The New Rules of Sales: How to Foster Trust When Buyer Confidence Is Dead

0:01 Welcome to The Coaching Equation brought to you by Empire Partners and hosted by Ryan Lang and Brooke Bishop. Our mission is to help you build a profitable and impactful coaching business by cutting through the noise and all the expert advice to deliver tried and true actionable insights that you can deploy in your business today. Each week, we bring on expert guests, unveil cutting-edge tactics and strategies, and share the secrets and stories that we've gathered from working with the most successful coaching companies on earth. Welcome back to the Coaching Equation Podcast.

0:41 I'm your host, Ryan Lang, CEO and co-founder of Empire Partners, alongside my co-founder and co-host, Brooke Bishop. Today's episode, we're coming back to sales at a time where I believe the conversation around sales has never been more important. Because, look, I don't know if you've noticed, but things around us are changing. Buyer behavior is changing. The tactics that used to work are not working anymore. And the beautiful part about this is that it's all actually coming back to something that's been tried and true since humans have been communicating with each other is genuine human connection. In today's episode... We're going to get into everybody's favorite topic when it comes to sales, which is objection handling.

1:24 We're going to get into why the tough conversations that you have with your prospects are the ones that actually start to foster the trust that you need to win and create transformation. And why it's absolutely vital that you adapt these principles and philosophies now if you want to optimize your sales game, create more revenue in your business and make more impact in the world. So without further ado, let's buckle up. This is the Coaching Equation Podcast. Welcome back to the Coaching Equation Podcast. I'm your host, Ryan Lang, CEO and co-founder of Empire Partners, alongside my co-founder and co-host, Brooke Bishop. My man. Hello again. Back after it.

2:04 It's been a little while. Yeah. I know. For me, it has been a lot for you. You've been on the hustle. Yeah, man. Been wearing out the podcast mic here lately. But dude, I'm actually really excited for this episode because we've seen a lot in the sales ecosystem changing lately. And we've recently had some experiences that informed the need for this conversation because... And it's something that we go through. It's something that if you're listening to this and you ever do any kind of sales engagement, you go through, you're gonna go through, you have gone through.

2:47 So I'm super excited to dive into this one. But I want to kind of... Look at the landscape for just a minute here and recognize that I know we talked about this before. But we try to have a pulse on what's going on in the world of sales at all times. And I think right now we're seeing a very different sales environment. than we've seen. And I want to talk that through. You're doing a lot of work with different sales teams right now. What are you seeing, hearing from the front lines with regard to where buyer trust is at? What are the other factors that are involved in what's going on in the sales environment right now?

3:31 Yeah, no, it's interesting because if we want to paint the picture of how things used to be versus how things are, you know, if we go back five, 10 years ago, people's decision making process was they'd have a sales conversation with somebody. They'd sit on it, think about it, or they'd make a buying decision in the moment. Maybe they'd go talk to their spouse. Maybe they'd go check Google just to do a little bit of research. And that was about pretty much it. Yeah. Fast forward to today, it's totally different. Like, You've got literally in real time, they'll be on Zoom with you now. So that's another piece. Most people are using Zoom versus using a phone or face-to-face.

4:15 They're in real time. They're Googling your name to see what's your whole background. Do you have any lawsuits pending? Do you have a criminal record? They're going to be running your name against everything under the sun to figure out what they can find. You've got Trustpilot. You've got Yelp. You've got Google. You have all these different variables that are there. Now that's before you even bring in AI, right? The new bad word, which is the good word, which is who knows what it is, right? So we have this new ecosystem, this new environment that has buyer trust is in the toilet and consumer sophistication is Richter because there's so much data that's at people's fingertips.

4:58 I want to ask you something. Why do you think buyer trust is in the toilet? Because people have been burned. Um, you know, if we look at the last shoot, let's just say 10 to 15 years, you have so much marketing that has gone, you know, we've talked about this before, but it's like the race to the bottom who can make the biggest promises to get somebody on their calendar. People get on the calendar and then they get the tarnation beat out of them. And then poof. Now they assume that that's how an entire industry is or that that's how that's just the game that has to be played. So you take that over 10 to 12 to 15 years. Plus you had, I'm going way back in time, Cambridge Analytica.

