"Our current process works fine"
Likelihood: ★★★★★ — You'll hear this on almost every call
"It probably does work - the question is what it costs you. Can I ask: how many hours per week does your team spend on invoice data entry?"
They're not saying "no" - they're saying "I don't see the problem." Your job is to help them quantify the hidden cost of "fine."
- "How many invoices do you process per month?"
- "How long does each one take to enter?"
- "When was the last duplicate payment?"
- "How often do you miss early pay discounts?"
"So 500 invoices × 10 minutes each = 83 hours/month. At $25/hour fully loaded, that's $25K/year just on data entry. Does that sound about right?"
"Totally fair. What would need to change for this to become a priority?"
This tells you the real blocker.
"Not right now" / "Maybe next quarter"
Likelihood: ★★★★★ — Classic stall, happens constantly
"Totally understand. What's happening next quarter that would make it a better time?"
Forces them to articulate the real reason. Often there isn't one - it's just a polite brush-off. Or they'll reveal the actual blocker.
"Makes sense. Can we do a quick pilot now so you have data for budget season? No commitment - just see the output quality."
"What's the bigger priority right now?"
(Then tie your solution to that priority if possible)
"I get it. What if I send a 2-minute video showing exactly what this does, and you can watch it when you have time?"
"No problem. When you're entering invoices manually next month, think about whether that time could be better spent. I'll follow up in [X weeks]."
"Never heard of you" / "You're too small"
Likelihood: ★★★★☆ — Very common for early-stage startups
"Fair point - we're newer. That's actually why we're so focused on making each customer successful. You're not ticket #50,000 to us."
- "We're early, which means you get direct access to the team building this."
- "Our tech is built on the same AI infrastructure the big players use."
- "We're priced for growing companies, not enterprise budgets."
"The big players charge $50K+ and take 6 months to implement. We can have you live in a week. Which matters more - brand name or actually solving the problem?"
- "Start with 10 invoices. See the output before you commit to anything."
- "Month-to-month, cancel anytime. No long contracts."
- "I'll give you my cell - you can text me if anything breaks."
"We're early, so I can't drop big logos yet. But I can show you exactly what the output looks like on YOUR documents. That's more relevant than a case study from a different industry anyway."
"Too expensive" / "No budget"
Likelihood: ★★★★☆ — Common, but often not the real objection
"Too expensive compared to what?" or "Help me understand - is it the monthly cost, or is there no budget allocated for this at all?"
"I hear you. Let's do the math: if you're processing 500 invoices/month and each takes 10 minutes, that's 83 hours. At $25/hour, you're spending $2K/month on data entry alone. We cost less than that and give you the time back."
- "When does your budget cycle reset?"
- "Is there a smaller scope we could start with?"
- "What would you need to see to make the case internally?"
"Manual is never free - it costs you hours every week. The question is whether those hours are worth more than what we charge."
- "Let's start with the smallest tier. Upgrade when you see the value."
- "I can do [X]% off the first 3 months while you prove the ROI internally."
- "What number would work for your budget?" (Then see if you can meet it)
"I need to talk to my boss"
Likelihood: ★★★★☆ — Classic end-of-call move
"Of course. What questions do you think they'll have?"
You're helping them prepare, but also surfacing the real objections.
"Want me to send you a one-pager you can forward? Or I'm happy to join a quick call with them - sometimes it's easier than playing telephone."
"When are you talking to them? Can we schedule a follow-up for right after so I can answer any questions that come up?"
"Hey, what did [boss] think? Any questions I can help with?"
Sometimes "I need to talk to my boss" means "I'm not interested." If they won't schedule a follow-up or give you the boss's contact, it's probably a soft no.
"Will this work with our ERP/accounting system?"
Likelihood: ★★★☆☆ — Common from technical or IT-involved buyers
"What system are you using?"
- If you integrate: "Yep, we have [native/API] integration with [X]."
- If you don't YET: "Not natively yet, but we export to CSV/Excel that imports directly. Takes 30 seconds."
