Welcome to the GTM Launchpad newsletter!

Each week I share a sales play to help you grow your business, level up your sales game and succeed in the trenches

Coaching the Comeback

How to build reps who don’t freeze when objections hit

Last week we talked about follow-up and momentum
This week let’s talk about what happens when that momentum hits a wall

The real life moment

Over the past two weeks I’ve seen it everywhere… in our Outbound Underground office hours with Erica Stacy and Marc Mac, during my Sell Better and Sales Assembly sessions and on the phones with Brianda as she tested our SureConnect list

The rep delivers a solid pitch and then gets hit with that dreaded “Ya can you just send me an email?”

Silence
Confidence drains
Call’s over before it starts

We’ve all been there…hell I’ve frozen there
That’s why I don’t teach “objection handling”

I teach emotional control under pressure

Because objection handling isn’t about rebuttals….it’s about regulation
Keeping your calm when the buyer throws heat

The Coaching Lens

If you’re a sales leader don’t just give your reps better lines
Give them better habits

Here’s how the best teams coach objection handling that actually sticks

1️⃣ Coach Emotion Before Execution
Most reps lose the sale because their nervous system spikes not their script
Teach them to breathe, pause, then respond
Silence is a weapon not a weakness

2️⃣ Reframe the Goal
The job isn’t to “win the objection”
It’s to uncover what the buyer actually meant
Brush offs and real objections sound the same at first
Curiosity is how you tell the difference

3️⃣ Use Frameworks, Not Scripts
Scripts make reps sound robotic
Frameworks give them freedom

My go-tos

• Triple A → Acknowledge. Address. Align

• P.A.Q. → Pause. Acknowledge. Question

• R.I.S.E. → Rapport. Inquire. Solve. Engage

Those three cover 90% of objections if your team trains on them weekly

What’s Working Right Now

If your reps are freezing mid-call here’s the fix

🧠 Run the “Objection Swap Drill” at your next team meeting

Each rep writes down their most common objection on a sticky note
Then they hand it to another rep

The goal? Respond using R.I.S.E. in under 30 seconds….calm tone, no panic

When your team can handle “too expensive” or “send me info” like they’re ordering coffee you know you’re building pros, not parrots

📊 The SureConnect Experiment | Week 2 Update

Last week we kicked off our mobile-verified dialing test with SureConnect
Brianda ran point….849 dials, 58 connects, 38 real conversations

That’s a 6.8% connect rate overall
15.2% prospect connect rate
and 2 meetings booked (even if Nooks forgot to log them 😅)

All 108 of those leads were P1s from our SureConnect dataset of 1,189 prospects

👉 So what’s the early read?

Mobile-verified data is improving live conversations but the biggest variable still isn’t data….it’s dialogue quality

We’ll keep testing and share round two next week as TitanX and Wiza enter the ring

Stay tuned! This is real data not LinkedIn theory

Before we close it out this week let’s talk execution for a sec

We spend so much time debating data, tech and tactics but most teams aren’t losing because of strategy. They’re losing because of execution gaps

That’s why when ZoomInfo dropped their new GTM Workspace I had to check it out

Sponsor of the Week - ZoomInfo GTM Workspace

(Because strategy’s nothing without execution)

Here’s a stat that stopped me mid-scroll:

85% of enterprise sellers still run their pipeline out of spreadsheets

Only 5% actually use their CRM

That’s not laziness….it’s survival

When deal data lives in Salesforce, call notes sit in Gong and content’s scattered across three other tools spreadsheets become the duct tape holding it all together

But the problem isn’t tools or strategy
It’s execution

Reps are drowning in tabs, piecing context together manually and showing up underprepared to every call

That’s why ZoomInfo built GTM Workspace. A single command center that brings everything sellers need into one view

• Complete buyer context

• CRM + activity data in one workspace

• ZoomInfo’s intelligence on 100M+ companies and 260M+ contacts

No more tab hopping
No more guessing
Just one place where sellers can actually execute

Because the teams that figure out execution first? They’re the ones pulling ahead
Everyone else is still stuck in the spreadsheet era

👉 Read Henry Schuck’s byline on the “Execution Problem”
https://pipeline.zoominfo.com/sales/gtm-ai-execution

🎥 Watch: Introducing ZoomInfo GTM Workspace 👇

Tom’s Play of the Week | The 2-Step Reframe

Next time a rep gets hit with an objection tell them to try this

Step 1:
Say out loud what they heard. (“Totally get it budget’s tight right now”)

Step 2:
Ask one level deeper. (“Curious what’s been eating up most of the budget lately?”)

That simple two-step shift turns defense into dialogue

It’s how you transform a brush-off into curiosity and trust

Event Plug | GTM Hot Takes

Mark your calendars
Tuesday, November 11th at 11am ET

I’ll be live with Mason Cosby, Kristen Habacht and Sayanta Ghosh for GTM Hot Takes: “AI Will Replace Sales Teams Before Marketing Teams”

We’re debating the toughest question in GTM right now

Who does AI hit first….Sales or Marketing?

This one’s gonna get spicy 🔥

It’ll shape how we all approach 2026

Register via RevGenius, you don’t want to miss this one!

Final Thought

Your job as a leader isn’t to remove objections…it’s to build reps who can walk through them

Because objections aren’t the enemy…hesitation is

When your team learns to stay curious instead of defensive they’ll win conversations no script ever could

Keep coaching the comeback
Your team’s watching how you handle the heat

👊

Thanks for reading. See you again next week at 8 am MST!

- Tom Slocum ✌️

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