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Hey there, CNC fan. Quick heads up before we dive in, if these episodes are lighting a fire under you and you're ready to actually launch like a pro, not just talk about it, not just learn about it, I need you to get yourself on the wait list for sold out group programs. That's my mastermind. That is very high touch for experienced entrepreneurs who want repeatable sellout results without the burnout. And doors are going to open one more time in just a little while. If you want first dibs, you got to go to stephcrowder.com mastermind to raise your hand. Let's get into today's episode Foreign. Welcome to the Courage and Clarity podcast. I'm your host, Steph Crowder. I'm a former sales training director who's helped thousands of entrepreneurs earn a living doing something they love over the past 10 years. On your journey, you'll need the courage to be bold, to take risks, and to do what looks crazy on paper. You'll also need the clarity, the brass tacks, simple strategies that actually work. And on this podcast, we deliver both in equal measure. Oh, and by the way, we've got absolutely no time for bs, gross marketing tactics or get rich quick schemes. Just sustainable business strategies for good humans with big dreams. If that sounds like you, you're in the right place. Let's go. Hello. Hello there my friends. Welcome to today's podcast. I am really excited about today's episode. I'm doing something a little, little bit of a different speed, a little bit more casual. I have a story for you today. I love when the work that I do here in my business with the Courage and Clarity podcast and with my clients, you know, teaching people the mechanics of good sales, teaching people the buyer psychology that goes into lovingly and with authenticity, guiding the right fit clients through a sales process. When I see my lessons sort of like transpiring and unfolding out in the world, when I see an intersection of a real experience that I'm having with the work that I do, I just get so nerdy and excited. And I had one of those experiences this weekend and it involves my family and my husband. And so I told him, john, I said, I gotta make a podcast episode about this. And he was like, you totally do. Because he had the exact same feelings as me. And I'm going to share everything that went down and what I am taking away in my business. It really bolstered my love for sales, as if, you know, I needed more love for sales and good selling and all the philosophies that I teach and preach. But it also just made me super excited to share with all of you because I know that so often, like, this episode's gonna be perfect for you if you are somebody who walks around feeling like, oh, man, like, I just don't wanna pressure anybody with my selling. I don't wanna make people feel uncomfortable. I don't wanna come off as too desperate or, you know, if you think to yourself, I don't wanna quote, unquote, hard sell anyone, because that feels off. I'm gonna. I think today's perspective might be interesting for you and maybe you can even think when I share this story. Maybe you have examples in your life where you can relate to how John and I were feeling. In this story, I'm going to share with you an experience that we had that left us looking at each other and literally saying to each other, I wish they'd sold us harder. That feels surprising to hear that. That can be somebody's experience. I think there's such a negative connotation to the idea of, quote, being sold hard. And yet there are truly, when we start, start to, like, peel back some of the truth here. There are so many situations where your prospects, my prospects, everyone's prospects want to be able to say yes. Okay. I think too often we think that it's their job to just, like, walk themselves into a yes without our help, without our intercession, without us actually taking the opportunity to be the expert in the room. Right? The guide who can help get there. It's like we really are putting the onus on prospects to just, like, magically get to a yes without thinking that we need to consult or that we need to get involved and we need to ask good questions or any of that stuff. So let me share this example and we'll see where we come out. We'll unpack it together. So my husband and I have had the lovely experience of needing to go car shopping. Okay. Unexpected. Unexpected car shopping. Unfortunately, we dropped off my vehicle, which I've had since I was pregnant with my first child. So that was 2016. I have had this car and it's been great. We were thinking we'd probably need to upgrade to a bigger vehicle, probably next year, but it was not in the cards for right now. Not on the radar. Well, that was until this happened. We actually. It's a really weird story, but we dropped the car off with a detailer. They were going to clean and detail my car. And I know it's a little bit of a unique situation if you if you know, detailing, you know, that oftentimes, like, they come to you. This was not that type of scenario. This person had great reviews. I didn't really think anything of it. We dropped the car off to this individual and they managed to total the car, driving it one mile to the shop for something they needed. I don't know. You live and you learn. Don't let the detailer drive your car. But he