Name: Mastering Objections: How Questions & Empathy Win Clients
Uploaded: 2026-08-19T18:29:17.850Z
Duration: 56 min 30 s
Description: Mastering Objections: How Questions & Empathy Win Clients

Transcript for "Mastering Objections: How Questions & Empathy Win Clients": Hi, everyone. Thanks for joining us today. I'm Scott Barker. I'm joined by Dan Dalpiegel. I'll go through our bios and our background and our current titles in just a moment. Today, we're covering mastering objections, how questions and empathy win clients. Our goal here today is to set you up to expand your practice, win more clients, and retain more clients through some artful practice around objection handling. So, wanna give you a bit of background on who Dan is and who I am and why we're equipped to provide this level of guidance to, all of you who are in attendance today. So first off, I'll start with Dan. So Dan Dal Deegan served as a board member of Great Gray Group, and he's a veteran sales leader whose career spans, many senior roles at Salesforce, Oracle, and other enterprise tech companies. He spent decades coaching high performing sales teams on the skills that separate good sellers from great ones. We've been working with Dan on a number of initiatives. He's been supporting Great Gray Group, both RPAG and Great Gray Trust Company in a number of different capacities, including hosting, the Great Great Trust Company, podcast from great to great. Dan, welcome. Thank you, Scott. I'm delighted to be here. Dan, anything else you wanna add about your background and and why you're an expert in objection handling? Yes. Thank you. I'm laughing at the word expert because I'm on a continual journey of learning. So we're never really done in getting enlightened by the marketplace and by our customers through those experiences. Yes. I've spent my entire career in sales and sales leadership and then eventually executive leadership. And what I found to be, as Scott said, the difference between good and great business partners, not just sellers, but people who have enduring long term relationships with with their clients, is the empathy and the great listening skills that they bring to those relationships and those conversations. And the way that manifests most meaningfully is how you handle objections and turn what feels like a liability into an asset, and that's what we're gonna uncover today. Yeah. You hit on something interesting. Expertise is definitely a spectrum, and I'm definitely, a little I'm you're look you know, humbled to be in your presence and lower on the spectrum than you are, but I've got I've got a bit of experience here myself. So for those of you who don't don't know me, I serve as the chief marketing officer of Great Gray Group, providing strategic and operational leadership across both RPAG and Great Gray Trust Company. I've been fortunate to be with eight really fantastic firms on both sides of the table, so both handling objections and supporting sales team and objection handle it, sales teams and objection handling, but also in delivering objections to vendors, as well. Marketing is well known for having budget to burn, and so we get a lot of vendor pitches. And, you know, I've really been on both sides of the table, but more importantly, I've been, through a career in product marketing and solution marketing, I've really built a lot of messaging positioning, sales enablement that client facing teams can use and and really carry into their hardest conversations. So that's what we're here to help you with, guy today is to, provide a conversation, and this is really a conversation between Dan and I, that gives you both a pragma that gives you a pragmatic framework for more effective selling, really shows you how to turn stop signs into revenue, and that's not being bombastic. That's being truthful. But our goal is to give you, to give you the tools so that you can generate additional opportunities to help grow your practice. So, Dan, before we get in anywhere near any frameworks, and you do have you have a couple a three frameworks in here, I believe. Right. You know, how did you come to this topic? Of all things a sales leader could could care about, why objections? No. It's a great question, Scott. And I'd say early in my sales career and you've you've got in the bio here. I started my career at Oracle, which at the time, nobody knew who they were. We I joined before we went public in 1986. And one of the first lessons I learned was that when you are trying to understand the unlock for winning business with either a new customer or expanding your footprint with an existing customer, the most important thing in a sales conversation is, first of all, to recognize it's not just a sales conversation. To the buyer, it is a buying journey. And we're gonna differentiate those two things in our conversation today. It might sound like the exact same thing from two different points of view, the buyer and the seller. But when a seller really understands, embraces, and immerses him or herself in that customer's buying journey as a business partner, it's it's like literally walking from your end of the table to the other end of the table and sitting next to the buyer and looking at the world through their lens. And just that simple metaphor allows you to start to unlock things like an objection, which on the surface feels like a roadblock, just as you said, Skye. You called it a stop sign. That's a great metaphor for it. When in fact, what an objection really is that I came to learn early in my career, it's a gift. I'm gonna expand on that. Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, this really is the frame for the next forty minutes or so. You know, objection is is it seems like on face value, it's a stop sign. And I know I've definitely put that stop sign up a few times with vendors when I'm in conversations with them. Right. But I am actually and it's more subconscious than it is conscious. I am looking for the way that the that that that seller then responds to my objection. Yes. Sometimes there is a specific answer I'm looking for, but a lot of times I'm because Dan has referenced, I'm really just looking for, I'm looking for some how the the seller responds to my objection. Yes. Go ahead, Dan. Yeah. And in fact, you know, how that how that seller responds, I think also is indicative of, have they encountered this before? So whatever the objection might be, I choose to look at it. And I was I was trained very early in my career, both formally and just informally through great mentors that I was very lucky to have in my life that are still dear friends of mine. To understand that that that gift that is the objection can really be reframed as the customer saying, I can see myself partnering with you and buying from you if fill in the blank. And so in that respect, the objection is really the key to your closing plan. If you take all the objections a customer gives you or a prospective customer, all those objections really constitute bullet points in your closing plan. If we address this issue, that issue, and this issue, so so then we're free and clear, and you can see your way through to partnering together and starting this this journey, this mutually beneficial journey, or with an existing customer that you're growing, expanding on and growing that journey. And when you look at it that way, it changes your body language. It changes your stress levels. It it makes you lean in proactively instead of being back on your heels reactively. So if you think about an objection, really, really think about it versus just reacting to it. I know we'll get to this later. But, like, an objection can actually be a door opening if you handle it the right way. And, Dan, I know you have some I think you've told me this story, over dinner before, but, you know, I know you have couple you have a great story from earlier in your career where you came to. this realization and the, you know, the light bulb came on. That's right. So I've had I've had many moments in my career where objections and and first of all, if if it sounds like if we hear the word expert or the phrase, you know, mastering anything, trust me. That is only through trial and error and having skinned my elbows and knees many, many times on these on these conversations with customers. So in other words, the best way to to come through something with comfort and knowledge, how to address it, is to screw it up several times in your career. Make those mistakes and nothing boy, failure is a great teacher, much better teacher than success is. And so I've had this experience, and I and I I like to frame it in pop culture. And so I'm gonna use examples from movies, and I think it's some of the content we're about to show here is looking at examples of how you know, first of all, the types of objections that you get from customers and what they're rooted in, like, what the source of an objection might be. And because they're they