5:42 So we had this window of time where the targeting on social media, people were so heavily targeted and all those pieces were just being put front and center to get to capture people's attention. People are just becoming numb. is really what it's getting down to. Yeah, I agree with that. And I think that's... It's definitely the case in any kind of a high ticket coaching consulting sale, but I think it's the case in general. And when we talk about buyer sophistication being high, this is funny because it makes me think back to my days selling cars. And I remember...

6:23 I'm really dating myself here, but... I got my first job selling cars. Most people came into a car dealership relying on the salesperson to tell them something. Like relying on the salesperson to tell them things about the car. Relying on the salesperson to tell them things about where prices are at right now and where interest rates and things of that nature. What are my financing options? And... You know, it's just a good analogy for how things have shifted in buyer sophistication in general.

7:07 Because now, obviously, if we think about cars, oh my gosh. Yeah. I mean, being a sales, a car salesperson at this point is like relationships and order taking. Um, most people are coming in like they've already been on true car and KBB.com and Edmonds and everything. They know all the different features. They know what packages they're looking for. They know exactly what vehicles in their area are being priced at. And if you're getting, you know, screwing them over, um, It's a totally different ballgame. And I think it's something similar that we're seeing in this space of selling an information product of some kind.

7:50 People are doing their research, even in regular products. I research like crazy oftentimes before I buy something. So it's all out there. And I think... It's an interesting thing because it really does put an impetus on us to have a different type of conversation. Because in this type of sale, we're not selling widgets. We're not trying to sell somebody something that's, you know, nine bucks. We're on the phone. It's not a Sports Illustrated subscription with the football phone. Shout out to the football phone. God, I love that thing. But we are in a space now where we have to really cultivate relationships, have real conversations.

8:33 And I feel like that's actually a lot of how we're... In a lot of cases, I'm going to use a terminology and... Sorry if you take it the wrong way. way. But I think that's a lot of the way that we screw up objection handling these days. We actually end up creating objections because we're not really in tune with the fact that we have to have a real conversation with folks. No, I agree with you 100%. I mean, there was a window of time where people saw if you built rapport... You know, if somebody's there in front of you, it's because they want what you have. And if you have enough rapport, they're going to say yes. And if they don't say yes, then you just have to handle those objections.

9:15 And you basically can just go toe to toe on the objection itself. Right. Like that's not how buyer behavior is now. Like the world... We've moved into more of a farming experience versus before it used to be very much hunting, if that makes sense. And so the vibe is different. If you go into a situation where they're needing or they're wanting a farming experience and you go in hunting, pain, frustration, all the defense mechanisms are coming up. And I think that's kind of what's happened. Honestly, the last 10 to 15 years has been so heavy hunting that people are coming in with their shields. I think that's true. And it's funny because it, I, just as you were saying that I was kind of thinking about like, it's sort of like, uh, it's, it's sort of like being a boxer and then MMA comes around and what if, what if for a minute it would be like if they took all of boxing and said, okay, there's no more just boxing.

10:11 You all have to be MMA fighters now, right? You're going to get your ass handed to you, right? Yeah. I'm on the ground. Yeah, totally. What do you think from that standpoint, when we're having real conversations with people and tackling objections the right way... Do you think, I mean, can we foster trust by doing that? And like actually create trust by, by doing that? No, you can't. Yes. Yes. No. But I see it. This has been his favorite word lately, by the way. I finally found the no switch. He's been PMSing for like the last month and it's his favorite fucking word.

10:52 He wants to say no all the time. What's funny. When I was a little kid, my grandfather got me a t-shirt that said, my name is no, no. Who knew? Who knew? So I do. So I want to say this in two different ways. The old school ways of handling objections, I believe, are dead. What is that, by the way? Yeah, so somebody goes, oh, I need to think about it. They come over the top and they try to handle the objection, right? It's this element of pushing back and having the resistance hit resistance and trying to be more of a superior position and thinking that superiority is going to cause the other person to go inferior and let go of the fear.

11:37 Yeah. It's force. Force. That's a good word for it. So what I see is happening now is that more importantly is questions are the answers. So, you know, crazy enough, we're just talking about AI, the better your questions, the better answers you get. And that's how the universe works. And that's how it works in objections. Very true. You've got a really solid ability to ask the right questions, say the right things in the right way based on their communication style. It gets received very different. So what we're seeing, I'm sure we could name off, we could rattle off probably 15 different sales trainers that are out there. They literally have like, here's our card deck of how to handle the objection.