completely totaled our car. And so, yeah, that's been a fun mess to deal with. But long story short, it has left us moving up our timeline of, like, obviously, we need a new vehicle, a new family. This was our family vehicle, so we. We need a new one. So that was our project this weekend. Now, we had done lots of research on our own, like most people tend to do, and we really whittled it down to two contenders. And shout out to all my minivan parents. I know this is a very polarizing topic. Quick aside. Some of you are, like, hardcore no on minivans. That's okay. That's okay. I'm leaning hard into the van life and my people out there. I know some of you are maybe. I hope somebody is listening to this in their minivan. If you are listening to this in your minivan, please shoot me a message on Instagram or an email. I gotta know. No shade. If you're. You know, we have, like, our third row SUV people and our minivan people, but the minivan people, you all know, you get it. We are practical, going for the space and the store, all the cool features for kids and sports and not hitting everybody else's cars in the parking lots. Like, I'm all in. I'm all in on minivan life. That's not what I drove before, but this is going to be new for me. I'm very sold. Okay. So I knew it was going to come down to two different types of vehicles. It was going to come down to the Honda Odyssey or the Toyota Sienna. Okay, spoiler alert. We ended up choosing the Sienna. So if y' all have that car, you can tell me how much you love it. Okay? But we don't have it yet. So. Also a whole other process. But I digress. Let me tell you the story of shopping for these cars. So we started out at Honda, and John and I looked at each other, like, literally, you guys, we had this conversation in our kitchen because what is the reputation of car salespeople? The reputation is very hard selling. They're not gonna let you leave. They're gonna throw all kinds of, like, freebies and discounts and they're gonna try and make it really, really appealing if you try to leave. And so that's what we were expecting. That is really what happened when we shopped for cars like 10 years ago. And so he looked at me and he was like, okay, we can be a little impulsive together, the two of us. So he said, we cannot buy the first car we see. Like, I don't care how good the deal is, we have really gotta stand firm. I was like, okay, okay. This is really like, that is the level to which we were expecting, you know, to love a car and have them really, like make it easy for us to say yes. Okay, We, I guess I was like cracking up that we actually had a conversation about this. And then we went and had the experience that we had. So we started at Honda. And I'm going to, I'm going to not use real people's names here, but the first person that we worked with, let's just say his name was George. Okay, George was nice in a nice guy. But let me just get to the bottom line. For both dealerships, there was really the opposite of what we were expecting in terms of being sold. And spoiler alert, we walked away with no, no vehicle. Okay. I'm still in a rental car. And if you think about it, my husband and I were ready, like more than ready to come home in a brand new car. More than ready. So the fact that we came home in a rental car should tell you a lot, right? So we started with George. And George did do some things pretty okay. George came with us for the test drive, but we actually drove a few trim levels of the vehicle. So he, we went on a couple rides and. But pretty much right away I felt that I knew more about the car than George did. Let me tell you, as a buyer, that was a very disconcerting experience for me. You don't want to feel like the most educated person. Like when you're making like a full forty something thousand dollars investment. You don't want to feel like you're the person in the room with the most information. If you're working with like a salesperson, you want to be able to, you want to feel that peace of mind of the person that you're talking to, understanding the product forwards, backwards, upside down. He should be telling me things I don't know about the car. That is not what happened. Okay? And fine, we can have some compassion. Maybe he was new. Like, who knows? Okay, who knows? But it all the same, I had this like feeling in my gut, where I was like, oh, I don't. You know what it did. It broke trust immediately. I was like, I don't trust George. I don't trust that George knows what he's talking about. I don't trust that he's the expert in his product. And the thought I was having was like, I'm gonna have to go Talk more to ChatGPT or I'm gonna have to go, like, do more Internet research, watch more YouTube videos and TikTok videos. Now in. How interesting is that? Very unique to the year 2025. Buying is so different. I actually texted a friend, and I was like, how did people buy cars before they had chat GPT? So all of this new tech is part of the conversation for every kind of buyer. And it doesn't mean that salespeople are like, I think sometimes I hear people talking about chat GPT. They're like, oh, we're all going to be out of a job. That is definitely not the case. I had all the chat GPT right at my fingertips, all the videos, and I still would have just love for George, this real person standing in front of