Episode #436: Kendra Lee
Meet
Kendra Lee
Sales and marketing lead generation expert, Kendra Lee started her sales career in accounting, failed IBM’s entry level sales exam and was told she would be a sales failure without an engineering background. Despite that demotivating start, Kendra Lee entered sales and proved those nay-sayers wrong. She turned her knowledge of numbers into a lead generation approach that propelled her to the top 1% of sales professionals. She founded KLA Group, a sales and marketing agency that helps SMB B2B companies get more customers and is the author of The Sales Magnet.
Our Mission Is To Change The Negative Perception Of Sales People
Our Vision Is A World Where Selling Is A Profession To Be Proud Of
In this episode, she explains how to use thoughtful questions to uncover the prospect’s true motivations without setting “traps.” Building trust is key, as is showing prospects that their best interests are at the heart of the conversation. Tune in to learn Kendra’s top strategies for confidently addressing objections with empathy and skill.
Outline of This Episode
- [0:45] The most common objections salespeople face
- [1:50] The biggest mistake salespeople make
- [3:29] Kendra’s strategy for responding to objections
- [5:05] The role of empathy in handling objections
- [6:58] How to handle objections with confidence
- [9:02] Kendra’s top 3 objection handling dos and don’ts
- [10:29] Overcoming a price and scope objection
The biggest mistake salespeople make
Sales objections often center around price, especially in times of inflation when prospects are highly sensitive to costs. Many salespeople make the mistake of rushing to respond to objections without fully understanding what’s driving them.
Kendra encourages sales reps to pause, listen, and consider whether a concern is a genuine objection or a misunderstanding. By staying calm and letting the prospect talk, you can gain valuable insights before responding.
Kendra’s strategy for responding to objections
Kendra advises asking questions to genuinely understand the prospect’s concerns—not to “trap” them into agreement. The goal is to uncover the root issue without pressuring the prospect. If the conversation feels manipulative, any unresolved objections will linger long after the call ends. By asking thoughtful questions and using what you know about the prospect, you can address the real concern directly.
The role of empathy in handling objections
To build trust, Kendra believes it’s essential for salespeople to show that they have the prospect’s best interests in mind. Listening with empathy and allowing them to voice their concerns openly goes a long way. It’s okay to say, “Let me get back to you” or “Tell me more.” This approach fosters respect and shows you’re committed to providing a genuine solution rather than rushing to close.
Overcoming a price and scope objection
Kendra had a prospect with a six-figure opportunity for what they only wanted as training. When Kendra’s company does training, they evaluate the sales team to learn their strengths and weaknesses. It’s a significant project. It adds time to the project and increases the price.
They told Kendra they didn’t want the same program for every salesperson. They also told Kendra they didn’t want to spend money on evaluations. It was a consensus among the decision-making team of eight people. That’s the most important step in getting them their desired outcome (to uncover and sell more new opportunities).
How did Kendra move past it? Listen to the episode to hear the story!
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What was a pivotal moment or experience in your career that fundamentally changed the way you handle objections, and how did it shift your approach?
I learned how to handle objections with a 3-step process in IBM sales school. But it wasn’t until I started training objection handling that it really sank in. Before that, I followed the process I’d learned, and it was effective. It was when I had to train my team of IBM inside salespeople that I sat back and thought about what I was doing in each of the steps and how the prospect might be feeling. Why they might be asking. Why they had objections at different points of the sales process, and what I was actually trying to accomplish in getting past the objection. For me, my whole approach to objections shifted. I moved from objection handling being a process to a conversation centered around the prospect.
Can you share a specific technique or framework you’ve used to successfully overcome a tough objection? Please provide a brief example or case study where it worked effectively.
For me, the most important thing with objections is to change my perspective. Objections are actually concerns. Knowing this shifts my thinking from a position of fear of losing to one of curiosity about the concern. Curiosity allows me to relax and dig in with questions to better understand it. I ask a lot of questions and use information they’ve shared with me previously to ask even more. Once I better understand it, I can answer their objection. At the end, I confirm if I addressed their concern, never calling it an objection. If I haven’t fully addressed it, I dive in with more questions and do it all again!
Objections can sometimes feel like dead ends in conversations. Can you share a particularly challenging objection you faced and the steps you took to turn it into a win?
The most challenging objection was when we were selling a new outsourced sales management service and had no references. The prospect wanted to speak with others who had used our service. The new offering was expensive and had exceptional ROI, but we couldn’t prove it because we hadn’t yet done it. The conundrum in this situation was, do you tell a prospect they are the first, or not? We had done similar sales leader and sales rep coaching, but never this form of outsourced sales management. In the end, we provided references related to the new outsourced sales management service and described in detail the process we were going to employ with them. Combined, this gave the prospect confidence we could do what we had proposed. Three years later, the company has grown from $16M to $30M under our services – even better than we could have hoped.
What are the top three tools, resources, or training programs you recommend for sales professionals who want to improve their objection-handling skills?
Wow! AI has taken sales technology to new heights especially for objection handling. Originally I would have told you the best tool is a call guide with your top 10 most common objections and 3 ways to handle them, including what to say and strategies such as sending a case study. While still an excellent tool, now you can have that at your fingertips in your CRM. So my answer is:
The top 10 most common objections in a playbook inside your CRM where you can pull it up immediately during the conversation. Have a set of playbooks by key market you serve if the answers vary by target industry.
Email templates with written responses to common objections you receive through email during prospecting and after a demo or proposal. Later in the sales process these objections take the form of inquiries like “can you do this…” or concerns such as “I’m not sure you can…”
A sales follow-up sequence / journey / series ready at your fingertips in your CRM to send post-objection with supporting information such as a video, blog, report, or case study.
With evolving buyer behaviors and advancements in AI and technology, how do you see objection handling changing in the coming years, and what advice would you give to salespeople to stay ahead?
I believe AI will continue to provide productivity saving tools for reps such as the ones I mentioned above. With those in place, we’ll be able to measure how the tools are used, which will lead to better coaching from managers and more AI real-time coaching. We’ll also have the data to see which objections salespeople are encountering the most and which tools are they using most frequently. With that data we’ll be able to determine more tools that will help with productivity, more coaching to provide, and which training to offer. It’s a cycle of performance improvement built for the success of every salesperson.
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