Overcoming client objections | How I overcame the "I can't afford you" objection and made an extra $15k

You get an inquiry in your inbox-YESSSSS, this is it! You hit it off big time in that first call or meeting and feel confident they will book with you.

Until…they don’t.

Of course it’s a jolting halt when you hear them say something like “Thanks for your time! We loved meeting you but have decided to go with someone else who’s a better fit for our budget.”

Wait...WHAT? Painful, right? But not permanent. Lemme show you some cool tools to help you overcome every price objection.

My Results

I’m going to share with you the very tips I’ve used to book clients, adding an extra $15k to my yearly income in 2017 that I would have otherwise walked away from. Income that other photographers DID walk away from. And income that got me major publicity and multiple referral bookings.

You see, I wasn’t afraid when a client had their Manhattan based attorney mark up my contract, hoping I’d agree to give away my copyright. I knew just what to do when a potential client told me their budget was $1,500 less than my starting rates…but they had my dream event. And I wasn’t afraid when a client told me they were deciding between me and one other photographer.

And that’s why I made an extra $15,000 last year. I mean...would you like an extra $15k this year? Read on:

What’s an objection?

Quite simply, an objection is something that prevents clients from booking with you. Sometimes they let you know…often times they don’t. That’s normal and shouldn’t feel frustrating. Today, we’re specifically talking about clients who might not book with you because you’re out of their budget. How do you turn them around into paying clients?

Uncover pricing objections early

This might seem kinda obvious, but, sometimes we forget that finding objections is on US not the client. So, asking the right questions is key to finding the objections you can then overcome.You can’t deal with an objection if you haven’t asked what they are. Don’t let fear hold you back-ask the questions!

Here are 3 valuable questions to ask to uncover your clients’ objections:

Are all the decision makers on this call right now? (if not...you’re not going to book them!)

Is there any reason you wouldn’t be able to book with me right now?

What would make this offer work for you?

Understand what “I can’t afford it really means

When a client says they can’t afford your offer, it’s pretty rare that that’s the real issue. That’s just what they think you might understand. Yeah, money may be at play, but underneath of that, clients often have 2 big needs you’d have to meet in order to book:

Budget = a fear of intimacy

in SO MANY cases, the excuse “i can’t afford it,” is covering up your clients fear of intimacy. Making a serious investment means they’re showing up for their biggest dreams. They’re allowing someone in, and they’re putting a stake in the ground and saying “hey, I am so worth it!”

If your client is struggling with a fear of intimacy, use the “ask why 5 times” method (don’t know what that is? Shoot me an email and I’ll break it down) and prepare to touch on something emotional. Give them permission to feel what they need to feel, affirm that you can give them the important thing they are looking for, and then move into the action step of booking.

Does your offer meet their basic needs?

A few years ago, I was shopping for a computer. I was seriously considering switching from apple to windows and had someone tell me about each system.

The person who told me about the Windows system overloaded me with features. Fancy things the computer could do, bells and whistles. I was impressed, for sure. But want to know why I didn’t buy a windows based system? Because they didn’t answer my one question:

How do I move between desktop screens? Suuuuuuuch a simple question, right? And it was the exact question that lost that person the sale. Why?

He didn’t take care of my actual needs AND he overcomplicated things.

Are you doing this with your clients?

The 6 core human needs and your offer

Creating an offer that actually meets your clients needs is the starting place for any offer. The shiny things come afterward.

Tony Robbins talks about 6 core needs we all have. Understanding these needs will help you know how to tailor your offer to your clients.

Take time to listen to your clients, try to identify their biggest needs from the sliding scale below, and find ways to meet those needs.

Do they need certainty?

Show them a gallery from their venue, show them results you’ve gotten someone, show them an outline of how you’d work together, get that engagement session on the calendar.

Do they need love & connection?

Send them tips/tricks you saw on their favorite blog “just because you were thinking about them.” Send them a beautiful gift, a handwritten card, etc. Find a way to show them you care, you understand, and you are there for them.

Do they need Growth?

Share your process with them-invite them in and create a collaborative atmosphere that nurtures their growth. Instead of telling them your ideas, ask for theirs. And keep reminding them of the growth they’re experiencing because of your work together. Look for ways to track and measure that growth and find ways to celebrate it with that person.

Price objections are a mirror for your inner beliefs about money

Here’s one of the most powerful take aways of this whole article: your price objections could simply be a MIRROR for how much you’re saying “I can’t afford it.”

This feels kinda hard to admit, but when I’m hearing a lot of money objections in my business, chances are, it’s because I’m saying it a lot.

Wait...what??