me. My kids were there. Like, George could have read the room and been like, okay, like, here are my questions. How are you guys going to use the vehicle? Like, what are your prior? Like, nothing, nothing, nothing. We were driving literally, figuratively. And I just kept saying things like, oh, does this trim level have this feature, or is that only on that level? And I could just tell that he, like, literally a few times he had to, like, read the paper that's taped to the window of the car. Like, he just didn't know his product. So again, that broke trust pretty much right away. And so, yeah, disconcerting feeling. It just, like, I just really noticed myself hesitating in a different way. Like, if he had known his stuff, if he had read the room and guided my family really strongly, really led us. Led us through a sales process that was consultative that helped us see how this vehicle would be the perfect fit. Also, he didn't ask what other kinds of cars we were looking at. He didn't ask about the competition. Nothing. He absolutely, like, I am telling you the debate that we had all weekend. Sienna, Odyssey, Sienna. Like, we could have gone either way. And so if a salesperson had, you know, been able to say, hey, like, here's why you want this car and not that car. Like, here's what this will give you. That. That won't give you. It definitely would have tipped us over the edge, especially because this Odyssey was available that same day. And if you know anything about vans, some of you may know this very maybe niche topic, but like you, you can hardly get a Toyota Sienna. They're very difficult to find right now. And so we may. We truly were so close to going with the Odyssey, partially because it was convenient. We could have just driv. Driven away in a brand new car that day instead of having to wait. But none of that was the conversation. And so then we were like, okay, well, we have another appointment. So. And we did. So we will call you. Like, do you have a card? Okay, sure. I thought to myself, surely, surely this is going to be the moment where this guy says, well, let me go talk to my manager or let me see what I can do. Because we had started talking numbers. Like, we really were super. Like, he knew how serious we were. We started talking numbers. We started talking loans, down payments. Like, we were running the numbers with him. And so that's kind of what we were expecting is that when we tried to walk away, he might be like, well, let me see if we can knock off or anything, right? Nothing. Nothing at all. He said, great, call me. I'll be sad. Are you gonna be here later? He said, yes. We walked away. We were like, I mean, this wasn't a deal breaker, right? Like, we still liked the car, but we just were looking at each other. We were like, wow. We literally got into our rental car and we looked at each other and we said, that did not seem like George really A, knew what he was doing or B, like, did he want to make that sale today? Like, he literally could have had our business. And we were kind of chuckling about it and just felt a little surprised. Again, nice guy. We thought he was really kind person, but just left something to be desired for both of us, right? So anyway, off we went to the Toyota dealership, where we proceeded to have an even more interesting experience. So this is where we met a gentleman. We'll call him Jim and Jim. There was like, literally one vehicle there that was not exactly. Like, it was not the right year and had a couple features that felt like, oh, that didn't make my list. But either way, we were like, we're gonna drive this, right? So Jim walks us to the car and like, again, we came in kind of knowing what we wanted, didn't ask us any questions, didn't really have much conversation with us at all. And Jim gave John the. The car keys and said, and I quote, drive it like you stole it. And he said, John said, oh, Are you gonna come with us? He said, no, you guys go. And that's when he made the joke. Drive it like you stole it. Didn't talk to us about a single feature. Didn't walk. And you guys, if you have driven probably any new car in 2025, these cars have so much different stuff going on. Like, you. Even if you've watched the videos, and they all, like, every model and make has, like, four or five different trim levels. It is. You need, like, a PhD to buy a car right now. I feel, again, that's where ChatGPT has been so helpful. And I just. I can't even tell you how helpful it would have been for someone to sit there and show me how everything works. And, no, he just let us throw our butts in the car and off we went. And it was so fascinating to watch my brain because immediately I was like, nope, I don't want it. And again, a lot of that was because it didn't have the exact right features that I was looking for. But if Jim had sold me, if Jim had been like, well, like, for example, this particular vehicle had cloth seats. I do not, y'. All, I've learned my lesson. I've had cloth seats for nine years of being a parent. If you're gonna be a new parent, by the way, if I have anybody out there, get yourself some material in your car that's not cloth, okay? Some kind of leather, synthetic leather. I don't care. But it needs to be able to wipe clean. Is, like, funny enough, it's like, my top priority in a new car. What do you know? This car