12:18 If they say this, flip over the card and here's what you say. Right. And it's like this one size fits all cookie cutter here. If they say they got to think about it, here's what your response is. And part of why they do this is because the consumers, they want certainty of what if I don't know what to say? Yeah. They're buying into it. So yeah, I think, yeah, long answer to your question. Yes. I truly believe that if we can tackle or handle or speak through, and I would, I would even just flip the language. If people give us their fear, we have to give them creative ways of getting to certainty. Yeah. Such a great way to say it. And I think that, you know, since I mean, since we just since we just got back from Vegas, I think I can use this analogy.

13:03 But I think that when when you're playing that old school way of thinking that, you know, you got you got you got the proverbial deck of cards and and you're going to just flip them over and read what's on it and that's going to work. You are literally playing a game of chance. Literally every once in a while, in spite of you, it's going to work, which is always the most dangerous thing because then you're going to think, Ooh, you know, Ooh, I, okay. Uh, well that, well that one worked until you go back to it again, you know, and, and it does death if it works one time, cause then you just go to it every time. That's exactly right. When you're playing that game, when you're playing that game, it's just like being in Vegas, man.

13:44 You're playing with house money at the end of the day. And they hold all the cards. They hold all the cards. So I love this talk around asking... the right questions. And we're both really obsessed with that. And, and I do believe I agree with you that it fosters trust. I also believe that the willingness to have tough conversations also fosters trust. And, you know, I had a, I had a recent, I had a recent experience with this. I was having a conversation with one of our members, actually, that was interested in upgrading his services.

14:30 And in this conversation, one of the things that was really clear to me was that this person was playing small. They were not acting in congruence. to the highest version of themselves. And they weren't even acting in congruence to the version of themselves that they identify with. They identified as a high achiever and yet they weren't acting in that way. And, and, You know what? It was a moment where I swallowed hard and I just said, I gave a nice permission frame as we do. We don't just pull out the hammer and whack people with it. But listen, can I be honest with you? Yes.

15:11 And I was honest. I just said, look, I want to be totally honest with you. You identify as a high achiever. You have acted as a high achiever your entire life. You are nowhere near being done. And right now, You're basically looking in the mirror every day and deciding that good enough is good enough. And inside, every time that you decide that that's okay, you're dying a very slow death every time you give yourself permission to continue acting that way. And, you know, it was an amazing thing because in that moment... Most of us don't have those conversations because we're in fear.

15:52 We're in fear of, Oh my God, what if they hang up on me? Oh my God. What if they, you know, what if they tell me I'm an idiot? What if they get angry at me? Right. And the truth is, is that possible? Yeah. If you do it the right way though, in, in my experience, you can say just about anything that you want to say. If you say it the right way and, and, When you are truly coming from a place where you're acting with their best interest in mind, here's the big shift for me in this. So I was thinking about this after we hung up the phone. I literally thought to myself, you know, no matter what happens...

16:34 I brought this man to his truth in that moment. It wasn't about me in that moment. And I wasn't even thinking about making a deal in that moment. I literally thought, man, well, I mean, he could hang up and just cancel his membership altogether if he wants. Yeah. But I had the hard conversation because what I believe is that we hear all the time, man, I almost hate to even use these words now because I feel like it's become so, you know, cliche. But we hear about service overselling and all of that. But what does that actually mean?

17:15 And to me... This is what it means. It doesn't mean you just vomiting and not asking questions the entire call. What it means is when there's a moment where you have an opportunity to call to the highest version of the person that you're speaking to and have that tough conversation, that's when we truly become servants and not salespeople. And when you go soft and you decide not to have that conversation... I'm going to say something that might be controversial, but I actually believe that what you're saying to that person is you're not worth it to me. The only thing I really wanted to do was get your money because I'm not willing to have this tough conversation.

17:59 I got a reframe. It's just it just came to me. Lightning just struck my brain. Truth over transaction. Right. So we, we, I think a lot of times when we hear the word serve, there's an element of inferior or you're a servant, right? And I think the languaging we've got to, we've got to pivot it like truth over transactions, a different animal. And we're, we're in such an interesting space just in with where society, with where culture, right? There's this piece that if you speak your truth, you're afraid you're going to get chopped down, right? It's like we're in a cancel culture deal. Or what if I say the wrong thing? What if they go give me a negative review? What if they go on social media and they tell people I hurt their feelings?

