Hi everybody it’s richard milligan your host for recruiting conversations we’re back in another podcast and today we are going to talk about overcoming objections if you’re a recruiting leader this is one of the things that you deal with on a regular basis it’s why no one’s signing up to take over your recruiting role everyone wants the relational piece of your of your of your role but no one wants to have to take over the recruiting pc role because you’re dealing with constant objections right it’s like you pick up the phone or you send someone a direct message whether that be on linkedin facebook instagram wherever a text message and it’s normal for you to get tension back in in response to whatever it is that you’re doing right and so we’ve got to be able to overcome objections not just handle them but really truly overcome them and so i’m going to give you a little bit of framework today that i think will be beneficial to you in this what i have found is that the people that are willing to push past the smoke screen the smokes you get it i mean every single time practically you make a call you get a smoke screen and it’s very rarely that you would call someone they would say thanks for calling i was waiting for your recruiting call today right so this has to be an expectation of something we deal with on a daily basis what’s interesting to me is that over the last two and a half years of recording this podcast my most downloaded podcast easily by about 400 percent is cold call reluctancy so i know you are dealing with this i know you’re dealing with objections because then it plays into being reluctant to actually make that call so one of the things i’ve identified that is helpful in get overcoming cold core reluctancy is over preparing think about it like this i do a lot of public speaking so i travel every two to three weeks these days and i’m speaking and as i’m traveling and speaking i early on in 2018 when i was traveling and speaking i used to get really nervous and i would say nervous there’s always an interpretation of what energy you’re feeling and so but i would say there’s a lot of energy that uh that might that i would be my body would be creating in preparation for getting on stage and speaking to an audience and i began to interpret that energy as excitement and in allowing that to propel me to bring more enthusiasm more passion to what i was doing when i was on stage and so the interpretation of this is really important there’s a there’s a real nugget for you are you experiencing reluctancy or is it energy and if it’s just energy that energy can be directed either direction it can become a negative narrative if you let it it can also be seen as a positive narrative and one of the positive narratives that’s really a that is very real is that as this energy is created internally where you sense it before you make a dial you could say it’s negative it’s tension it’s cold call reluctancy it’s fear it’s all those things but in actuality that energy is needed because a simple framework around recruiting is this recruiting is a transference of energy it’s a transference of my passion to you to get you excited about my opportunity so you can use whatever this is whatever this energy is you can use this and and and to propel you towards the recruit in a way that has the recruit responding positively to you because energy is attractive very attractive i want to be around great energy i don’t want to be around negative energy and so the interpretation this is really important for you so what i would tell you is that this is very real you’re going to deal with this regularly make sure you’re interpreting this in a way that has you moving towards this not away from this this would be very paralyzing i’ve had leaders that couldn’t get over this at such a level they quit their leadership role and moved into a production role because they knew they were going to have to build the team and they couldn’t get past this what they were what i would quantify as negative energy around this so how you interpret this is really important there’s that but when we get into a conversation with people we’re going to get objections and i found there’s really three or four major objections that you’re going to get one of those major objections is i’m not interested another one of those objections is i don’t have time to talk right now i’m too busy and another one of those is i’m happy where i’m at now when i when you if you use my scripting my scripting or three parts to my scripting but the third part of my scripting is we remove all tension we don’t try to recruit we try to build relationships and so the third part of my scripting says that um you know if you’re willing to have a conversation with me it would be a non-recruiting conversation where we’d simply get to know each other so that in the event something were to change in your career you’d be willing to pick up the phone and call me that’s a simple what i call removing the tension framework and and so in that framework you can get a fourth objection i found and that fourth objection that you can get regularly is the oh really which is this is this really you’re what you’re inviting me into it’s not a recruiting conversation you’re not trying to recruit me so you’ve got to be able to overcome that as well because because we’re not i’m not trying to recruit you i’ve never had anybody on my team that i haven’t built a relationship with first okay i don’t know anyone that’s joined my team that didn’t know me as a leader first so in truth relationship building is necessary so my response to that is look i would i would never recruit you before i got to know you and i would think vice versa you would probably never look to join my team until you got to know me and so what i would say to that is that something happens in your career and you experience some sort of trigger event i’ve done enough research on you to know that you’re someone that i want to have a conversation with to get to know better because if something changes and i don’t know you any better there’s no way you’re going to pick up the phone and call me there’s no way i’m going to call you and if i look up in six months and you’re at another organization and i haven’t tried to build a relationship to get to know you i’m going to kick my own butt for that so i’m simply trying to build a relationship with you okay excuse me so that’s that’s that’ll be the fourth one but let’s talk about uh some simple framework early on when you’re in communication with someone and you get i mean early on this is richard i’m with abc company i’m the regional manager anything like that anything that i get early on is just a smoke screen if someone says hey look i get recruited a lot i’m really happy where i’m at that’s early on