Handling the tough objections (Tom Alaimo, Growth Account Executive @ Gong)

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1. 3:18

   Something that is not going to pass that filter is something like how to 10X your revenue in three easy steps. Very salesy. People are going to delete that. Second piece is first line. You want to personalize it or tailor it a quick two to three sentences on the challenges they have and how you can help them. “And then an interest based call to action with one ask.” I hate when people make it to Chris Vossy of asking, would you be ridiculously opposed? Keep it simple. Down to chat, down for a conversation. Are you open to a call? Cut out the stats, cut out the links and keep it simple on the prospecting emails. Beautiful.

   In Cold email calls to action

2. 3:32

   they have and how you can help them. And then an interest based call to action with one ask. I hate when people make it to Chris Vossy of asking, would you be ridiculously opposed? Keep it simple. Down to chat, down for a conversation. “Are you open to a call?” Cut out the stats, cut out the links and keep it simple on the prospecting emails. Beautiful. Tom, would you be ridiculously horribly opposed to giving me tip number two? I would not be. Number two is Trojan horse prospecting. So you're going to open up sales navigator, create a few saved searches.

   In Cold email calls to action

3. 10:20

   One thing that's tough is on cold calls, I feel like I can respond to those pretty well. Someone says, I'm not interested. But if someone replies over email with, I'm not interested, or call me in six months, or I'm on X competitor, I don't always know how to respond over email to objections. Do you have any tactics around that? “Yeah, I mean, the first thought that I have is to not try to respond on email.” If they have their phone number and their signature, you have their number from whatever contact provider you use, I would just pick up the phone and call them and say, hey Arman, thanks for the email. It sounds like it's really busy over there. Let's say you said call me or email me in six months and ask what's changing over the next six months and what's going on there.

   In Objection handling

4. 12:30

   I would add them, right? I would send them probably like a two-sentence message that, you know, connection request that would say, you know, hey Nick, saw you just landed at Pave, congrats on the new gig. I'm working on, you know, the partnership between Pave and Gong. Let me know if I could ever be helpful. There's no ask. There's no call to action. I'm not giving any specifics. “You actually get a response more frequently than you would think to that.” Just kind of like kind message, especially if your company has any sort of reputation in the market. And so I might get a response from Nick that says, hey, Tom, thanks for the note. Really appreciate it. I'll talk with you later. And at least that opens the door for conversation. You know that I exist, you know, I'm a person, you know, I work at Gong and you're not banging

   In Connection and message outreach

5. 15:55

   you know, he said we were too expensive. I don't think I did a good enough job as a sales professional to really show him the value in what we're able to do. And it sounds like some things have changed on your end. And on our end, do you think he'd be open to that conversation? I think if what happens after that meeting is Armand goes to Nick and says, hey, I'm talking to Gong, that's just going to be a no. I think “you need to do the homework to know what's changed on their side.” your side. Maybe there's product innovation. Maybe you've changed your pricing. Maybe there's a new option that you have for customers. And I think you need to have that conversation with Nick and earn the right to be able to talk through that with him because most of the selling, especially at mid-market enterprise level, is done when you're not in the room, unfortunately.

   In Closed-lost win-back

6. 24:12

   yeah, Arman, that I totally hear you on that. I'm curious where something like that's coming from. Typically where when I have these conversations, usually that means like one of three things. Usually I may not have done a good enough job highlighting the value of gong. It's possible this could be like an actual budget, you know, dollars and cents issue, or sometimes it's just, “hey, I want to get the best deal possible, but I am interested in gong.” would you bucket yourself into any of those three? Yeah, I think it's a good call out. The original budget this year didn't include, shocker, didn't include conversation intelligence software. And I really like what you guys have, but to spend, I don't know, 50 or 70K on conversation intelligence

   In Price and budget objections

7. 29:35

   champion when you are reengaging closed loss opportunities. Don't just send them in blind when their executive sponsor has already rejected you. Explain where you lost in the past and where they can help you. Number two, when you're sending prospecting emails, please keep those emails “light. Fewer links, fewer bolds, fewer bullets. It should be mostly plain text.” stop overcomplicating your CTAs. Don't get me wrong. I love Chris Voss, but I see are you horribly, horrendously opposed, or would it be the worst idea to be horribly opposed? Just keep it a light, low friction CTA. And then lastly, number four, when you're unpacking the objection, this is too expensive.

   In Cold email formatting