should be treated respectfully, first of all. And we're gonna talk about a framework for accepting an objection and internalizing it and playing it back to the customer. And and it's proven to be very effective. And somebody taught me this early in my career, and I'm very grateful for that. And so it's one of the reasons that I like to pay it forward. But how you respond to that objection first requires us, I believe, in my experience, to understand the source of the objection and what flavor it is because there are, in fact, many flavors of objections. So when when we go ahead to that that part of the content, and we'll take a look at that. Yeah. So early. in my career and and even still today, I experience every one of these flavors of objections. And by the way, if it'll probably be obvious to our audience. You're gonna see as you as you hear this and see this content. You're gonna see examples of how that manifests in your professional life when you're establishing or growing a relationship with a buyer, a customer, as well as your personal life, with your life partner, with your children. And so these are widely universal skills that you're developing here and how to how to get to an outcome that is mutually beneficial and get through what feels like a barrier, which in fact, like we've said, is a gift, this notion of an objection. So it is in its in its essence a barrier to closure. But it can be all of these other things too. So as an example, for the buyer, it might be tangible and factual. It could also be imagined. In other words, there's some fears and anxieties that human beings are are known for. It's in our DNA. As as homo sapiens, we are we're we're wired this way, is, to to have a fight or flight instinct when presented with something that is challenging or what we initially see as a threat. And so you've got to understand if if somebody's heard a rumor about a competitor, about you, your company, about your product, about projects like this, but it's not fact based. We gotta understand where the objection is coming from by asking qualifying questions. Right? Sometimes they're they're real facts. Somebody has translated into an objection. Sometimes it's imagined, and You gotta understand that. And you're not gonna treat either with more or less respect and diligence, but understanding it will flavor how you respond. One of my favorite distinctions, though, is that the best objection is the one that is identified by somebody raising their hand and saying, hey, Scott. What about this? Because now you have a chance to address it. The worst kind of objection is the one that is silent, that somebody in the audience let's say it's a one to many presentation. Somebody in the audience has a concern. They have an objection. They have a reason that they think, this isn't gonna work out for us. We're not gonna partner with these people. But they don't express it. So part of our job is to create the setting, the climate in the meeting and in the entire continuum of the sales cycle where the customer is comfortable opening up to us and expressing the objection. And that is reflected, I believe, in the openness and the collaboration with which we conduct the conversations and the intelligence of the open ended questions that we ask. So if you feel like a customer's got something to share and you just sense from their body language they're resisting, but they're not articulating why, Asking great unlock questions like, is there anything concerning you? Is there any reason that you can think of that you wouldn't wanna move forward with this project or specifically with our organization? You know, questions like that that are open ended basically, give the customer the invitation to share, and you gotta get them to share even though it's something you might not wanna hear initially. You mentioned that this is this this skill set, like, spans beyond the professional life, but just one other example from a non seller standpoint. You know, you a good candidate, a good job candidate in an interview will often ask that question at the end of the interview. Hey. Yes. Do you have any concerns about me as a candidate? So I I I agree with you. I think this skill set can really span beyond your typical seller buyer relationship. Indeed. Yeah. It comes into play in job interviews, comes into play in, you know, everybody you interact with throughout a day is gonna have versions of objections that you're handling, especially in your personal life and your family, life partner, children. So you're constantly getting a drill and an exercise in developing this muscle memory. We're all sellers at the end of the day. It doesn't matter. You know, we're all selling something. it. That's it. So, Dan, are these all are these all created equal? Like, all these different types of objections, do you I know you mentioned that the silent objections are the killers. But aside from that and there are tools that you can apply that help extract those silent objections. But aside from that, like, are all all these different flavors created equal, or are there any other variables at play. here? Good good point, Scott. I'd say the flavors of the objections, which we're looking at here, are certainly important, and you gotta get to that, especially get them to be aired in the first place. But then the source, the the person who articulates the objection, we're gonna take a look at later in this, content because let's say a CEO of an organization that we're trying to partner with, a prospective customer, raises his or her hand during a presentation, there's gonna be a natural tendency to say, okay. Stop everything. The CEO wants to talk, and you're gonna naturally have an instinct to try to direct the entire meeting and the whole conversation to that person to understand what she or he wants to share, which you should do and treat with the same kind of respect that you do anybody else who raises their hand, even the individual contributor in the operations team or any other function within the company. And you don't want to, in the eyes of the whole audience, play to the king or queen, too overtly. Right? You wanna treat everybody in kind of an egalitarian way, like every objection matters, and you wanna address them all. So that's a real delicate balancing act. We're gonna talk later about ways to do that. So they're all created equal. They should largely be treated treated equally, but it's important to understand the nuance and the differences, sounds. like. That's right. Do you, what about motivation? How does that come into play, Dan? Does that how does how do you distinguish the different types of objections based on the the driving motivator behind it? I mean, sales and marketing really are all about psychology at the end of the day. Sure. Yes. So true. So take an example, Scott, where there's somebody in the audience that raises their hand, and it's somebody that you just know. And let's say you you you you have some evidence to back this up, maybe a previous relationship or some other interactions with this this player on that buying team. And any and we're gonna introduce the concept of an evaluation committee because we're gonna talk about that later about how, you know, a retirement plan sponsor organization might have a committee making a decision about employee benefits and how they're gonna align. So one member of that team raises their hand, and you happen to know that she or he, came from an organization that used a competitor and liked them and had a great experience. And you might also know that that person that you've heard from other players in that organization is advocating for that competitor of yours. So when that person raises their hand, there's gonna be a natural tendency for you to to suspect, okay. This is gonna be a zinger. This is gonna be a trap. And a very deft skill we need to develop is to treat every objection with a wide open front door of of a welcoming tone and to do what you should do with every objection once somebody articulates it. First thing you do, thank them for their openness and candor. That's hard to do. You might be doing it through clenched teeth if somebody is saying you know, if they're setting a trap for you. The worst thing to do is say, oh, I know you're you're rooting for our competitors. So you're gonna you're gonna give me a trap. So enough with you. We're gonna I'm gonna call on somebody else. I mean, you can't come across that way. Right? And we see evidence of that, you know, in you know, if if you wanna watch political news on TV, you see a lot of people, you know, people shouting over each other. Right? You don't want it to deteriorate into that. So treating every objection with gratitude and with a welcoming tone, and then we're gonna talk about the process that we use literally to reference customer success story to address them. It allows you to take the venom out of the objection. What might sound like a zinger that looks like