- If they use something obscure: "We can push data via API or webhook. Does your system accept inbound data?"
"Most customers start with export-to-CSV because it's zero IT involvement. Once you see the value, we can talk about deeper integration."
"Which integration would you need to move forward? Let me check with our team on timeline."
"How do I know this actually saves time?"
Likelihood: ★★★☆☆ — Skeptical buyers, especially if burned before
"Fair question. Let's test it: upload 5 invoices right now and see how long it takes vs. entering them manually."
"I can tell you it saves 80% of time, but that's just a number. Let me show you what the output looks like on your actual documents."
"You said you do 400 invoices/month at 10 min each. That's 67 hours. If we cut that to 2 minutes of review each, that's 13 hours. You get 54 hours back. What's that worth?"
"What happened with the last tool you tried?"
(Listen. Then explain how you're different.)
"We're looking at other options"
Likelihood: ★★☆☆☆ — Less common early, more common later in pipeline
"Smart to compare. Who else are you looking at?"
- vs. Big players (ABBYY, Kofax): "They're great if you have $50K and 6 months. We're built for teams that want to move fast."
- vs. Cheap OCR tools: "Those extract text. We extract structured data AND validate it against your POs. Different problem."
- vs. Building in-house: "Totally doable if you have the dev time. Most teams find it's cheaper to buy than build."
"[Competitor] is solid. The main difference is [specific thing you do better]. Depends what matters most to you."
"Happy to wait while you evaluate. Just know our pricing goes up next month / we're limiting new customers / [real reason to act soon]."
"This sounds like a lot of work to set up"
Likelihood: ★★☆☆☆ — Change management anxiety
"It's actually really simple - no IT needed. You email invoices to your inbox or upload them. That's it."
- "Sign up - 2 minutes"
- "Get your email address for forwarding invoices"
- "Start sending documents"
- "Data shows up in dashboard"
"There's no implementation project. No integration required to start. You can be processing invoices in 10 minutes."
"You don't have to change your process. Just add one step: forward invoices to us before you enter them. We'll have the data ready when you need it."
"I don't want to share business documents"
Data privacy and security concerns
"Totally fair question. Your documents are encrypted in AWS, isolated at the database level so no other customer can ever see them, and we don't use your data to train any AI models. We just process and return results."
- Documents stored in AWS S3 with encryption at rest
- Same infrastructure Fortune 500 companies use
- Each file tied to your account, not accessible by others
- Database-level tenant isolation (Row-Level Security)
- Even if our code had a bug, the database itself prevents cross-customer access
- Your company's data physically cannot be queried by another customer
- We DO NOT train on your documents
- We use AI APIs to process documents
- Those providers don't train on API data either - it's in their terms
- Your documents go in, structured data comes out, nothing is retained for training
- Only your team sees your documents
- We don't have a "browse customer files" interface
- Production access limited to infrastructure maintenance
"How many copies of an invoice exist in your company right now? Emailed to AP, forwarded to the manager for approval, CC'd to accounting, saved to a shared drive... We consolidate that to one secure system with an audit trail."
Or: "One secure inbox that processes immediately vs invoices bouncing between 5 different people's email folders with no tracking."
"Happy to start with a few old invoices - nothing current or sensitive. See the output quality before you commit to anything real."
- "Walk me through what happens when an invoice arrives today?"
- "How many people touch it before it's entered into your system?"
- "How many copies of that invoice exist across email, shared drives, desktops?"
- "If you needed to find an invoice from 6 months ago, how long would that take?"
(These questions reveal the chaos - multiple copies, no audit trail, manual handoffs)
- "We're SOC 2 compliant" (unless you have the cert)
- "No one can ever access your data" (you have infra access)
- "We'll delete everything immediately" (unless you have a policy)
"We're building toward SOC 2 certification. Our architecture uses the same security patterns - database-level isolation, encryption at rest and in transit, audit logging. Happy to share more technical details with your security team."