you get that early on in in a conversation and you get an objection it’s a smoke screen you need to understand that in a lot of industries people are getting five seven ten phone calls a week they’ve gotta be really good at getting you off the phone or getting you out of the conversation and so they’ll throw the smoke screen at you so when you understand it’s just a smoke screen what do you do you acknowledge it you don’t address it and there’s a big difference acknowledging it would be saying if someone said i’m happy where i’m at i’m going to acknowledge it i understand you’re happy where you’re at so let me be real direct that’s very simple framework uh if someone said i’m not interested i i want to respect the fact that you’re not interested so let me be real direct that so let me be real direct where you mirror what they say mirror whatever they say so let me be real direct we’re just buying ourselves more time okay so early on when you get an objection acknowledge it do not address it it’s a smoke screen get backed into your scripting now if it’s later on in in your phone scripting where someone repeats that look i really am happy where i’m at now we have to address it very simple framework to address objections is through feel felt found the three f’s feel felt found very simple framework someone says no look i’m really happy where i’m at i understand that you feel that way when i talk to people i know a lot of people have told me they felt the exact same way here’s what i found in my own career that when the season for change came i was always happy that i built relationship with other leaders that i knew and trusted that i could pick up the phone call in that moment and then i go back to my scripting so what i’m inviting you into is a 15-minute meeting where no recruiting is allowed we simply get to know each other does that sound fair to you that’s called gaining agreement so feel felt found is a very powerful framework that will allow you to insert any objection and say i understand you feel that way either i know a lot of other people i talked to felt the same way or i felt the exact same way what i have found is okay you come back to your clothes that’s that’s a really really powerful way to overcome objections okay you’re you’re empathetic okay it’s not doesn’t create any tension in this conversation and empathy works really well and moving people to places where you need them to be now what i would say is this here’s where the phone data supports in 2017 the average american was a was spending anywhere from 32 to 35 seconds on a cold call with someone fast forward to 2019 it was down to 11 seconds now i haven’t seen any data from 20 or 21 but we we know this marketers have run the phone to a large degree just like marketers run the email okay all the spam calls that we get on the phone are what marketers have done to run the phone and so people are less tolerant of cold calls today than they’ve ever been and so one of the things that’s relatively new is that people are really willing to click on you hang up on you early on into a conversation as as a recruiter most of you on a myers-briggs are going to have the e and the f in your personalities enfjs are great recruiters okay enfps are great recruiters so the e is the extrovert okay the i on the myers-briggs is the i so the e is the extrovert the f is the feeler okay the e in f j or the enfp are great personalities for recruiters just be aware of that if you’re a leader and you’re looking to hire a recruiter go find yourself some enfjs maybe we’ll do a podcast on that one day because that’s some great insight they’re phenomenal recruiters why because they’re the feeler part the intuitive part of that personality knows when they’re about to get hung up on so you know this if you’re a recruiter you kind of you kind of someone goes look i’m not interested and you’re expecting what’s next so one of the things that to consider in this is a pattern disrupter what’s a pattern disrupter if i call you and i say nancy this is richard i’ve done a bunch of research on you i know i want to have this conversation with you because i was i found a lot of incredible things about you as i was doing my research i was excited for this call today and answer goes look i’m not interested i know she’s going about to go click i will i will say this can i ask you a question and then i’ll pause i want to hang up on you can i ask you a question okay now sometimes it won’t keep them from hanging up on you but most times you’re going to find that people aren’t quite rude enough to hang up on you in the middle of a question and they’ll say sure now i’m into my scripting okay and and so in your script and you have to establish a really large reason why they should meet with you and look a really large reason why if i if i ask that question can i ask you a question knowing someone’s gonna hang up on me and they said sure i would say i think this industry is going to change dramatically over the next two to three years let me pause here i think most industries are going to change dramatically over the next two to three years that’s why you as a recruiter have a lot of job security because every industry is going to change technology accelerating consumer behavior is changing these are all things that are true of every environment today so i’m going to insert a really large reason why i think you’re the industry is changing right now in a major way okay and now i’m going to get into removing the tension and so with that said i would love to invite you into a 15-minute meeting where no recruiting is allowed we simply get to know each other so that in the event something happens in your career you’re willing to pick up the phone and call me does that sound fair to you so the scripting that some of the scripting i’m giving i’m not giving the full scripting but i’m giving you some of the scripting okay when i ask you that question can i ask you a question allows me to get into my scripting okay so if there’s three big nuggets here on in on a script early on acknowledge i understand you’re happy so let me be real direct that’s acknowledging later on into it when i get another objection i have to address it and that’s different and how i’m going to address it is using feel felt found and then i’m going to go back to my clothes okay where i get interrupted by someone that i know is about to hang up the phone on me i will say can i ask you a question these are three really powerful ways to overcome objections so here’s a challenge for you know your scripting so well that you can get interrupted by anyone anywhere and you can pick your scripting back up a lot of people will say well i’m not into scripting well guess what the pros the real professionals in this are into scripting you know why