SERIOUS Selling Blog

Well, hardly ever! Most salespeople become better at handling objections with experience. They instinctively learn how to respond to the most common objections they come across and will grow to be more successful over time. But OUTSTANDING salespeople are different. They don’t wait for the customer to raise an objection and then handle it, they ANTICIPATE objections and PRE-HANDLE them.

For example, if they know they have a competitor to deal with in this piece of business and they know this competitor offers a lower price they don’t wait for the customer to ask them the question about “Why is you price so high?”. Instead they bring up the subject before hand by saying something like this when they make their offer. “Of course, our solution isn’t the cheapest in the market place, and that’s because…..”, followed by the two or three things they would normally mention when justifying a higher price.

This instantly removes a potential barrier to the sale without the salesperson needing to DEFEND their price in response to a sales objection. In this way an OUTSTANDING salesperson becomes an expert in ANTICIPATING sales objections and PRE-HANDLING them. As a result they never (or very rarely) have to handle a sales objection raised by the customer. Other techniques for handling sales objections are covered in our series of videos. Mike Willshare

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Objections come from all sorts of different sources in the customers mind.

One of the most common is when they are simply confused about the offer you’ve made them or the content of what you are proposing. If you spot this confused state in your customer this is a good type of objection to have. Why? Because a “confused” state is best addressed by “educating” the customer to help them understand and remove the confusion.

This process of education creates a helpful, collaborative atmosphere. So take some time to explain and when you finish ask if you’ve answered the question fully.

Metaphorically speaking, it gets you on the same side of the table as the customer, rather than confronting them. You are working together to reach some mutual understanding about your product proposal or offer. In the process you are sharing information and understanding. This creates an entirely different relationship compared to the way you would deal with other objections where it’s very easy to get into either a defensive or confrontational situation.
So look out for the objections that can easily be handled by a bit of simple education and you’ll move the whole sales process forward dramatically.

You can find more on how to deal with objections that arise from “Confusion” in our free video series on overcoming sales objections.

Mike Willshare

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Competitors are always finding ways of setting traps for the unwary salesperson to walk into.

Listen carefully for any customer objection that makes a direct hit on one of your company’s or product’s weaknesses.

Let’s say you have some reliability problems, compared to your top two or three competitors, but you know your service and support is better than theirs. In fact, your company is known for it’s high quality customer support and fast response times.
When the customer raises an objection about concerns over your poor product reliability the chances are that one of your competitors has been pushing their strong product reliability as a major benefit. By focusing on this strength of theirs they have sown the seed in the customer’s mind so that they challenge YOU on YOUR reliability. (Salespeople can be sneaky, can’t they?)
Now, how do you respond? In this case, you would flip the conversation round and talk to the customer about the importance of excellent support and quick response times. Knowing your strengths lie in this area and your competitors are weak you could even ask the customer the question “Well, you wouldn’t want to risk buying something that wasn’t backed up with the best service in the industry, would you?”
To summarise:

• Know your competitors and their strengths and weaknesses
• Watch for the “Direct Hit” that says your competitor set you a trap
• Flip the subject round and emphasise YOUR strengths against your competitor’s weaknesses.

For more top tips see our video series on handling sales objections.

Mike Willshare

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Later, when you attempt to close the sale, it resurfaces. This time though it’s become much bigger and stronger in the customer’s mind JUST BECAUSE you avoided answering them the first time they mentioned it!
Now, when you attempt to handle the objection you’ll have to try MUCH HARDER.

What should you do instead? What strategy should you use? Two things:

• First, buy yourself some thinking time by asking the customer to give you some more detail about what’s behind their concern. This extra detail might make it easier for you to give a more focused response.

• Second, if you don’t have an answer, just be honest. Explain you need to go away to get some more information and set a time to come back to them with a full answer. Make sure they are happy with this and make sure you honour that commitment!

Use this link to find out more about how to overcome sales objections.

Mike Willshare

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		Do you ever feel your customer is just making you try to jump bigger and bigger hurdles before they give you their business? In our training videos and classroom courses you’ll often hear us talk about False Objections.   A false objection is some concern or issue raised by the customer that has no real grounds. The reason the raise it at all is to give them a reason for NOT doing business with you. There can be a number of reasons for this but the important thing is for you to recognise the difference. In our video series on overcoming sales objections we cover this in more detail. Check it out.

If you don’t you can waste an awful lot of time and effort.
If a customer raises a true, genuine objection you MUST respond to it. But if the objections are false you need to be careful.
Why do customers raise false objections? The most common reason is that they are talking to you NOT because they want to buy from you BUT because they are using you as a yardstick to either:

• Show evidence to their employer they have investigated the market for other options, or
• To collect information they can use with the supplier they want to buy from and get a better deal. In other words use your pricing to beat up their preferred supplier.

Either way, they are going to make you believe they want to buy your offering even though they have no intention of doing so.
Professional buyers can be very clever about how they do this so you have to be very alert. The most obvious signal is when the customer raises an objection and you give them a solid, strong response. Then they raise another objection, so you answer that one. Then another and  another.  Each time the objection sounds weaker and weaker. After a while even the least experience salesperson will realise this piece of business is going somewhere else!
What do you do about it? When you realise the objections are false just ask the question. “Before I answer your question, are there any other concerns you have?” In other words, get all their objections out on the table. If this doesn’t work just be very open and ask the closed question “If I can give you answers to your questions will you place your business with me?”

If they say yes you can get down to business. If they fumble or say no you know it’s time to move on!