had cloth. So immediately I was like. We opened the door, and John turns to me, he's like, it's cloth. And I thought, oh, no. But we came to find out later. We even told Jim. We were like, oh, we really wanted leather. I think he may have made a throwaway comment like, oh, well, you could get that reupholstered. But he didn't walk us. Because then I was like, oh, okay, well, all right. Well, then I could have an open mind. But he didn't talk to us about the details. He didn't. He didn't push it. He didn't try to help me see how this vehicle could have been for me. Because, again, y', all, I didn't want to be in my rental car. I wanted to drive away in a brand new car. I really. I was so ready to end this process. But we got back from the test drive, we said, I don't know. We exchanged a few Sentences. We said, yeah, I don't think that's the one. We didn't like the price that was part of it was priced way too high for what it was. And we said, we don't like the price. So, you know. Do you have a card? Oh, yeah. Here you go. Here's my card. That's it. Again, no, you know, trying to get us to stay. No, let me talk to my manager. Nothing, Nothing like that. So again, we get back into our car. John and I get back into the rental car, and we're just, like, shook at this point. We're like, wow, this is just really not what I expected. So we went back to Honda. At this point, my brain was like, that's it. I need a car today. We're gonna get the Odyssey. Like, that's. That's it. We wanna drive it one more time. We drove it one more time. I even told George. This is crazy, guys. I even told George. I was like, yeah, we went and drove a Sienna. And the other guy, like, didn't show us any features. And, you know, we really think we want the Odyssey. And he was. He just said, okay, yeah, got it. Cool. And so we. We were literally drawing up the paperwork. He was leaving to draw this. This. This poor guy. He was probably like, what happened with the switch up? Right? He. We were ready to move forward, but then John and I are looking at each other, and we started to get cold feet. We were like, well, the Sienna and the gas mileage, like, that's the difference. If you don't know anything about this conversation, the gas mileage on the Sienna is why it's so popular. And we started questioning it. And by the time George came back to the table, we were like, you know what? We need to take a pause. We don't. You know, we. We. We need to come back later. And the only thing that George ended up doing was asking his manager if we could take the car for the weekend or for the night and drive it longer, which was really lovely. I accepted. I really appreciated that, which kind of helped me get the clarity that I needed to know that we were going to go ahead the next day. We decided to go ahead and give the Odyssey back, because we just didn't. We really needed to see if we could at least try to test drive the Sienna. Right. We like the actual one that we wanted. But you guys, in. So the spoiler alert is I didn't end up with a car, but in the 24 hours that I had this Odyssey in my driveway, I wanted that to be my car so badly. I was selling myself. I was watching video after video after video. I found out about feature that George did not tell me about. Like really cool, cute little features in the car where there's this, there's this just as an example, there's this feature where you can pull down the third row of the back seat of the Odyssey and it turns it into tailgate mode and you can sit back there at your trunk retreats or your soccer games and, or your tailgates and you can have a phone charger and like cup holders and like I just thought that was so cool. It's just like, you know, it's party trick, right? Didn't know about it. Had to watch it on the car mom's videos on YouTube. And yeah, I have so many examples of that where I just feel like I, it was really me looking at all the different trim levels and all the different features across the different cars. And I went like, I was like agonizing over this decision and I'm telling you, if I, if a strong assumptive salesperson had come in and walked me through why either one of those vehicles could, could. Because like here's the truth of the matter. I think our family could have been just fine and perfectly happy in either of the cars. Like that sale was up for grabs and both Jim and George totally bobbled it and nobody got the sale because nobody sold me. Think about that. All selling really is, is helping somebody see the features, the benefits, the transformation. Like why. Help me see why this car is going to be great for my family. Help me feel good about it. Because this is a 10 year purchase. We're buying the car. So this is our, like for us it's at least a 10 year purchase. Like we run our cars into the ground over here unless a detailer totals them 10 years into our journey with our previous car. But like I just like that's all sales really is, is helping me feel good saying yes. And the truth is I went home on Saturday and I didn't feel good saying yes. I, I could have gotten there 100%. I could have gotten there. But I was left to my own thoughts. I had objections inside my head. George, forget Jim. George, like, you know, because we were really seriously considering with George. Didn't ask questions, didn't get to the bottom of what