a trap, there are ways to twist that around and turn what I mentioned earlier, looks like a liability, and you can turn it into an asset. This also works with an eight year old who's asking for maybe dessert before dinner. Anyways, that's not an objection. Do you, I guess, one more one more point on this. I don't wanna belabor, like, this the the different types and the flavors, but I think another thing that I find kind of fascinating about this is, you know, the taxonomization of of different types of objections. As a seller, does that slow you down to have to think and process the taxonomy of the specific objection in the moment, especially when you're handling all objections essentially the same, whether it's coming from the CEO or a manager? Or Right. That's a good point. that It's it could be easy to fall into? a feeling an anxious feeling of urgency when fielding objections, especially if you're in a one to many presentation with an evaluation committee. It's a little easier in one on one conversations clearly when somebody's objecting because you got one member of the audience to deal with. When it's one to many, there's more complexity. And you will feel at times I'm big on movie references as we'll see momentarily. It'll feel at times like you are Luke Skywalker with a lightsaber trying to fend off blaster fire. Right? And, you know, when you're really good at this, it may look like that to the audience, but what you get good at is slowing the game down. Right? Another analogy would be like an NFL quarterback. As a rookie, the game seems so fast. These athletes are big. They're fast. They're coming at me at light speed. The more experience you get, you feel like the game slows down, just happening in your mind. In reality, the game is just as fast and probably getting faster. The athletes are better. But in your mind, your experience level allows you to anticipate. It can and it can make it feel like it's slower and the game is playing at your pace. And that's how it it gets with objection handling that, like you said, the taxonomy of all the different sources of objections and the different flavors of them, it allows you through through learning the process, and this is where the process, gives you that power, I believe, in my experience, is that the process of first restating the objection, expressing gratitude for the expression of the objection from the per the the audience member, and and developing almost a camaraderie with that audience member. When you when you say things like, I've heard that before. I'm glad you asked. Thank you for that. I'm glad you asked. Right away, it takes the contentious tone that might be present in the room when the person states the objection and removes it. When you say great point, thank you for that. I'm really glad you made I'm glad you raised your hand and made that point because and now it sets the audience up to expect, wow. This guy's probably got something really good to say because he's welcoming it. He's not resisting it. His body language isn't closed. He's not retreating. He's actually closing the distance, and he's becoming more even more intimate and familiar with us. So how's that? Like, boy, I I better listen up because it seems like he's about to say something I should hear. Probably changes your hormone balance and, you know, blood levels and whatnot too because you're expressing gratitude for the objection. And, you know, if you if you are I'm not a psychologist, but play one on TV or a webinar. But the, you know, if you believe the research there that if you express gratitude, it kind of rewires your brain. And so then you're probably rewiring your brain to be able to better address the rest of the conversation because you're calmer, Great. Yes. you feel grateful. Excellent. Great point. I I think it it definitely does that. I can feel my pulse rate slowing when I take that approach. The inverse is also true. If I fall into the trap, which we still do, this is a process you gotta do drills and exercise just like any muscle. And if I fall out of the habit, and if I and if I go into some old bad habits of being contentious or resistive or defensive, and we'll look at some examples of how that can happen, then the opposite is true. I'll feel my pulse rate quick and, you know, beads of sweat show up in my forehead. Right? So so being human and demonstrating humanity and, you know, expressions of gratitude, finding common ground with people, Instead of focusing on the areas we disagree, focusing on something we agree about. You know, expressing gratitude for somebody sharing their perspective. And, boy, aren't there lessons in today's climate of of of divergence, right, in society? Aren't there lessons to be learned here on on ways to close those distances with other human beings? Yeah. So before we hop into the one of the the more fun parts of the discussion, I mean, it is worth spending that extra minute and or second in the pocket, you know, because you trust your trust your legs, trust your release speed, Right. and carry that quarterback analogy forward. So let's jump in. There I think we spent a lot of time on the different varieties and flavors and sources. We've even dug into sources now. I think and you've described the right way to approach objections, ad nauseam already, which is great. Let's spin it around and think about some of those defensive responses that maybe raise your cortisol levels and, you know, set you off balance when you don't express gratitude, trust the process. Let's look at some of those common common reactions to objections, both mostly bad, but also good too. That's right. And that's a great point because I think when you when you find yourself doing it, it's like in any athletic endeavor or any new skill you're developing. When you find yourself falling into a bad habit and you can check yourself, you can course correct. Right? And so one of the most immediate human reactions to an objection is denial. And I like framing it in humor and in this case, you know, humorous movie scenes. So if you remember Jim Carrey's performance in Dumb and Dumber, when he utters the famous line when she says, you know, I'll go out on a date with you when hell freezes over. And he says, so you're saying I've got a chance. Right? Okay. So one of our first jobs in professional sales is to qualify and figure out, is this a winnable opportunity? And sometimes we are so glass half full in our perspective as professional sellers that we forget to really qualify and figure out, is this the right ideal customer profile for my products and services? And we sometimes pursue deals past the point of realization that this is not a good fit, and we're probably not gonna win. And there and, boy, when the objection shows up initially, it can be disguised as the kind of objection that I can deal with and still proceed through the sales cycle. Sometimes we have to take pause and usually after the meeting and ask ourselves, boy, of all the objections I got today, but could some of those be a sign that this potential prospective customer is not a great fit for us. And as we're using your teammates and having other eyes and ears in the room and perspective and even seeking the counsel of mentors can help you there. But we are all, and I too certainly have fallen into the trap of denial previously. Yeah. That's one in a million. So you're saying there's a chance. right. And then my another favorite of mine is is in the neighborhood I grew up in the South Side Of Chicago, what we call getting your Irish up. Meaning, you know, you can feel your chest puff out. You can feel yourself, you know, you know, rising up to the confrontation with an objection and being argumentative and being contentious, and that never works. And even I use the analogy today when you flip on the television and sadly, you know, political news, you see a lot of people shouting at each other. Even in sports media, you know, people shouting opinions at each other. And usually, they do it for effect and it, you know, maybe drives ratings, but trust me, it does not drive bringing human beings closer together to partner together in a business, b to b or b to c, relationship that's gonna be enduring. So confrontation generally is a win lose scenario. And I've never had, a conversation with a prospective customer where, especially when I was younger, if I fell into the trap of becoming argumentative, like in this scene, you can tell this is Jack Nicholson from A Few Good Men when he's on the stand, and Tom Cruise is is interrogating him very aggressively as a young up and coming attorney and and basically traps him. And and Jack Nicholson self incriminates because he's so, appalled that this this kid is interrogating him and challenging his authority. And so that was a win lose. You know? Jack Nicholson's character, the colonel, made a great point. He was confrontational. He he laid it out there and ended up going to jail. And now our