How To Handle The “I Can’t Afford It” Objection And Close More Sales

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Hi, my name is Igor Kheifets and this is the List Building Lifestyle, the only podcast which delivers cutting edge conversion strategies from the online trenches straight to your earbuds. Download the transcript of today’s episode and all future episodes at listbuilidnglifestylesshow.com. I also invite you to grab a free copy of “The Wealthy List Builder’s Survival Guide” at listbuilidnglifestyleshow.com/survival and now once again it’s time to claim your List Building Lifestyle.

Jonathan: List builders, you are tuning in to another edition of List Building Lifestyle with your man, the myth, the legend, solo ads genius, Mr. Igor Kheifets. What is up my man?

Igor: What’s up Jonathan? What’s up List Builders? Good to be here. Good to be here my friend!!

Jonathan: Man, you have been kicking it. You kicked this podcast into high gear. I love it. I don’t know if there is a stick motivating you, but I sure like the work you are doing man.

Igor: Yeah, there is like 15 different kind of sticks motivating me, you know with the knives and shotguns and stuff like that. So, I am pretty good at scaring myself to death and to doing the things that need to get done.

Jonathan: Man, awesome!! So what you have in store for us today, Igor?

Igor: Well today I would like talked about the two pieces of resistance that pretty much every single person now there who ever tried selling anything always gets, and that is time and money and how actually these have nothing to do with the real resistance, which is just human nature, procrastination and fear, right? That’s like, I guess what I am trying to say is that the resistance people tell you that gets in the way of their making a buy decision is actually not true. The real reason people kind of just don’t want to buy from you has more to do with their inner fears than it has to do with the time and money barrier they bring up, but it doesn’t change the fact that people do bring up time and money as their number one reason why they believe they cannot invest with you right now, and so, how do you fight it, which is the question I get all the time, because, you know, whenever someone buys traffic from me and their emails get delivered, if they actually follow my advice and you know, inbox, a lot of times I will get feedbacks from their list and you know people in the list are replying saying,

“Oh, I don’t have the money, oh get me in for free and I will pay with my profits,” and all sorts of crazy stuff like that. Well! I am willing to admit that about 20% of the people you talk to, no matter who you are, even if you are like a Lexus salesman, right, they just don’t have the money to buy from you. I mean, may be it is because of the timing, maybe because they are just too lazy to go get some, but they might not have the money. But, for the most part, if people want something, they will get the money. It is a matter of how bad they want it or as it is with me, Jonathan, of how scared I am of the alternative of not getting it. And so, the only way that I found, which is effective to fight these objections is scarcity. Meaning that people’s fear of losing something, especially the ability to say no to your offer is greater of the fear of purchasing your product and experiencing success with whatever it is that your product helps them experience.

So, if you are promoting business opportunities that means financial freedom, or if you are selling, you know, information products that help them solve some of their problem, it is the same thing. So, how do you create scarcity? Well, first off whenever you pitch someone or whenever you come up with a new offer, make sure it is limited whether by time or by quantity or in some way, shape or form, it should be limited, because when it is, all of a sudden, there is no more room for procrastination. In fact, I can attest to you that the more expensive the widget that you are selling, the more aggressive your scarcity has to be. In other words, if you are selling a $100 thing, you can get away with a 7-day scarcity, but make sure you of course, you know, let your client know every single day that the clock is ticking, but if we take that price from the 100 bucks to 1000 bucks, you got to bring down that scarcity to three days, and if you are selling a $10,000 thing, make sure that scarcity comes down to 24 hours, and so on. Why is that? Well, because the higher the price tag, the more the client will procrastinate about letting go of that money, okay? And the more they need to be driven to stop procrastinating, and do something about it. Either say no, or say yes, but never a maybe. You know, Jonathan, that is what I hated about selling coaching on the phone, was I always had people who were maybes. You know…they were never telling me no, they were never saying like, oh you charge $15000 a year for coaching. Well, no, I don’t want to do it, because wherever I would get those, you know, and it would be so rare, I would be happy, I am like, “okay, awesome, thank you, bye bye”.

Jonathan: Thanks. [laughter]

Igor: So, we don’t need to talk, like you don’t want to do it, awesome, fantastic, then you know it is not for you, great!! But most people they don’t tell you no, right? They say, well, I want to do it, but I don’t have the money or I want to do it, but you know, I got to get this one thing off my plate first, or you know, I want to do it, but I am not sure if I can, you know, I want to do it, but let me go talk to my wife and so on and so forth. All this bullshit, right? The bullshit maybes. And so, the only way that I always dealt with it was, “Look, that’s the offer I am positioning in front of you. It’s limited. Take action now, and get it, you know, at a discount, or delay taking action and pay the full price, which is double or even triple that, you know, later on, whenever you chose to pay,” to which of course I had, you know, like first off, lots of people got angry with me. That it is unfair, and so on and so forth.

