying he loses on price, lowers his margins, and never learns that half of those rows were really financing, timing and spouses.

A blank field is an honest hole. A guessed field is a hole wearing an answer’s clothes.

The better line at the door

The fix starts in the conversation, not the software. When a customer says they need to think about it, the weak response is okay, I will follow up. The stronger response is a calm statement. Usually when somebody tells me that, one piece is not sitting right yet. For most folks it is the payment, the equipment itself, or the timing.

Half the time the customer names the piece. Sometimes naming it closes the job that afternoon, which is the best outcome the question has. When it does not, the advisor still leaves with the objection, and an objection with a date on it is enough to act on.

The two minute handoff

What the company needs from an advisor who could not close is small, and it has to stay small or it will not happen. Five things, under two minutes, before the truck leaves the curb.

One optional sentence of context on top. $18,500, monthly payment is the sticking point, warm, one more bid coming, wife was not present, call Friday afternoon. That is a plan. The same row reading $18,500 unsold is a shrug with a comma in it.

The principle underneath is the one this firm holds hardest. An advisor should never be punished for losing a sale. Losing the information is the failure, because the sale might come back and the information is how.