18:42 Or the other part, it kind of goes back again, too, of thinking that if we're just nice enough, people will want what we have. And that's not what people want. They don't want the niceties. They want the truth. And they're coming to us. This is the crazy part for the mass majority of us who are probably listening. They're coming to us as a coach. Like, dude, like back when you and I were growing up playing, playing basketball, football, baseball, whatever the sport was, right? Coaches back then to compared to the, everyone gets a trophy days. Hardcore. Yeah. Dude, like the reality is we have softened society to the point that we've made everybody just like, let me reframe this.

19:23 The people we're working with are way tougher than we give them credit for. And they need those hard conversations that they're just, they're not getting. They're not getting it from their spouse. They're not getting it from their coworkers. They're not getting it from their friends. They're not getting it from their other extended family members. They're coming to us for the truth, not to be a servant. Dude, I love this. And one of the reasons I love what you just said is that in the absence of that truth, like right now, everybody who you have a sales engagement with, regardless of whether we're talking in person, on a phone, on Zoom, whatever, they have a gap. And if you don't believe that, then you're in deep shit right out of the gate.

20:05 But they have some kind of gap. And here's the reality. In the absence of that truth, they cannot bridge that gap. And one of the reasons why is that because most people are not having these conversations, most of the folks that we're going to speak to, no matter how high-powered they are, have lost confidence. And what I mean by that is that... When we don't believe that we can handle the hard stuff, we lose self-confidence. In that moment, when we give them that tough convo and they go, shit, you're absolutely right.

20:48 That gives them that self-confidence. Again, it's renewed self-confidence that shit, they're right. But you know what? I can move forward. I do have options here. I'm not backed into a corner kind of a deal. So I love the way that you said that. What do you think? I feel like also some of these tougher conversations. The funny thing is it reminds me of years ago now. I read a book by Patrick Lencioni called Getting Naked. And I love this book. It's a business fable. Where did that conversation... We just took a total pivot right there, dude.

21:29 This is a children's show, Ryan. Could have been fine, and now it's not fine. Now it's weird. Yeah, well, anyway. Getting Naked by Patrick Lencioni. And the thing about that... One of the things that stands out to me about that book specifically, he kind of weaves in a fictional story that's somewhat factual and then puts in principles of his consulting work in there. And one of the things that I always remember him saying in that book is, Tell your client the honest truth. And he was using it in the context of already being engaged as a consultant.

22:13 And that, by the way, here's another thing. We're talking about sales, but this comes into play when you're working with your clients too. What are you willing to tolerate? And it's not just what are you willing to tolerate in terms of their behavior towards you or your program, but... If you're truly an advocate for this person, whether it's in the sales engagement or when you're already engaged with them, what are you willing to tolerate in terms of their behavior towards themselves? Are you willing to tolerate mediocrity? It was one of the things that I... I mean, I said this to the entire room at our last event that basically like, look, we've restructured the levels of our program to be a certain way so that you're going to outgrow certain levels.

23:01 And if you're hanging out at a lower level and your business is way beyond that, you need to go somewhere else. If you just want the cheaper option, this ain't the place for you. Um, because we don't play with mediocrity here. You know, we, we, we want the elite. So I think there's really something to that. I just want to stack within it because I don't think it's purely limited to a business, right? No. Oh my gosh, no. Like when we look at the amount of people that are getting divorced these days, like, yeah, okay, we can make the argument when financial constraints happen, divorces go up and there's economic whatever. I think way beyond that is as a society, we've fallen victim to when things get hard, we step out.

23:46 Buckle. You know, you look at how many people like my, my brother with, you know, you've met my brother, but with him being at that age where he's dating, right? So he's not in like a monogamous committed relationship. He's frustrated because he goes on these online dating apps, goes on a date with somebody. If they have one disagreement, they're hitting the eject switch and they're just going to go find somebody else hoping they're going to find that magical person where everything that they do fits the perfect mold. And if it gets hard, they just exit stage left. Yeah. Yeah. And we, we've, we've created this monster of people who are unwilling to have the hard conversations and speak their truth and move through it. And I think that it's honestly part of the magic of our sales process is where we get those, those permission frames and get consent from who we're talking to.