outcomes are not as obviously dramatic in professional sales, but when you become argumentative, there is no winning an argument with a prospective customer. Let me say that again. There's no world in which I, at least, have ever felt like I won an argument with a prospective customer, like, that my point won out over theirs. My porn had more validity, more factual, foundational proof. Doesn't matter. When you argue with a customer, you lose. You, the seller, lose if you argue with a customer, which is very subtly different than qualifying or challenging a customer. I believe in being a challenger, like the challenger sales methodology. Bring commercial insights, have a point of view, challenge the customer, which is subtle and nuanced. If you go so far as it being confrontational or argumentative and you make the customer feel dumb or less informed than you are because you wanna win an argument, there's no winning then. That actually segues, amazingly into the next the next bad example. Now this one's a little more subtle because I'm not sure everybody knows this movie scene. And I when I go do a brief detour into my fascination with pop culture and films in particular, this is, of course, from Glengarry Glen Ross, and this is Alec Baldwin's very brief moment in that film. It was not in the original screenplay written by David Mamet, because, Gun, Gary, Gun, Ross was a very successful Broadway play, before it was a film. And in the making of the film, they thought, this could be spicy. Let's add this character. He appeared on screen for seven minutes, and he was so impactful and so compelling. He was nominated for a best supporting actor Oscar for for seven minutes on screen. And in fact, his character has no name. When asked what is his name, he had a very vulgar response for one of the other actors. So this is a classic case of, in in this case, a a sales leader addressing a group of real estate sales professionals in a very condescending, demeaning fashion. He was trying to to develop some sales training. He delivered some sales training, always be closing a b c, which is classic. This is an often quoted movie scene. But his whole tone was condescending. It was arrogant, and it was demeaning. And you never get I don't think. It's possible to inspire human beings to be the best versions of themselves when you're using those tools of condescension and being demeaning and making people feel small. And so it was a classic case of a stereotype of of a hyperaggressive, you know, alpha male, a type personality, sales leader run amok. And it's funny as a character sketch because it helps us see, boy, when when played out to the nth degree, these bad behaviors can have really bad outcomes. And that's why I think it's valuable to look at bad examples before you talk about good examples, which the next one hopefully provides. And that is another of my favorite actors, the late great Chris Farley of Saturday Night Live in Chicago, my hometown, Second City. So, this movie, Tommy Boy, of course, with David Spade, his costar, there were many moments when they were depicting the fictional Callahan Auto Parts. And in this moment, they were selling, brake pads to a an auto parts retailer. And the objection this person had, the owner of the store was, I want a guarantee. And and, initially, Chris Farley and David Spade's characters were resisting and and trying to play into that objection. Like, oh, well, you know, look at our reliability. Look, you know, look at our actual track record. And they weren't getting anywhere. And when he finally did is had a very candid, frank conversation with him about the competitor's product when he looked at the the word guaranteed on the box. He said, if it makes you feel better, do you want us to put guaranteed on the box? Because that really means nothing. And he went on to describe how the actual track record of performance of that brake pad and in live usage by customers in their automobiles is is really the best assurance of a good high quality experience. Tell me about your track record, not just some word you put on the box that says guaranteed. And, he was right, and and he won the deal. And it was a way of reframing the objection and using empathy and being very human in his response and not being contentious, not being argumentative, and not being in denial. Yeah. And I think why it's worth knowing these is we all have these as a built in habit. You mentioned the human wiring earlier. Like, well, we all have the ability to go into a stage of denial or confrontation or be condescending. And you really what comes to mind, Dan, is the the saying, like, you don't you don't rise to your intentions in your training. You you drop to your habits. And so if you're aware of your habits, then you can you can try to, you know, retrain those habits, which is why, you know, it's so important to be and I think comedy helps in this case just to to raise awareness to those and think about the bad examples and how not to do it. And now that we've put Callahan Auto Parts in a webinar corporate webinar about selling, you know and I don't know that Tommy Boy is the picture of intelligence, but you keep pairing empathy with intelligence. And so I think it's important to start to do a little bit of a deep dive on on how that actually plays out. Like, why is empathy such an important component of being an intelligent seller, and how do you put that into practice? And I think this is your first, of a few frameworks that you've got. That's right. Thank you, Scott. So empathy is the foundation exactly as you're describing, Scott, of what I believe to be and what my experience has proven to me is is the right path towards not just addressing an objection, but turning it from that that magic unlock I've been describing is turning a liability into an asset. First requires us to feel the objection and legitimize it, and along with that, legitimize the person who articulated the objection. Even if, as an example you asked me to highlight earlier, Scott, even if it's one that we know as a zinger from an enemy, quote, unquote, enemy, which is unfair probably to use that word because we wanna turn those enemies into friends, and over time, you can. But somebody we perceive is advocating for the competition, even when they raise their hand and especially for that person for that objection, we wanna receive it with gratitude and with empathy and to use phrases like, thank you. I'm glad you asked that. Oh, that's a that's a really good point. It shows that you you understand this domain really well. I'm glad you raised that point. Thank you for un for uncovering that. Let's let's let's talk about that. And the first thing it does is takes the tension out of the room. It removes the venom, the potential venom, the poisonous element of the objection, and it builds a bridge between you and the objector, by using that empathy and using gratitude. Because the next thing we're gonna meet move from from feel is to leverage the wisdom of crowds. Because when you use feel and you legitimize by saying things like, I've heard this one before. You're you're expressing something I often hear from my prospective customers early in the conversation, early in the buying cycle as we're uncovering more evidence of what is the right approach for them and who they should partner with. Meaning, it's another way of saying a very intelligent high empathy way. Yeah. I hear that all the time, and I've got a great one for that. You wouldn't say it with such confidence and try to you know, you wouldn't wanna come across that glib, but that's basically what you're setting the up the audience up for. And then we're gonna move on to felt. So the feel moves into felt. And now we're gonna leverage the wisdom of crowds I talked about, which is going to be a customer story that is relatable in some meaningful way to the people in that room, either the individual across the table or the room of people in a one to many presentation. And feel and felt, again, empathy, I've heard this before, and this is how company x y z felt early in the sales cycle. They expressed some of the same concerns, some of the same dynamics, and we we'll talk about some examples of what those might be in the setting of a plan adviser working with a committee that's assembled for a plan sponsor to make employee benefit framework decisions. And and there's probably some common ones that come up. And when you use company x y z, picking a company that relates to them in some way, same industry, same geography, roughly same size, maybe they have some personal relationships, But your ability to master the telling of stories, the telling of customer stories, your customers and their experiences with your products and services, it now takes the conversation, which might feel like it hinges on your own personal credibility, that and yours and that of your company. Now you're leveraging the credibility and the brand identity of your other