might hold me back. Didn't ask about like why, why. We literally told him how seriously we were considering the other car, the Sienna. He didn't ask like why or what about that car. Would a really great question would have been like, what does the Sienna, in your mind, what does the Sienna have over the Odyssey? And we would have said the gas mileage and, like, the math over time. He could have made that math work, right? There's, like, so many different arguments he could have made, not to mention some of the other features that the Odyssey has over the Sienna, but he didn't do any of that. He didn't engage in any of that conversation. And so he left me to talk myself out of it, which is quite literally what happened. I mean, when I tell you we had our insurance out, we had everything ready to go, this guy walked away to get the paperwork. And because we really hadn't had an engaged consultative sales process, I talked myself out of it in the span of one minute, right? And then I spent the rest of the weekend on my own, looking at other people, looking at other videos, and ultimately coming to my own conclusion. And now my friend George has not made this sale, which would've been a nice day for him. You know, it's a $43,000 vehicle. It would've been a good sale for him for sure. And so I just think it is so enlightening to me to have had this experience where I wanted to be sold. I wanted to be a strong yes. I wanted to drive off in that car, and I just couldn't do it. And it came down to I didn't have my questions answered. I didn't know the features. I didn't understand the full picture, but the right questions were not asked. And I just didn't feel secure, and I didn't have trust with the person that I was working with. And so I just want you to think about your own business. And I'm. I'm willing to bet, if you listen to my podcast, if you're anything like my clients, you are really nervous about selling too hard. You're really nervous about being too pushy and forcing anybody into a sale and having an uncomfortable conversation where you feel like you're quote, unquote, selling. And I just want to encourage you and invite you to consider that in some scenarios, just like this one I had this weekend, selling well, and even selling hard is the best thing that you can do for your prospect. I have a serious problem. My car blew up. I am now paying money out of my pocket to keep renting for longer when I could have had my problem solved yesterday. Really think about that. Your people want to have their problem solved, too, but they. It's. It's really ludicrous to assume that they should be able to get there on their own when that's our job. Nobody knows your offer and your transformation and your services and your work. Nobody knows that like you. Okay? Nobody should believe in that more than you. Nobody should be evangelizing it more than you. You should be high on your own supply. You should know forwards and backwards what's available for somebody if they come to work with you. You should be excited to ask them the questions, to guide them through a sales process that gets them to a point where they're like, you know what? Hell, yeah. Like, I'm ready to go. And so we do are like, I truly feel my experience this weekend. I don't think that we were done a good service. Right? I think you do your prospects a disservice when you don't sell them well, when you don't ask the questions, when you don't overcome the objections, when you don't say, hey, have you seen this feature? What do you think about this? Like, I bet you didn't know that the other thing didn't have that. Like, imagine how different my experience would have been. Like, I tell you right now, I'd have a car in my driveway. And I don't. And so I just encourage you to really consider how this might be true in your world. Do you think that your reluctance to sell or your hesitation to, quote, unquote, be too pushy, which is really just you caring, right? Caring about the problem that this person has. How is that maybe causing people to keep walking and to ultimately say no? Like, no is a default answer. Let's think about that. No is a. Is the default, right? Because no is when we don't say yes to something new. We're just keeping the status quo. And the status quo is always going to be more comfortable. When somebody says yes to any offer and anything new, they're changing up their paradigm. And so the default is always gonna be no. I need you guys to know that a no isn't always no, I don't want it. A no is often, I want to want it, but I don't. I want to want it, but I'm not there yet. I want to want it, but I'm not feeling strong enough to leave the status quo behind. Think about that. Like, I have another example, I think I've shared this before, of a friend of mine who did a sales call for a service that she was considering, and she got off that call and texted me, and she said, I just wanted to be sold. Like, I Wanted to say yes. Right? You have to keep in mind that no is the default. Not because they don't want it, but because they weren't like, led to wanted enough. Right? They didn't feel strong enough in their desire to make the leap. And so no just becomes the default. And sometimes that even sounds like I can't. You know what? How about this? How about this? Oh, my gosh. I just thought of this. I have a lot of