24:30 It creates an environment where those hard conversations are not only able to happen, but they're expected or they're, and they're respected when we have it. Right. Yeah. Yep. I agree with that. Do you think... I mean, on that subject specifically, we're talking about permission frames, having tough conversations. I believe there's a way that we have to approach this slightly differently with each different type of personality type. And in some cases, it even becomes a little bit of a rite of passage. But talk about that for a second. Because specifically... We refer to disc and values quite a bit on this show because it's something that's well integrated into everything that we do, both culturally and with our clients and in sales.

25:17 So if you don't know what the disc profile is, go Google it. You'll figure it out. We actually put the disc... We should put the disc profile on the show notes. We can put a link in there. Yep. Put a link in the show notes for you. But specifically, one thing that comes to mind is just dealing with a high D. And for those of you that aren't familiar with disc, this is you think you're type A, hard driving, quick to anger, fast paced moving type person. Um, that's who we're talking about, but how do we, with a person like that, there's actually funky little nuance about having that tough conversation, what it does.

25:58 I wanted to talk about this for a minute. If, if a high D drops an objection in front of you and you don't step up and hit it out of the park, they're going to see you as weak, or they're going to see you as somebody that when there's challenges that come up in the future, you're going to let them off the hook. And so they'll see you as an inferior position. And the trickiest part, and I think that this is my belief, and we should do a study on this, but my hallucination, human beings, one of our biggest fears is the fear of being judged. And so we mix up having an honest conversation with judgment.

26:38 And I think there's something really critical to this because we need to beat the ever loving shit out of limiting beliefs. Yeah. And be very delicate with the people's souls. Their souls are pure. Their beliefs are fucked. Yeah. That's why they're talking to us. If their beliefs were in alignment, they wouldn't be talking to us because they'd have the results that they're looking for. So we can literally make an assumption that 100% of the people we get on the phone or on Zoom or in front of, their belief is the problem. They, as a human being, being is the key operative word there, their soul is pure. Yeah. but they've got jacked up beliefs. So we have to make sure, I want to make sure that when we're talking about this, I want everyone to speak their truth as it relates to their beliefs.

27:22 That's very different than saying you're a piece of shit as a human. Like, no, that's not what we're saying. We're saying that your beliefs are shitty, which is why you have shitty results, which is why you feel the way that you feel. Yeah, 100%. So high Ds, by the way, if you don't have that conversation, high Ds are going to go, yep, you can't coach me. You can't handle me. Yep. Amen. Which is a funny thing. I mean, they'll posture as if they're going to just run you over. And the very moment that you're willing to rise to the occasion, now all of a sudden, you become best friends. And it's funny because some of the biggest pains in the ass sales calls that I've ever had had turned into the best clients.

28:03 We just had somebody else the other day literally wanted to give us the objection purely because they wanted to see how we would tackle it to see if we would buckle and fall victim and show up incongruent to what we preach. So there's those pains in the asses too. But at the end of the day, they're awesome human beings. But guess what? That's their pattern. They want to test the poor spouses that they have. Oh, man. True. So true. Well, you know, I was thinking also in the context of this conversation and having the harder conversation, we go back to the idea of fear of any kind around this kind of thing.

28:43 And one of the things that if you've listened to this show previously, you've heard us say is that we always want to be the buyer. We always want to be the buyer. And in order to be the buyer, it means that you're willing to walk away from the deal. So going back to the conversation that I had with one of our members recently, I was literally willing to walk away from the deal. 100%. I was willing for him to cancel, to yell at me, to tell me I was full of shit, tell me he never wanted to talk to me again. Yeah. And the willingness to walk away is so insanely powerful because it's powerful with the people that you know, but it's even more powerful with the ones that you don't.

29:30 Because now all of a sudden, I mean, no one likes the stage five clinger. Sure. No one likes that. No one likes the person who's like, Oh God, oh, you know, but I don't want to lose you. No, we don't want that. We want someone who's going to stand on their own two feet and go... That's cool. You don't like it? Bounce. I'm good. You know? And I think there's such magic to that because I think a lot of times this is where, gosh, Brooke people, I feel like go so wrong on this because they want so desperately to, they want to show someone that they're willing to ask and grovel and that the person, they think that...