customers. So this is a chance for you to stand on the shoulders of giants and say, well, company x y z felt the way. And let's say that the those plan sponsors, other companies that we do business with. It could be a big company. It could be General Electric. It could be Nike. It could be Apple. You know, huge companies. It could be small companies. You know, manufacturers, financial services company, health care organizations that are in their sector or that they are familiar with somehow. So you wanna pick those examples with some care. But when you now bring that customer into the conversation and you start telling stories of their journey, suddenly your credibility went from, hey. Do I trust this guy, this guy Dan or this guy Scott? So now it's, well, do I trust the brand that they're talking about? Because he wouldn't be making this up because these these are verifiable. Let's it's gonna have to stand the test of fact checking, certainly, and that's where the next one comes in. So we go feel, felt, and found. And when I, reference quick quick question for you. So with customer stories, right, in in I think, how do you curate and it it really starts to feel like curation. Like, how do you curate and manage a library of customer stories that that are memorable so that you can. have them on hand for for a discussion? Because I feel like that library can become, you know, pretty enormous pretty quickly if you're if you're a. seasoned seller. Yeah. Yeah. Great point, Scott. Sometimes when I work with organizations and just like you and I and and our teammates here at Great Gray have had this experience, when you first start talking about those customer stories, it can feel to the marketing team, for instance, like, oh, boy. We've gotta do formal case studies like the traditional, you know, full page or multipage documented front to back story on the entire journey and the business benefits and the outcomes. And while those are very valuable and most marketing and sales organizations work together to populate a library of content like case studies. What I'm talking about is much more brief. And where a case study might be a short novel, I'm talking about the the length and the end structure even of a great joke. Now why am I leveraging a joke as an example? Not just because we were talking about some great comedic films earlier, but if you think of great jokes that we each have in our hip pocket, so to speak, for different topics, different conversations. You're on a golf course. Oh, I got a joke for that. Or, you know, we're we're traveling on an airplane. Oh, okay. Somebody told a joke. Oh, I I know contextually a joke for that. We all have those in our repertoire. There's a setup, there's a a conflict, and there's a zinger, a punchline. And it could be a surprise. You know? It could be it could be, something sarcastic, hopefully not offensive. And I'm not suggesting we use off color jokes in front of customers. What I'm suggesting is the customer stories should be framed like a joke is framed, a very brief setup, a conflict, a resolution to the conflict, and an epilogue. And that's the feel felt found. And if you have not case studies of knowledge, but three or four, maybe five, stories, the length of a joke, like, it's a one minute, maybe thirty to sixty second offering. Now you have a library of highly, valuable, leverageable content to share with the customer that take you from feel, like, I I'm glad you asked. That's a great point. I've heard that question before. We hear that a lot in the marketplace. I can see why you're asking, and I'm glad you gave us the opportunities to to address this. And so you move from that to felt. Company x y z felt that way. Let's say General Electric felt that way. And they asked the same question earlier in the sales cycle before we got into the proof points that we're about to uncover shortly. And what they found was that by partnering with us, they ended up with a dramatically better outcome than they had previously tried before when they tried and failed with another provider. And the benefits, the ROI they got was x y z, a b c. And you start talking about the business impact and the outcomes. Now this story doesn't hinge on my personal credibility or that of my organization I'm representing. Now I brought GE into the conversation. The question really becomes in the air, well, do you trust GE? Do you think they make the do they have some smart people? Sure. Are you willing to believe that? And then you wrap it up with a conclusion. And the executive sponsor on that, whose name was Jane Doe, she she got a promotion. She's now a vice president of whatever. And she'd be happy to talk to you about this journey that I'm referencing, and I'd I'd be glad to put you in contact with her. So now you're offering an invitation to a fact check. And they may they may take you up on it. They may not. They may feel like, well, if he's offered that, I guess we don't have to push the button, or maybe we may or may not. But when you frame the whole thing like that, you've you've transcended the buyer, seller, my credibility, as judged by you, the buyer, and you've now brought GE into the conversation. And and and calls into question now for everybody in the audience, wow. I guess I'm really just trying to decide if I trust this guy. I'm now trying to decide, well, do I trust that GE made a good business decision? Assuming the story is true and he gave me an invitation to fact check it. Wow. Maybe maybe I shouldn't be concerned about that objection. Maybe that maybe that liability really is an asset. So this is this is proven. I use it all the time. So much so that I you know, in conversation with my wife once a while, she'll say, hold on, Eric. Are you gonna feel felt found me on this one? So you'll see it coming. a mile away. Yeah. That's great. I, you know, I think the the found piece is interesting because there's it like, that that commercial insight, which, you know, I love challenger selling. I've read books, attended seminars, and training sessions in person at CEB, which, you know, carried the charter for the challenger challenger selling methodology. That commercial insight is is so critical to taking a challenger based approach because you've got information that the client doesn't have, and it's derived from your other customer stories that are relatable, whether it's GE or whomever. But it gives you permission and it when you don't have the empathy so if you don't have the if you just have. the found and you don't have the feel, then you're lecturing, basically. Right. Exactly. But if you have the and then also if you just feel, you know, like, empathy without, without intelligence is, like, just sympathy. You know? It's, like, kind of, you're not getting anywhere. But, That's right. when you when you tie it all together with feel, felt, found. So, yeah, I'm gonna keep an eye out for when you use this with me in conversations too. And I love that distinction you just drew, Scott, because if you don't complete the cycle from feel felt to found like, if you just and I've had this I've I've seen this happen. If you just give empathy, like, if if the objection handle was, hey. Thanks for asking that. I've heard that before, and it's a great one. I'll get back to you. Next point. Then you just leave everybody like it's like, what? You know? It's it's it's. like it's like, you know, passing the ball downfield, and then you cut away to commercial and you don't see if anybody caught the ball. Right? You. know? And if are good in in sales meetings. exactly. And if you did just the opposite, you're right. Well, nobody wants to be lectured. And if all you do is tell customer success stories, you don't equate it to the objection, you don't relate it to it, then you're just like nobody wants to be talked at. So you gotta you gotta bring the empathy and the caring and the storytelling together. And for anybody who feels like, oh, that's a lot. I don't know if I can get there. Trust me. I felt that way too when I was young. Here's what I found. See? I'm doing it. Yeah. It's a skill you can develop. It is a muscle you can develop in those four to five customer stories that you have in your hip pocket that you can tell. If there's a variety of industries and geographies and company sizes in in that, Trust me. There's at least one of those you can pull out to use as a proof point for the handle to the objection. It also underscores something we talked about before with the value of tax optimization of the different types of objections. Because then as a team, you can build if you're a selling team, Yes. you can build a collective library of customer success stories. You've got the felt and the found as a part of that, based on the objection. So objection by objection, which I've seen some really good selling teams do, Right. and supported them on that endeavor, you know, keeping a library of for this type of objection, here's a great story