because scripting works most people are winging their calls most people have no idea what they’re going to say there’s a formula to this know the formula that’s called your script okay know the formula the formulas work that’s why there’s formulas for success you’ve got to have script okay know your script when you know your script when you know the objections that you’re going to get and you know exactly how you’re going to overcome those objections okay fear goes away focal reluctancy goes away why is that because what you actually are afraid of is the unknown you’re afraid of being embarrassed you’re afraid of getting some someone saying something that you can’t respond back to you’re afraid of people hanging up on you you’re afraid of men i mean let’s put a name to some of these things you’re afraid of some of these things a lot of times and if you’re not then great but i recognize that podcast of mine cold call reluctancy is the most downloaded podcast i have because people are afraid they’re experiencing these things what are we afraid of the unknowns think about it like being a little kid when i was a little kid lights came went off i was scared why there was something underneath my bed i knew it that’s why i scooted to the middle of my bed and tucked the covers in right i think we’ve all experienced that when i walked into walmart on march 23rd and i could look all the way through march 23rd of 2020 and i could look all the way through my walmart because people were so afraid of what was about to take place with with covet um breaking out that they went in and wiped all the shelves clean and bought groceries for like three weeks four weeks all at the same time because they were afraid what what were they afraid of the unknown what was about to follow so where there are unknowns you make knowns and fear goes away so light comes on as little kid guess what not afraid anymore i was very clear there was nothing underneath my bed so for you you have to know you have to know your script really well and when you know your script really well and you know how to overcome objections there aren’t any unknowns and look if someone gives you a random objection figure how to overcome it my sister’s actually a successful loan officer in the mortgage industry and one time she asked me she said how would you overcome this objection and it was it was a random objection it was like the objection was out of respect for you i’m going to decline the meeting and she’s like no one’s ever able to overcome this so i said well it depends on where you gave it to me or if you gave it to me early in this in my call i would say well thank you for respecting me so let me be real direct what did i do i acknowledged it if it was later on i would under i would actually then use some of the same framework to to overcome that and i and i and i presented that to her and she goes oh my gosh that’s so easy i don’t know why people get so hung up she literally said this no one’s ever been able to overcome that objection and to some degree i get it like two weeks ago i got a call a cold call from somebody and and i knew who they were immediately because they had sent me an email and i i was annoyed because i get email all the time from people that scrape my information from linkedin and stick me in their freaking database right it just happened a few minutes ago where i had to remove myself from someone’s list because they scraped my data from linkedin and stuck me in their database okay this person did that sent me an email the email was interesting to me the title line was like we know someone within 10 miles of your location well that was interesting to me and i look at the email and they’re like we have a client within 10 miles of your location i’m like well i’m virtual how do you know where i’m at so they called me and they said we recently sent you an email and we have a client and it was just it was a consistent message so immediately i knew who it was and i said how did you get my email address because i got an email from you and this poor girl she’d obviously had no training or she’d never been asked that question she just wasn’t prepared at all and i’m not kidding you no exaggeration i listened to her stammer as i was quiet for at least 30 seconds and it felt like 10 minutes because i simply said how did you get my number and my email address and her response to that was um um um well oh my goodness richard this is true this is what happened oh my goodness richard i can’t believe that oh i’m losing i i’m having a hard time thinking right now like oh my goodness um oh my goodness richard like this is i’m so embarrassed like this is seriously what happened to me i was like it was unbelievable i felt sorry for but i really wanted to see if she could figure a way out of it because i teach phone skills and phone scripting and i’m thinking to myself no one’s trained her on phone scripting that poor thing but i let her go on and for probably 30 seconds plus she repeated herself and finally in the end like i don’t remember how the end was i was so blown away that she said oh my goodness probably ten times and i’m so embarrassed probably three times and like i can’t put my words together probably two or three times before we finally got off the phone i was thinking to myself she probably will make a call for the rest today because that simple question how did you get my number and how did you get my email just because i got an email from you as well took her off track but if that’s you and you’re like oh my goodness that’s totally me when i get that random objection do yourself a favor figure out how you can overcome that objection then memorize it make it part of your script because that will remove the fear known things don’t produce fear unknown things produce fear so identified those i would even implore you go get some white sticky paper put it on your walls write your bullet points to your script so you can look up and just see it put your objections and how you’re going to overcome those on your wall so that you can see them if this is something that’s a major issue for you be the weird person if someone comes in your office goes what’s up with that i’m i’m memorizing my script i’m doing the best i can to be the best on the phone or the best at at scripting be that person before you’re the other person who’s afraid to actually make the call so hope this brought some value to you you know how to find me if if i can bring you more value you can find me on my live calendar which is going to come in the outro after this i hope you’re doing well i hope you’re finding success just practice a value day have a great week everybody until until i talk to you again on another recruiting conversations.
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