Jonathan: Pressure.

Igor: Yeah and that’s like the natural childish response that they will bring up, but guess what? With scarcity, with that strategic scarcity, the closing rate on the phone for me for a $15000 dollar coaching program was 60%.

Jonathan: Wow.

Igor: It’s a lot. For every 6/10 people I spoke to, they picked up the program. However, without this scarcity, which is something I have done early on, and I was selling that same coaching program for less than $2000, Jonathan, and I really was just getting started, when I hadn’t had, you know, the confidence I had back when I raised my price, etc. So, it was less than 2 grand, but I still kind of, you know, I was shaking inside whenever I voiced the price. So, in any way, 2000 dollars, no scarcity, I closed 1/20.

Jonathan: Wow.

Igor: 20 man…20. So, at the moment I started putting forth the scarcity and just flat out saying that look there is no bullshit scarcity here, this is literally just my decision. I know, that people who are decisive are easy to work with, people who are able to make up their mind and take action quickly are just the kind of clients that I want, so you want to take action right now, it is going to 15 grand. You want to delay and, you know, come back any time later on, even 7 seconds after we hang up this phone, then sure, pay the full price of 30 and obviously the people who were not able to make a decision right then and there, their answer was basically a no. Anything that was not a yes, was no, and that is exactly why to this day, I never create an offer, ever put up an offer without scarcity, because I know that no matter how good the offer is, no matter how good the product is, no matter how much I can help someone change their life and improve their business and just basically assist them at achieving their goals, no matter how good I am at that, and no matter how good my product will do the job, they will simply find an excuse not to move forward, unless there is scarcity.

Jonathan: A little takeaway action makes them want it more. I like that. I am taking notes here, Igor. I am going to start using some of this. I have been wanting to double my prices and you just gave me a reason to do it.

Igor: Oh yeah, for sure, I mean if we are talking prices, which is a slightly different topic, I believe that the only link that holds you back from doing so, Jonathan, is the link you got in your own mind, and I will be honest with you, you know, after signing up with you for The Podcast Factory, right? As you know me, I am a student of marketing, so I went ahead and I played the prospect with other people who offer similar services.

Jonathan: Oh yeah?

Igor: Now, first off I got to tell you that none of them have the credentials that you have. So, it was sort of you know, an easy decision for me, but I only did it after I signed up with you and there is people out there, who charge more money than you, do a worst job than you, but they still charge more money. I am sure that someone pays them. I am sure that someone pays them, and so I believe with the kind of work that you do, the kind of value that you bring to the table, the kind of professionalism and efficiency, you and your teamwork, you should definitely double your prices man. I mean you have seen what this podcast has done for Igor Solo Ads and List Building Lifestyle. It is amazing and in fact we have people now, you know, that we give, in our VIP club, right? The Solo VIP club, which you can go and check out at www.solovipclub.com, we are now handing out merchandise, which is something I picked up from you, like we send our t- shirts, …

Jonathan: Nice.

Igor: Coffee mugs, wall art and stuff like that, so we are literally becoming the real thing. You know, up until, you know, me starting to work with you, the List Building Lifestyles was just an idea, was just a dream, that one guy from Israel had. Now, it is becoming real or becoming a movement. We are becoming a group to be taken seriously and I am digging that, right? I am digging that, and I have only done it after I got The Podcast Factory t-shirt from you in the mail, which was…it was really unexpected.

Jonathan: How about that. That’s is very cool, but I like what you are saying in the call because I do most of my stuff by calls, having that trigger, having that scarcity, because I have run into that before and I haven’t handled it like you are saying, because I would be like, ah you know if they don’t make a decision now, I know I am not going to…you know how I work and if they don’t make a decision now, they are not going to deliver episodes on time, they are not going to do anything that I need them to do so, fuck‘em, but now that you are giving me this idea here, that is what I am going to do. Okay, it is this price right now; you want to delay, fine. It is the real price and I am even thinking, I am going to put that on the website and everything, so they know they are getting a deal when they talk to me.