to tell, Yes. And we're gonna get into that before the end of this conversation on, a framework to facilitate that outcome exactly. so that's a great framework. Let's dive into, your other framework. So we have we we had the triple f framework and now the triple a framework for triple d, going backwards alphabetically. But, Dan, walk us through how your framework for how you turn those objections into actions. So you handle the objection and then what? Yes. And it starts with preparation. It's a it's a great point, Scott. I'm glad you're teeing this up because I believe it was Winston Churchill who once said that the best part about not planning is that failure comes as a complete surprise and is not preceded by a feeling of anxiety and worry. So, and I've trust me. I've experienced that, which has underscored and and fortified my desire and my my method, my insistence on having even just a brief plan in place before every important interaction. And so let's say there's a customer meeting or prospective customer meeting coming up. The the classic cardinal sin that is committed by sellers and the other people they bring into those meetings could be management, could be other teammates, is that we get to the parking lot of the building we're gonna go into back when most calls were face to face versus Zoom. And, only then does the does the manager and the rep say, oh, yeah. By the way, who are we seeing today? Because up to that point, they were talking about the ball game last night, you know, the quarter club trip coming up this year, and, oh, yeah. Who are you seeing? Oh, the VP of what? Okay. What are we covering again? Where are they in the journey? And that's not preparation. What happens on the back end of that meeting, that same team, those two people get out of the car, go to the you know, get get out of the building. They walk into the car in the parking lot, and one asks, how do you think it went? Inevitably, one's gonna say, I thought it was great, and the other one will say, I thought it was a disaster. How can they both be right? Well, if you don't have a plan, then there's no basis by which to decide what does success look like in this meeting. And the simple planning process, which I would argue only takes ten to fifteen minutes to create, focuses on the triple a of actions, attitudes, and answers. And and and it it starts with first the answers we wanna get. What questions are we gonna ask the customer? There's probably three of them we can ask. Because in an hour long meeting, most meetings about an hour, we're not gonna get to ask 20 questions. So pick one, two, or three questions in that order of priority. Maybe questions you asked before. It could be about qualifying the deal. It could be be about asserting what are the competitive threats here. Could be about figuring out is there executive sponsorship and funding for this project? Is this really gonna happen? Back to qualifying. But you wanna get to the three answers you need to get from that customer, meaning three questions you're gonna ask to unlock those answers. Next, attitudes. What attitudes do we need to shift in this meeting? This could be an attitude about us as a vendor. It could be an attitude about the competition. It could be an attitude about the financial positive financial impact, business benefits that this project is going to yield for that customer so that they can get funding for the project so that we can win? And then finally, what actions? This is the most important one. What brief number, probably one, two, or three actions, are we going to suggest during the meeting that the customer will be compelled to either say, yes, I'll do that, no, no way I'm doing that, or maybe we'll get back to you. And that's the way to figure out how did the meeting go. Because when you walk out, you just look to the three actions you recommended. Okay. We want you to do a corporate visit. We want you to talk to a reference. We want you to look at our contract. If they say yes and they even suggest other steps, well, they're engaged. They're they're they're they're in the mode. Right? They're they're clearly on a path towards a yes if they're leaning in on those things. If they're resistant to those things and everything is a no, it's a very telling indicator of how much, if any, progress you're making towards closure. And it's such a basic thing. But if you have if you don't know where you're going, then any road will take you there. Meaning, business planning, just a very brief plan before the meeting. And this is one framework for it. I'm really indifferent to what framework you use. I think sales methodologies and planning frameworks and sales, process adherence, it's all good. It doesn't really matter which one you have, which might sound strange coming from a guy who you mentioned, Challenger. I used to be the executive chairman of the Challenger organization and that that CEB and Gartner journey. I was in private equity. I was, with the owner of that business that we carved out. We had a good outcome with it and some great people who brought a lot of value to their clients. And but I still feel like having a sales methodology, it's important to have one. It's more important than which one you have because it gives you common vocabulary to use in your organization. So when somebody says, like, Scott, you and I as teammates, and we say, okay. Let's spend ten minutes on a triple a plan for this meeting this afternoon. Everybody knows exactly what you're talking about. We're gonna figure out what three answers do we need to get, what attitudes do we need to change, what actions do we need to close them on. And it's very powerful and very simple. I, as as sales methodologies go, I I love Challenger as I mentioned before, but I think it has benefits to both sales teams and also marketing teams or sales activities and marketing activities. And. it's kinda funny. I've never really thought in terms of a triple a framework, but pretty much every campaign we run, every piece of content we produce, I unknowingly follow a similar framework, which is what what are the key messages we need to have? What are. the what is the what are the psychographics of the audience that we're talking to? And then the call to action kinda tied into, you know, what are we what are what behavior are we trying to drive? So these are whether it's a campaign or a piece of content. And marketing is really I've always said it's n equals many. It's the same math equation for for marketing or sales, but for sales, it's n equals one. For marketing, it's n equals many. And so it's kinda it makes sense that there would be a common construct that would apply across both, but we really do the same thing on the marketing side. It's what are the key messages, what are the psychographics of the audience, and what are we trying to get them to do? And that if you know those three things, you can build a great campaign. You can build a great piece of marketing content. So, That's great. And and, I also love, Scott, that you're framing the points of view of a leader of marketing, a leader of sales. Because for our plan advisors and the firms that they're running and and running with, that's usually the same people because they're typically smaller organizations and and need to think like, the founder and the leader of a of a plan advisor firm needs to think in both terms of marketing messaging, the tools that you're gonna bring to bear for your team, and sales execution. So that mindset is really about simplicity. I think it's very actionable for, an owner and operator of a small business like a planned adviser firm. So I mentioned n equals many versus n equals one. Let's think about objections through that lens as well. Right? So, spend just a few minutes on group dynamics and how that can can, impact objections, if you don't mind, Dan. Yeah. That's a great point. So we will find ourselves often in a b to b sales environment in a setting where we are presenting to a committee, and a decision is, in fact, facilitated by a group of people, what we what most sales methodologies would describe as a complex sale. And I think for a plan adviser, a firm, and an individual, when you look at the marketplace of the prospects and customers you work with, certainly, these are complex sales cycles. Meaning, there are going to be multiple points of influence between operations, between finance, between HR. So there's every there are a lot of people who have a stake in the outcome and who are gonna have a hand in determining the the partner of choice. So in these, what often then results in a committee being formed to evaluate alternatives and make a selection, we have to play to that audience. And I think when you look at a sales presentation or the presentation of a proposal or negotiation as a performance, that might sound on the surface like being a bit dramatic or theatrical, but I firmly believe that it is a performance. Now the guitars