Mike Willshare

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First I’ll describe this most common mistake and then tell you what the most successful salespeople do when faced with objections.
Here it is – Jumping straight in with an answer to OVERCOME the objection. Some salespeople believe for every objection a customer has there’s a corresponding response.

		Some companies even train salespeople to use a script if the customer raises a price objection, for example. Of course, as a salesperson you naturally feel you have to defend your price immediately when you hear something like this. It’s almost an instinct, but one you have to control. Have you ever been a customer who raised an objection about price and then been given a totally inappropriate answer? Annoying isn’t it?

Here’s an example:

The customer is just about ready to place an order but raises one last objection – “Your price is too high.”
Most untrained (or poorly trained) salespeople will jump straight in with an answer to justify the price. “We offer great value….we’re very competitive….we can offer you a discount…blah, blah, blah”

What’s wrong with this? Well, how do you know the customer’s objection is nothing to do with your value, or your competitors, but is simply saying “I can’t afford to buy from you today at that price – I don’t have the money” If you knew this was the underlying objection you’d answer in a COMPLETELY different way, something like “Well, perhaps we could agree some staged payments, or I could provide you with an option to lease the product…”

If you gave the first answer a smart buyer would take up your offer of a discount then tell you they ALSO want staged payments. Oops! If you do this, then, best case – you give away more than you needed to. Worst case – the customer thinks your an idiot and takes their business to your competitor!

So, DON’T JUMP IN WITH THE FIRST ANSWER YOU THINK OF (or a SCRIPT!)

The problem with this is that the answer is probably not be the right one. What do successful salespeople do? When they hear the first hint of an objection they pause, to give themselves time to think then start to ask the customer some questions to get right behind the real concern or issue. A little bit of discussion usually means the objection is actually quite simple to deal with and the threat of losing the business on price just melts away! Give it a try.

Use this link to get our videos about overcoming sales objections.

Mike Wilshare

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In the next five blog posts I’ll cover the five sales objections you really need to overcome if you want to win the sale. In this first one let’s look at an objection about price. This will either come up as an obvious objection, like “You’re too expensive!”, or more subtley like “I think I could shop around for a better deal” . This objection is a real show-stopper if you don’t deal with it properly. So what can you do if your customer is baulking at your price?

The main reason for the “Price Objection” is simply that you haven’t convinced the customer of the VALUE of your offer to THEM. This often happens when you just use your company’s marketing blurb as part of a sales pitch. Instead, you need to find out what will MOTIVATE this customer to buy. And this depends on spelling out the specific value to THEM.

Start by asking the customer “In what way do you think my product (or service) won’t offer you VALUE?”  Note, I’m avoiding the use of the word COST or PRICE. Let them talk and listen carefully. Nine times out of ten you’ll pick up on one of their needs that you just didn’t cover very well when you described what your product will do for them.

Once you have this just restate your offer in terms of their needs, not it terms of your product’s features.

Mike Willshare

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This is where your competitor knows about your weak points and has set you a trap to blunder into. The objection might be quite subtle, for example “I understand your product only carries a twelve month warranty but everyone else offers three years..”

Basically, you competitor has sown the seed in the customer’s mind that your offering won’t compete in the market. What you mustn’t do is simply offer to extend your warranty period to match the others! This REACTION is just what your competitor has expected you to do, so don’t walk into the trap. If you do, you’ll find there are two or three other similar traps to walk into.

Overcoming this objection depends on knowing your competitors and their strengths and weaknesses. Instead of REACTING you could RESPOND by giving some facts and figures about your product’s reliability, for example. Take the attention away from the warranty period and explore the subject of product reliability. If you know your competitor you might know they offer an inferior product and have to offer the warranty because of a poor reputation in the market. (NB When Alfa Romeo were acquired by FIAT their car’s were renowned for poor reliability. FIAT overcame the reliability objection by offering one of the first three year warranties in the industry, even though the cars were no more reliable than before.)

So, whatever the specific objection might be, if you know it came from a competitor, make sure you don’t just REACT. Give yourself some thinking time, flip the objection round, and focus on the positive aspect of your product. If the objection is around warranty, talk about reliability, if the objection is about ease of use talk about sophistication, etc..

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You must have heard this one before! It usually means just one of two things. Either, “I don’t want to buy from you, under any circumstances”, or, “You haven’t convinced me, yet, of the VALUE that your product will give me”.
When you hear this don’t be tempted to ask “What else do you need to think about?” That’s just irritating! First you need to find out whether the customer intends to make a decision now  or not. Simply ask “Well, if you had all the information you need to make a decision just now would you be making a decision to buy today?” If the answer is “No” you know you won’t make a sale today. The best you can do is get the prospect to commit to contact you again BEFORE they make their final buying decision.
If they ARE ready to decide today you can ask the question “What other information do you need?” It may not be more information about you product, they might just need to hear a reference or testimonial from another customer to convince them to go ahead.
Note with the above, it’s about asking questions, not just responding with a “stronger pitch”. For more tips on Objection Handling techniques check out our series on overcoming sales objections.

Mike Willshare

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 This often happens when you bring a new product or service to market. The key to overcoming this is at two levels.

First you need to explain the VALUE of any innovative feature of your new product, while explaining how any previous functionality is preserved. In other words, what does it do for this specific customer. Does it allow them to do something more quickly, or with less effort? Does it save them carrying two pieces of equipment instead of one? Is it simpler to operate, without referring to a handbook, or needing to go on a training course?

Second, you need to have some very strong reference examples of other people who have successfully moved already from the previous generation of technology to a new one.

If you want to know more about how to deal with customers who aren’t ready to commit check out our videos on overcoming sales objections.

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