In sales there are times when you just cannot close the deal.
You rock along presenting, thinking you’re onto a winner.
Then it happens. Objections rear their ugly heads and you come to a complete stop.
After all – we’re told the customer is always right and you just don’t want to be pushy.
Damn it!!
A lot of the new guys coming into sales have never had to deal with face-to-face sales presentations. They’re just not trained to handle objections correctly.
You know what it’s like, you and your sales teams spend an inordinate amount of time pitching and presenting to prospects, for what?
“I’ll think about it”,
“Can you email me those details?”
or the worst, “We never decide on the day”
What a waste of time presenting
A waste of advertising spend
A waste of salary
AND most importantly (because you could’ve been in a selling appointment) time.
Well, how do you overcome these objections?
What if I told you, you can remove the most common objections before they become objections?
Cool huh?
In no particular order I have prepared a guide to handle to most popular excuses not to buy, erm – sorry I mean objections.
7 ways to overcome objections.
Whatever the objection we need to make sure we identify exactly why there is a hold up in the buying process.
So we identify the objection as in step 1 above, but there’s more than one. Don’t panic, take a breath. We must isolate each objection. There may be more than one, but we can only deal with oner at a time. Spend time isolating and understanding each objection as I step 1 above.
Once you clarify each objection and you understand what and why it is an objection, you are in a much better position to overcome it. Again, if there are more than one objection, clarify the first and deal with it, then move on to the next.
It is almost always the price. Unless you are skilled in price conditioning, the price of a product (at the end of a presentation) will always come as a shock to prospects. AND their knee jerk reaction is to say they cannot afford it. Your job now is to isolate that price is the ONLY objection. I can work with money – I can’t do anything with a lack of interest.
I loved this phrase, it was taught to me way back in my early days of being a field sales agent. Let’s imagine cost is the objection. We know we can reduce the price a little but to just offer a lower price will destroy any faith you have built with the prospects. Identify, clarify etc and then ask, “So is it just the cost you are objecting to?” They say ‘Yes’
Now you say “If I can reduce the price, Will you be placing an order?” Or “If I can offer a better deal, Will you be able to say yes today?” Words to that effect.
However, never ever just drop the price to try and cement a deal, you MUST offer a justifiable discount. I always offer a discount if I can use the before and after photos (cheaper than running ads right?), or a testimonial. Whatever you chose to do – it must be believable.
Sadly this is something the sales agent needed to address in his/her presentation. The prospects may love the products, really want to buy it/them but just not at this time. Trouble is, if you don’t close this now, they will look elsewhere and all your hard work will drive them into your competitor’s business. Never the less – we need to deal with it now. You can overcome this by offering to ‘hold’ the price and deliver at a more convenient time, but I need a small deposit today. By placing a deposit today, you will also bypass the impending price rise we have coming soon.
By re-phrasing the objection and repeating it to your prospects, sometimes it can trivialise their objection and make it seem such a small thing they got hung up on. I once had a client didn’t want to place an order because I don’t deal with scaffolders and they didn’t know a scaffolder. So, I asked them if that was the only objection – they said yes. I took out my phone and Google’d local scaffolders and got a quote there and then. The objection dissolved as quickly as it came up and I got the order.
One great way to solve an objection issue to use testimonials of other satisfied customers. I keep a presentation folder and have lots and lots of testimonials which deals with just about every objection you can imagine. Social proofing is a great way to get other prospects on side. If Mary isn’t sure what white walls will look like on her home, I have lots of photo’s of other houses and how they looked prior to the work being done.
This is one of the best ways to handle objections I have ever heard and used. Whatever the objection you need to see it from the prospects point of view and say, “I know how you feel, (understanding, empathy, taking their side) I felt the same way when I first looked at this.” At this point they relax a bit, knowing they’re not the only ones with this objection. Then you need to say, “What I found was, when I went ahead etc etc etc…..”
Then I always say – “does that make sense?”
So this little cheat sheet may help you with any objection you may get in the future.
Try them, let me know how you get on – happy to help if you have any persistent objections that keep re-occurring.
Having said all of that – I very rarely get objections. Do you want to know how?
