Objections. Among sales people it can be a curse word. Anyone in sales can tell you that only a portion of objections are legitimate; the rest are stall tactics to unconsciously hide the real objection. Salespeople face them every single day as a natural part of the job.
Even e-business entrepreneurs face them, although they may not hear them in a face-to-face environment. In their case, someone may click on the site, look for the answer in a FAQ page and click off again if they don’t see the answer.
No matter how you sell, you’ll face objections. How you handle them will determine whether you make the sale or not. Collectively, how you deal with objections will determine whether you’ll stay afloat in the world of sales.
So if you’re in sales (Hint: you are in sales! Whether you thought you were or not when you started your business you joined a salesforce), here’s a 4-step process to help you handle objections.
1. Thank them for making a good point.
Thanking your prospect for asking a good question sounds odd at first but it does several things:
- It compliments the prospect and helps them to have good feelings about themselves, which are vital to successful selling.
- It gives you a good point of leverage by reasserting your authority on the issue.
- It gives you a split second to “catch your breath” and develop your answer.
Try saying it to someone and watch for their reaction. You’ll be surprised.
2. Ask, “is _____ what you want?”
Essentially, you are trying to uncover whether or not this is a buying decision. The last time I was car shopping I was test driving a car and couldn’t immediately see the cruise control button. I asked the salesperson and instead of saying to me “it’s an additional option” he said to me, “do you want cruise control?” By answering my question with that question he helped clarify for me that I did not want cruise control since most of my driving was in the city.
- For example, if you can’t fulfill their objection, will they shop elsewhere?
- If they say no, keep going with the sale. If they say yes, go to step 3.
3. Highlight what aspect of your product addresses their objection (or why their objection is misinformed).
Let’s face it, objections fall into 3 camps: They are true objections (which are rare), they are stalling objections (to unconsciously avoid dealing with the true objections), or they are misinformed. You can easily address all three by highlighting some aspect of your product or service that does address those objections.
4. Attempt to close them again.
Once you have dealt with the objection, go back in to close the sale. Don’t just expect that, now that you’ve dealt with their objection, they’re going to throw their wallet at you. There may be more objections!
Not sure where to get started? Think about the last 10 sales you lost. Then get recipe cards and write down all the reasons you heard from the prospect for not buying your product. Put one reason on each card. Then go through each card and (on the back) write a good answer using these 4 steps. Then, when you have a spare minute, run through the cards a few times to nail down a natural-sounding answer to your most common objections. Collect your objections like baseball cards!