30:20 They think that they're going to show compassion and desire by asking more and falling all over themselves to close the deal and all the things. And it couldn't be farther from the truth. If that's really what you're looking for, you need to be willing to speak your truth, to call forth the greatest version of them, to truly speak to their fears and their limiting beliefs, and to 100% detach yourself from the outcome. Because when we're in fear of that, we're attached to the outcome. And there's very low likelihood of success at that stage.

31:05 No, I'm grateful that you spoke your truth to the client of ours, right? Like being able to hold that space. I'm ordering bumper stickers and t-shirts for truth over transactions. But I like it. You know, there's this piece where we get so wrapped up in our own outcome, which is if we're going back to the servant leader conversation around things, that's the opposite of what servant leadership is. Like we're here to serve from a place of truth and. And we've got to be freaking leaders. Like it's servant leadership, not servitude. Right. So we've got to speak that truth for the sake of them having a real conversation about evolving, about ascending, about expanding, whatever word we want to throw on here.

31:51 I'm dropping my woo-woo words here for our crowd. You are. You're going full woo on this one. I'm going full woo. Pattern interrupt. Yeah, there's this piece of being willing to walk away from the deal. I love that you framed it that way and you brought it into the ether. When we're in scarcity or if we're thinking of the numbers for the month and we've got to hit our outcomes or I've got to hit my sales, my enrollment rate or whatever the heck we get caught in. That's great when you're doing your business planning. That is terrible to be in that space if you're actually engaging with a human being. Amen. Yep. And that comes back to connection, which at the end of the day is that that's what brings everything that we've been talking about full circle.

32:34 Because what is of the utmost importance is that we can actually connect. And that's what people are craving right now. They're craving trust and certainty, but that trust and certainty comes through genuine connection. And we do that through asking great questions and going deeper and speaking to the highest version of them and being the buyer and having the tough conversations. So, dude, I loved this episode. This was so much fun and I feel like so timely. Anything else that you would want to leave folks with in terms of some of the frameworks that we talked about today or messaging around these types of conversations?

33:19 Yeah, I would just say this, you know, we're, we're all going to fall. I don't even want to use the word victim. We're all going to fall. We're going to fall into that trap of allowing our own fears and insecurities to come to the surface. And it's going to happen. And there's going to be calls where it comes out. And there's gonna be times where we really want to say it and we don't. And we're going to kick ourselves at the end of the conversation. Just know, you're not limited to that conversation. You can go back and you can say, Hey, you know what? Yeah. It actually was on my heart to say something. And I just want to let you know, I dropped the ball and I didn't say it. Go back, speak your truth, send them a voice memo, get them back on the call, send them a video, drive to their fricking house and go back and speak your truth. You don't have to just accept where you've been. But what I'll say is this, if you find yourself in that mode more often than not, you're You got to do the work, the same kind of work you're asking your people to do to navigate through their fears so they can get a better quality of their life.

34:13 Make sure you're eating your own cooking and you're doing the work so you can navigate through your own fears so you can serve people at a higher level. Yes, absolutely. And you know what? I think it... Yeah, I agree. You know what? I'm just going to leave that there. That's a mic drop. I'm going to leave it there. It's good. I'm just going to let that marinate. It's beautiful. Bro, really good stuff. So excited to have us both back in the studio today. And we've got so much more good stuff. that is coming your way in Q4 with the podcast. And if you're interested, by the way, in coming down and joining us at our next event, as of this recording, our next event is coming up October.

35:02 Thank God it's not October. December 3rd through the 6th, 2025 in Delray Beach, Florida. You can go to empirepartners.net forward slash event. And in fact, regardless of when you're listening to this, you can go to empirepartners.net forward slash event and take a look at our upcoming event regardless of when you're listening to this episode. My man, thank you as always. Thank you for bringing the heat. Appreciate you, honor you. And yeah, thank you for listening to this episode of the Coaching Equation Podcast. Until next time, take care. Take care, buddy. Thank you for listening to this episode of The Coaching Equation.

35:45 Please hit subscribe wherever you listen to your podcasts. And if you got value out of this episode, we would be so grateful if you would share it out with a friend and leave us a review on iTunes or your favorite platform. To learn more about Empire Partners or to inquire about working with Ryan and Brooke, please visit www.empirepartners.io forward slash go. I'm a genius.