behind me suggest why I look at the world through that lens. But when you're really on and and including the the tools and methods we're talking about here about objection handling, about bringing empathy, when you're on your game, treating that audience like just that, like the audience of a music performance or a play and playing to that audience, I find very useful and helpful because everybody in that audience needs to get something from that performance. And so I've gotta be conscious of what are the criteria of the finance team in this decision. And and what might look different is what are the criteria of the HR team or the HR leader represented in that committee? What about the CEO? What about the other stakeholders? And so knowing that there are special interests represented, that there are seemingly conflicting, outcomes that they seek. But if you look closer, you're gonna see some parallels in how an outcome can please this person and that person. Or if you think they're pursuing an unrealistic outcome, your ability to be consultative and to point out to that committee that in our experience and as evidenced by our customers, x, y, and z, who have been successful, access storytelling and feel, felt, found, We think you should more closely examine the outcomes you're seeking because in our experience, this one is at odds with that one. And, boy, if you can bring that kind of a consultative commercial insight, it's a challenge. Right? It's not argumentative like Jack Nicholson and A Few Good Men. It's a challenge like in Challenger selling in the sales methodology, and that is that's gold. Right? When you can deliver that professionally and consultatively I keep coming back to this word being consultative. It's an overused phrase, but I think when we're at our best, we come across as caring, intelligent, informed, empathic. And to me, those are the characteristics of being consultative. So let's think about through the lens of another great movie. You know, this is the if the group dynamics just introduce, you know, relationship building at scale and require the same level of empathy and building trust, you know, anyone familiar with Anchorman, the movie, knows know that knows this scene. But let's just talk, Dan, if you don't mind opining on how this applies to selling as well. Yeah. Great. I'm laughing as I see this because I love this moment. Because as Will Ferrell does so often and Christina Applegate who co starred with him in this classic, is he's he has used the formula of arrogance and stupidity in the characters that he has portrayed so beautifully in comedies. I mean, here it's Ron Burgundy. It's the same thing he did in Ricky Bobby, you know, Talladega Nights, and in Semi Pro, the basketball movie. And and he keeps and and what it's a great illustration of is the the way you do not want to show up to the audience in any performance, commercial or entertainment. And and that is, he in this character, he doesn't really invest himself in understanding anything. All he does is read the the teleprompter, and he doesn't understand the news he's reading. Right? Mhmm. So it comes across as very insincere and very staged, very plastic, very artificial. And I I have great faith in the ability of human beings to to sniff out and decipher sincerity and authenticity or the lack of it. And people just know. Right? When you show up informed and when you show up caring and you've taken the time to do some research to bring some commercial insights as we're representing here. Right? It's the opposite of just blindly reading the script without any sense of the context in which it's being received. And you can't I don't think you can overdo in any way the application of empathy and caring because it leads you to ask great questions that are insightful. And when you really care, sincerely care, and you're genuine, you're gonna remember that customer's answers to your questions and then play that back to them. Few things are as endearing and and trust building as when you say in a meeting, well, last time we got together and when we when we talked about this topic, you shared with us that a, b, c, and d, and the outcome was x, y, and z. And I'd like to explore that a little bit more because and then right away, the the listener is gonna react maybe just saying to themselves, if not out loud, wow. You were actually listening. You not only were you listening in the last meeting, but you remembered what I said, and you've taken the time to thoughtfully interpret what that means as a as an as an indicator of how to coach us and counsel and consult us through this journey. That's very thoughtful. And when we talk about thoughtfulness, another kind of throwaway overused phrase, to me, being thoughtful is is rooted in empathy and caring and sincerity. And you can't fake it. Right? And and we know what it looks like and sounds like when somebody's faking it as in the case of Ron Burgundy. Yeah. Trust is really the foundation. I also think it is the difference, Yep. and especially when you earn the trust through empathy and understanding and care to read the read the room or a teleprompter, you know, you earn that trust. And I think that is fundamentally the difference between a strategic seller and a transactional seller, which I think is why and, you know, another point worth spending time on because I think a strategic seller really understands how a buyer's journey actually looks and enables them to look at look at the buying process through the buyer's lens, which brings us all the way back to empathy from, you know, what we've been talking about since the beginning of the session. But the transactional seller really thinks through the lens of a CRM, which is very linear. So prospecting, contact, qualified, present, objections, close, nurture. And so I think it's worth spending a little time on this too, Dan, just to get it from your perspective. I think I think about this constantly. It's the buyer's journey is really truly messy. And if it's something stalls out, you need to ask why, not, like, what's the linear next step. That's exactly just leave. that open ended for you for you to jump in, and then Yes. Well well said, Scott. And it is you and I both experienced this on the buying and selling side of the conversation. And I think of the number of times I've heard very experienced successful sales professionals talk about their, quote, sales process. And I'm often tempted to raise my hand and say, you mean the buying process. Right? Because as sellers, the best of the best of the sellers that I've learned so much from throughout my career and these are mentors of mine, very successful salespeople and sales leaders at places like Oracle and and Sybase and Siebel and Salesforce, you know, for the for the longest of those times. They approached the buying process from the buyer's point of view and talked with language. Their vernacular literally used the term buying process, evaluation process, your purchasing process, because that's what's happening. The customer, the prospective customer, has invited us to their party. We are a guest in their house. It's their process, and it's not a selling process. They don't think of themselves in the sales process. They think of themselves in an evaluation, selection, procurement, and implementation process. And to your point, what CRM systems do, including my beloved Salesforce, is we think of it as linear. You know, that's how the data model represents it. What's going on is much more messy. It's like the difference between, you know, thinking of, you know, how the human body processes food. Well, no. There's there's a large and small intestine in there. There's a lot of stuff going on. Right? A lot of things that can go wrong. And understanding that and understanding the art and the science and what is sometimes the drama makes us more sensitive to it and more successful in navigating it. And I've often said, you know, when when we have a desire through the right and left brain development about all of us as human beings, we have a desire to be data driven. And, boy, if if everything we did professionally was data driven and we could all be very logical left brain driven, boy, all the you know, sales would be so much easier. But it's not because we also have the right brain and there's the drama. So I believe in being data driven, and you have to also be drama driven because human beings have behavioral patterns and have biases and have anxieties and questions and concerns and fears and hopes and aspirations. It is messy. And you gotta understand those as a professional seller, because that buying process is is very rarely gonna be exactly the same deal by deal. But some of the same moment the motions will be in play. Some of the same elements will come into play. Some of the same objections will be surfaced. Our ability to navigate those calmly and professionally and with empathy and with caring and to do it consultatively