Igor: Exactly, that also gives them, you know, a reason to reach out to you, and I tell people with time, you know, I get Facebook messages for example from clients who look me up on Google and stuff, and they are like, “Igor, can you give me your website, where I can check out pricing?” you know. And I tell them that “Okay you can, I mean just google my name and you can pretty much come up with the website, I mean that you could go to igorsololist.com and check all my pricing out, but you should submit an application over here and talk to Dennis, because you will get a better deal if you talk to us,” which of course leads to them submitting, you know, an application and getting a better deal and starting the traffic generation campaign, so scarcity, no matter how you look at it, is only going to do good for your business, trust me. Like, the businesses without scarcity, no matter if the owner of that business has credibility, no credibility, has a market place presence or not, you know, they are in trouble without it. You got to have scarcity absolutely and I believe honestly this is the only way to stop chasing clients. Like, if you don’t have scarcity and you are literally staying there and you are saying, “Hey, come buy from us anytime you feel necessary, come buy from us whenever you want, come buy from us on your terms”. As far as I am concerned, I wouldn’t work with that person. I want to work with an expert that makes me work on their terms. Because, then I am forced to deliver. I am forced to follow through. At least on the internet, right, it is really hard to pull off I guess like when it comes to commodities but online, when you sell business opportunities, when you sell education advice, services, I mean you absolutely have to make yourself scarce, because quite frankly you are scarce and that not inflicting that scarcity onto your clients, it is just, well, you are in trouble man, I mean honestly, I don’t even know how to explain this any more, Jonathan. I am lost for words. You have scarcity, you will make more money, you will get better clients, and your life is going to be overall just much, much easier. Don’t use scarcity and keep getting the same results that you have been getting up until now.

Jonathan: Can you talk a little bit about the difference between real scarcity and false scarcity, where I am selling an e-book and I say I am only selling 50 and I sell a 1000 of them, can you talk about how that could affect you?

Igor: Oh yeah, for sure, I mean there is a lot of people out there, who have seen guys like Ryan Deiss, you know, you are scarcity and they just try to sort of just model that and give no reason why something is scarce, especially like you mention you know, digital products, which is e-books, video course, etc., which will…no cannot be scarce, like how can an e-book be scare, honestly? How can a membership site be scarce, like you literally have a limit on the amount of the people you can bring into the site? No, of course not. But, they still do it and they sort of expect for people to fall for it? Which I think is stupid, right? People are not dumb. The consumer is educated and sophisticated. The consumer understands that you are full of shit if you really are full of shit. So, whenever you bring scarcity up, there always has to be a reason why. Always. There cannot be scarcity unless it is backed up by a genuine, real reason. So, back to my coaching example. I told people, look, I am not making this shit up. This is me enforcing a rule. I want to work with people who are committed, dedicated, and easy to work with. Usually, those are the people that act quickly, that is why this scarcity here is employed and it is for real. I will enforce it; because unless I do enforce it with you, just like I enforce it with other clients, I am actually going to be out of integrity with other clients and not that I want to be that, even if it means losing you as a client. I value my clients too much to be able to do that, and now what you are selling, and that is as far as you are selling service, right?

This is very easy way to position it, but if you are selling say e-books or video courses, right? You can limit it because you don’t want to share this information with more than X people, because you don’t want this information to get, you know, spread out at the internet and get saturated. Or, if you are doing SEO stuff like what if you are like an SEO agency? Well obviously you can only handle so many clients at a time to be effective or maybe you offer back-link services, then obviously the people who come in first will get the first back-links, so scarcity, like there can always be a genuine scarcity in your offer if you are just willing to sit down for 10 minutes and think about it, investigate into what other people are offering right now. Do whatever you have to do, but make sure that you are not just some fucking commodity. Make sure that you are a person, a service, a coach, a product, a whatever, of value, because anything that is of value in our world is always scarce. Anything that is precious is always scarce and you can’t be precious, meaning you can’t be expensive, you can’t be profitable, you can’t be valued and cherished unless you too are scarce.

Jonathan: Wow, good stuff. So Igor, I think you beat that horse to death there. So, what you have coming up for the List Builders next time?

Igor: Well next time, I am talking with a guy, Jonathan, who has invented the squeeze page. Could you believe that?

Jonathan: Really?

Igor: Yes. The guy who quite literally invented what we know today as the squeeze page, he was the first one to start using them and his name is Jonathan Levi Mizel and he has been in the marketing game for like two decades now. Basically, the guy is one of the dinosaurs in the game, but he is still up on his feet and still doing wonders. So, the next time we talk, we are going to be discussing some NLP email marketing secrets and we are going to talking about the list, we are going to be talking about communication with your list and specifically what do you say to people, how do you communicate with them in order to get them to not only to buy from you, but to generally you know, feel like you are a good guy, like one of the good guys. So, it is a pretty sweet episode for anyone who already has a list and for anyone who considers to build one in the near future.

Jonathan: Wow, I am tuning into that. Awesome!! So that is a wrap for List Building Lifestyle. Thank you list builders for tuning in. Thank you Igor for your lessons on life and business and we will be back in your earbuds next time.

Thanks for listening to The List Building Lifestyle Show, make sure to subscribe on iTunes or Google Play to never miss an episode because who knows just one conversion tactic we share on the show might double your list and double your business. Download the transcript of today’s episode and all future episodes at listbuilderslifestyleshow.com and don’t forget to claim your complimentary copy of “The Wealthy List Builder’s Survival Guide” at listbuildinglifestylesshow.com/survival. This is Igor Kheifets and until next time we talk, have a good one.

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