Yeah! Your outer world simply mirrors your inner world! And until you take radical responsibility for your inner world, you’ll be a victim to your outer world.

Here’s the thing-Money is just energy. It goes where it’s wanted and welcomed. And it doesn’t go where it’s neglected and resented. Chances are, those bummer words from a potential client are the universe simply echoing your OWN words back at you!

Chances are, you’re in a place where you feel stuck in your business. You need help getting unstuck, getting inspired, getting unafraid. But you don’t know how you’d pay for it, so you say “I can’t afford it,” “it's out of my budget,” or “I can’t make the numbers work.”

It’s such a hard place to be in-to feel like you know what you need but can’t have it. You’re NOT alone if you feel that way. And there is a solution.

Are you ready for the solution?

You need to go spend money on something you’ve either told yourself or been told was too expensive. This is especially powerful if you can connect with something you were told you couldn’t have due to money when you were between the ages of 0-7 years old.

I’ll be sharing how I did this exact thing over on instagram stories and how it helped my business today on instagram stories.

Chances are, you’ll find that breaking that spending ceiling in a strategic, intentional, and mindful way will bring clients in faster afterward.

3 Lessons I Learned From My Most Difficult Clients

Every business owner has a nightmare client-the kind that makes you wonder why you left your stable job to work with these people.  I've had a handful in the past few years, but quitting was never a more serious consideration than in two particular cases. Both times left me with sleepless nights, a bitter taste in my mouth and a feeling of hopelessness. I felt like the only light at the end of the tunnel was closing the doors and going back to substitute teaching.

The two clients that made me want to quit

I attracted two clients into our business that made me want to quit. Both were ugly scenarios-low pay, high work, degrading treatment, and ultimately left me asking if owning a business was really worth it. Both clients left me asking “why did this happen? I genuinely cared for these people and wanted to serve them!” While I can’t change another person, the reality is, when I took a step back, I could see ways I could take responsibility even before they booked with us.

The one mistake I made to attract my worst clients

While I may have tweaked our sales call format, and finessed our client care process since then, the reality is that the single misstep I made was this:

I was desperate.

And because I was desperate, I wasn’t confident in my value. I wasn’t comfortable with each of these clients walking away from us and felt like my business depended on them booking us. We felt like we NEEDED them to hire us...even though it was a bad fit.

3 lessons I learned from my worst clients

Lesson #1: Trust your gut

I recently read about a study done on a group of women who were well versed in the luxury handbag market. They shopped for, owned, and resold luxury handbags regularly and, in this study, they were shown two identical looking bags-a designer and a knock off. They were divided into groups and given two chunks of time to identify the real designer bag. The first group was given 5 seconds to identify the designer handbag and the second group was given 30 seconds. The 5 second group identified the designer bag with startling accuracy while the 30 second group always struggled to choose the correct bag.

Moral of the story: when you’re well-versed in something, trusting your gut will prove more accurate than spending time contemplating all the options. When you're experienced, more time to choose a plan usually leads you to overthink things. If you have the experience to back you, trust your gut reaction.

Lesson #2: Be the expert guide

Because I was learning and growing, I didn’t know how to guide my clients. I went through adolescent phases of trying to do so-eagerly agreeing with them and letting them feel like I was their enthusiastic cheerleader, trying to be aloof toward clients until they worshipped me (isn’t that like, super luxury??), but ultimately, the best approach for me was to be an expert guide.

This means that I’m fully confident in my value and expertise, but I guide my clients with recommendations and experience. I use helpful words like “recommend” and “suggest” instead of “should” and “only.” This allows me to share my knowledge when it’s wanted, but still gives my clients full decision making liberty.

And ultimately, I’m not God-things could go far differently than I thought-there are always precedent-setting circumstances in my line of work. I don’t want to have pressured my clients into something and then have it come back on me afterward if something goes poorly. I want my clients to have the best information to make the decisions that make them happiest.

And when I started applying this approach, my clients trusted me even more as a vast wealth of knowledge and a trusted resource they could rely on.

Lesson #3: Believe in your value

Believing in my value ultimately came down to needing to change my mindset. Instead of a scarcity-driven belief that the client in front of me was my golden ticket to my next paycheck, I began adopting the belief that the clients I wanted were already out there for me and they’d find me in the right time. There was plenty for everyone and I’d have enough (clients, pay, work, publicity, etc). Just this shift in my thinking created a much more relaxed, positive, and confident approach.

Now our meetings have become much more like a great date. By the end, I’m willing to leave without a kiss goodnight and they are only leaving if we have a second date scheduled. Ideal, right?

You'd better believe that these lessons created massive shifts in our business! Drop a comment below-have you been burned by a client before? What have you learned from it?