is exactly what you're highlighting here on the right side of this screen around what actually happens. And I love the way you've depicted this because it helps us, I think, back to your point earlier, Scott, kinda lower our pulse rate when we see what happens on the right side of the screen actually unfolding. That's not a cause for concern. It's just a natural expected outcome. Right. And so how did I guess, to to be able to address this and and nimbly bounce from from stepping stone to stepping stone on the right hand side of the slide, you need to be prepared. So let's walk the audio. We've covered a lot today. There are muscles that need to be built here so that you're equipped to handle that messy buyer's journey and you're equipped to manage the manage the emotions in the moment. Dan, let's just walk through your framework for how to build that muscle, and then, I think we're up against the the top of the hour here. But, yeah, let's walk through the framework, and we can pass the framework along to the audiences, as a follow-up, amongst other resources. But, yeah, if you don't mind spending. a few minutes again on your on your your, your workout guide. I love it. Thank you, Scott. Yes. And I think just as you've used the metaphor of muscle memory, these are muscles we can develop, but they require, just like in any athletic endeavor and just like going to the gym, you don't do it once and you're done. It's a regular cycle. There's a there's a rhythm that we build into this of first of all, for most organizations, it starts with when we're talking about objection handling, these are not random, and they are not widely varying. Most sales organization in fact, I can't think of an accepted as pretty much every sales organization I've ever worked with as an employee or as a leader or now as an investor and board member, like with Great Gray and the teaming that you and I do with the go to market team at Great Gray. There are very predictable top three to five objections that we encounter on most every sales cycle, every buying cycle. See, I fell into the same trap. And they're predictable. So we shouldn't be surprised when we hear them. Them. So I think the first thing to start with in my experience is let's take a poll of the sales team. What are the top three to five objections we are encountering as gauged by the frequency we encounter them and the difficulty in addressing them? Then we figure out what are the feel, felt, found narratives that fit those objections centered on what are the customer stories that provide the best illustration of our organization's ability to transcend that objection from that customer. Then once we have that raw material, and this is where marketing and sales team up together, like, with with all things that are successful in the go to market continuum, we train our people on how to do that. And we do role playing, and we do drills. Just like in a basketball team, you're gonna do dribbling drills and shooting drills and coordination drills. Gotta do the same thing. You gotta role play it, and that's where it can also be fun with your teammates and role playing, the buying, selling conversation. And then you can go so far as actually certified people, and you're certified. You've proven that you have the, the skills. You've developed the skills, and you've, and you've internalized the material, the content that we've provided for you to do that. And I recommend making that a a rhythm. Weekly is not too often. At a minimum, you should do it monthly when you do your sales training and enablement, you do your sales meetings. But I think weekly is even better to do a tuning of those muscles. And I can for very few guarantees in life, especially in professional b to b sales. One guarantee I can give you is if you do this weekly and you're diligent about, the process, you will dramatically improve your team's win rates, close rates, and retention of customers because you're gonna more immediately qualify deals that are not a good fit. And the ones that are a good fit, you're gonna you're gonna improve your ability to quickly establish credibility and a theme of partnership with those customers. Excellent. Yeah. I mean, I think this is a tough if you this requires dedication just like working out. It requires discipline, dedication. But if. you do this, you can really build a library of resources for yourself. Absolutely. That's right. And that'll change over time because and the reason doing it weekly is important, two quarters from now, maybe even two months from now, a new objection is gonna come up. Something's gonna change in the industry. You know, it could be about AI. It could be about, you know, regulatory changes. But there's gonna be new objection, and we gotta get good at we gotta develop that muscle now. There's a new conversation we need to be having. What customer stories can help us do the feel, felt, found proof point for that? So this is not frozen in time. That top three to five objections in the handles, I get you know, quarter over quarter, they should be evolving even slightly. Absolutely. So let's talk about some other resources. So, wanna give, for anyone who's not familiar in the audience, an overview quick overview of RPG. RPG is, as we've talked about today, it's about plan growth, practice growth. At a very high level, it can help you streamline your operations and oversight so you can serve more clients, also win more plans as this objection handling guidance will help you do. It strengthens your fiduciary frameworks. It deepens clients' relationships, and it help it helps improve plan outcomes. On average, advisors joining RPAGE based on an analysis we ran, during the past four years grew their plan count by an average of 40% in that time. Now how do we help you do that? We have a centralized platform that's built for efficacy, speed, and speed to revenue that includes integrated proposal solutions, real time intelligence and analytics, comparative investment scoring, data integrations and reports, fiduciary tools and briefcases, as well as access to a suite of exclusively priced CITs that help members really stand out from their competition just like this objection handling training will help you do. So just wanted to frame that up. So, Dan, before we wrap up, I think we're about out of time. Any final thoughts you wanna close out with? Yes. First of all, gratitude. Scott, I really appreciate you inviting me to this conversation because I the audience can probably tell I get energized by this. It's it's fun, and it's fun to parlay my personal experiences and the benefits I've gotten from my very generous beloved mentors to all the people that represent the audience for this content. So my offer to this audience, as you can see and Scott has really very articulately laid out. Okay. How does our PAG frame this for you in the way the content and the process and the journey is that we're gonna I'll open this up to a a dialogue. This is part of a continuum of conversation we wanna have with all of you in the audience that'll involve over time some q and a, and make it interactive, because I think the the science and the art of professional sales when it's done right is a is a function of a conversation with experienced professionals, and we wanna tap into your experiences as well. So we appreciate that, and thank you for it. Yeah. I wanna I wanna thank everyone for joining us today. We've been capturing the q and a, and we have a really fun idea for that. So we're gonna parse through the questions, and Dan and I are gonna personally address them. So feel free to add any questions about beyond beyond objection handling, marketing, sales, across the full spectrum. We're gonna answer all questions and then follow-up with those questions answered as a dedicated resource that we can provide to any attendee of today's webinar. In addition to that resource, there are some we're gonna be sharing the deck and the recording so that you can work the muscle memory and take what you learned today into your next meeting. Also in the resource panel, there's a a case study on how an adviser has scaled from two plans to 68, which goes into this plan growth. And, obviously, you need to be a master objection handler if you're gonna scale to that size. And, finally, if, if you're not familiar with RPAG and what you've seen today intrigues you at all, and you're ready to grow, please scan the QR code, and we'll set you up with a a quick demo. So, with that being said, I just wanna thank everyone for joining again today. As I mentioned, we'll follow-up with the set of resources that I displayed displayed on the previous slide. We hope you found today's session useful, informative, and entertaining. Dan, any any final words? Yes. As the character the unnamed character in Glengarry Glen Ross said, always be closing, and I would add, always have empathy. Excellent. Thank you all. Thank you, Scott. Cheers, brother. Cheers.