conversations with my clients about, like, I can't afford it and costs and price objections. And I know that this is a sensitive subject. And a lot of us, all of us maybe don't ever want to feel like we're pushing people past their. Their means and their financial abilities, right? We're like, hey, like, that's unethical. We might say to ourselves, that's unethical. Right? If somebody says they can't afford it, I need to respect that. I'm not saying you shouldn't respect that. However, I want you to challenge it and be careful believing it. So what I see a lot of times, and I'm just. Bear with me here. I'm not gonna tell you to argue with people's financial objections, but I want you to have an open mind about the fact that price is the number one placeholder objection. And I'm not trying to say that people aren't being truthful with you, although that is one way of saying it. It's that when we don't know what else to say, when we want an easy out as a prospect. Cause remember, no human. This is like something I learned, I became a sales trainer. Is human beings, by default and by design, are nice. We don't like to say no. Most people, 99% of people, we don't want to let anybody down. I didn't want to let George down. He was a nice guy. He's a young guy, nice guy. I hated to let him down, right? And so because we don't want to say no, we feel like we have to come up with a reason. And all of us know that price is a reason that people tend to respect. So we go to it. You wanna know what we told George? We told George that we needed more time to get the money together. It wasn't true. It wasn't true. Okay? If we wanted to get the money together, we could have. But we knew that by saying that, it would end the conversation. I'm not especially proud to tell you to admit that. In fact, later I looked at John and I was like, we could have Just said we needed to pause, we didn't need to give him a reason. But in the moment, we were kind of scrambling and we were like, let's just say that, right? And that's what people do. That's what prospects do. And they're counting on you being like, okay, no problem. Right? Again, I'm not suggesting that you argue and you be like, yes, you can. I know you're a lie. Nothing like that. But don't believe it. Don't be so fast to believe it. What if it's a placeholder objection? What if that objection just means they haven't heard the right thing? Because in our case, it was totally true, okay? If we'd heard the right thing, if we'd had the right conversation, if they'd thrown in maybe a couple other freebies and made us feel really good, that money would have been there. And the same might be true for your prospects. Not 100 of the time, okay? And by the way, for the true financial hardships, there's a way around that. There's extended payment plans. There's creative ways to, you know, accommodate. And by the way, if you offer that stuff and people still don't go for it, that's how you know it wasn't actually a financial objection in the first place. Right? If they really want it and they're telling you that the money's the only thing standing in the way, and then you give them options and they still don't take it, a lot of times that tells you if it wasn't really about the finances, at least not completely. Okay? And so just think about that and how interesting that is that finance financial objections do tend to be placeholder objections as well. So I just really wanted to record this episode today so you could have a real world experience. And maybe through my story, maybe you're thinking of an experience you have. Think of a big purchase, a big decision, buying a house, something like that. Where you just wish. You wish that somebody would've solved your problem. That's what sales is, sales. I know there's a lot of smarmy strategies out there. I'm not suggesting that you implement those. My husband and I did not want to have a day of, like, sleazy salesperson stuff. We weren't looking for that. But we also weren't looking to feel kind of left to our own devices. There's a balance, and there's a reason that salespeople exist. There's a reason that we need to be sold to. Right? And that is always going to be true in your business as well. So as we wrap up this episode, I just really invite you to consider. Where are you actually maybe doing a disservice to your people? Out. Because you're afraid? Because you're thinking that selling isn't an integrity for you or that it's too pushy? Where might your people be dying for you to sell to them, Right? Like, maybe they'll be like, oh, my gosh, thank goodness. Like, I already. Like, that's something I hear from my clients when they sign on with me, is I'll get messages where they'll say, I already feel so much better. Like, yes. Saying yes was scary. But, like, I'm so happy to, like, have a plan and put this problem to rest. That's what sales is there for. So I hope you enjoyed my story. I know a little bit of a different episode. If you liked it, I'd love to hear. You can always DM me on Instagram. I'm at hey. At hey, Steph Crowder. You can also respond to any of the emails that you might receive from me if you're on my email list. But yeah, tell me what you think. I'd love to hear. I will see you next time, my friends. And until then, I'm wishing you the courage and the clarity to go after what you love.