General Principles
Core guidelines for handling any objection
Never Argue
Don't say "but..." or "actually..." - agree and redirect. "You're right, AND here's another way to look at it..."
Ask Questions
Every objection is a chance to learn what they actually care about.
Get Specific
Vague objections ("it's expensive") need specifics ("compared to what?")
Reduce Risk
Pilot, trial, month-to-month, money-back - make it easy to say yes.
Know When to Walk
If they won't engage after handling objections, they're not a fit right now. Thank them, stay friendly, follow up in 3 months.
Red Flags
Signs they're probably not a fit right now
Buyer Personas
Complete strategy for each persona - triggers, discovery, math, hooks
Accounts Payable
- Hiring AP roles - growth signal, capacity constraint
- ERP migration - integration window opening
- Acquisition/funding - new vendors, scaling
- New CFO/Controller - change agent in place
"I saw you posted an AP specialist role. Is invoice volume outpacing your current process?"
"I noticed your company just acquired XYZ. That usually means a lot of new vendor invoices coming through."
- "How many invoices does your team process monthly?"
- "How long does each one take to enter?"
- "When's the last time a duplicate payment slipped through? What did it cost?"
- "Are you capturing your early payment discounts?"
Duplicates: 2% rate × 500 invoices × $5K avg = $50K/year
Early Pay: 60% of invoices × 1.5% discount = $45K/year
Month-end: 2 extra days × 5 people × $50/hr = $4K/close
Procurement
- Hiring procurement roles - team expansion
- Acquisition activity - new vendors, supplier consolidation
- Facility expansion - new warehouse, distribution center
- Vendor consolidation - active rationalization initiatives
"I saw the new warehouse expansion. With that many new suppliers coming on, you'll have a lot more vendor emails hitting AP."
"Noticed you just brought on 50 new vendors after the acquisition. That usually means a wave of new invoice formats."
- "What percentage of invoices come in without a PO?"
- "How do you track vendor compliance?"
- "How many suppliers do you currently manage?"
- "When you have supplier issues, how do you handle them?"
- PO to Invoice to Receipt matching - catches discrepancies before payment
- Vendor consolidation - merge duplicate vendors, standardize master data
- Full traceability - every field traces back to source document
Controller / CFO
- New CFO/Controller - wants quick wins, visibility
- Audit prep underway - surfaces invoice matching issues
- Funding round closed - new vendors, complexity
- SOX compliance deadline - control gaps exposed
"I saw you brought on a new CFO. CFOs usually want visibility into duplicate payment leakage immediately."
"I noticed your audit prep is underway. That usually surfaces invoice matching issues."
- "When's the last time a duplicate invoice slipped through?"
- "Are you capturing your early payment discounts?"
- "How much time do you spend on month-end reconciliation?"
- "What's your current cost per invoice processed?"
Early pay discounts: 2% × $5M spend = $100K uncaptured/year
Cost per invoice: 500 × 12 min @ $50/hr = $5K/month
Fraud risk: $50K-$500K per incident (industry avg)
Operations / Warehouse
- New distribution center - wave of new supplier onboarding
- Regional expansion - more warehouse operations to coordinate
- Peak season prep - receiving efficiency matters more
"I saw you announced a new distribution center opening. That usually means a wave of new supplier onboarding."
- "How do you know what's arriving before the truck shows up?"
- "How often do you catch shortages at the dock vs after stocking?"
- "When shipments don't match POs, how do you handle it?"
Ops is an influencer, not budget holder. May champion cross-functional tools but needs finance sign-off.
IT / ERP Admin
- ERP migration announcement - integration challenges surface
- New system implementation - more integration work
- Hiring IT roles - team is stretched
"I saw your ERP migration announcement. ERP migrations usually surface integration challenges we can help solve."
- "How much time does your team spend maintaining AP integrations?"
- "When vendors change invoice formats, who handles that?"
- "How often do you deal with ERP sync failures related to vendor data?"
IT is gatekeeper for technical requirements, NOT budget holder. Lead with "zero IT involvement to start" - they like tools that don't add to their workload.