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Tips on Overcoming Objections
When selling, even experienced salespeople will come across client objections. These objections, as we are told by sales training experts, arise due to a number of reasons. The three most common reasons are:
1. The customer does not fully understand the benefits of the proposal
2. They want to buy, but use the objection to negotate a better deal with you
3. Your sales presentation was not have convincing enough and did not meet the customer’s real requirements.
Even the best salesperson has to face objections routinely in their daily sales job. Whilst at Spearhead we wouldn’t be so bold as to say that you can win them all, the suggestions that follow will give you a much greater chance of dealing with the objection and making more sales.
Salespeople - especially those with a strong technical background - will often overload the prospective client with all the jargon of their industry. Whilst this jargon sounds impressive, if your prospective client doesn’t understand you then you will be hindering the sales case. The cure for this condition is for the sales manager to emphasise to all their customer contact people the importance of presenting all company information using customer friendly terminology. The term “Features and benefits” should be eliminated and insead use “Benefits and features”, which will guarantee that clients and prospective clients hear what they want to hear - i.e what is in it for them!
Professional buyers are tasked with securing the best deal they can get. They are very good at doing this. Consequently, they will raise a number of objections whose sole aim is to put pressure on the salesperson to achieve an additional one, two, or three percent discount. The professional buyer may state the objection as “too much”, in which case the salesperson must establish the underlying reaon. It could mean that the prospective client doesn’t have sufficient money; or they are comparing your offering with another from a competitor supplier; or they don’t perceive your proposal as giving sufficient value or return on investment. Faced with this, the sales person must uncover the client’s thought process and then justify their proposal and asking price by presenting the benefits, which determined that price in the first place.
Alternatively, the professional buyer may inform the sales person that their proposal isn’t really quite right for them, but as they’ve been so nice in meeting, what would be the best deal that they could offer? At Spearhead Training our sales training tutors refer to this technique as the “Red Herring”, where the salesperson’s attention is deflected away from the real issue - that is te desire of the buyer for a better deal - to focusing on the fictional objection of non-conformance with client's requirements. You can probably anticipate the outcome.
The best way to handle this type of objection is to constantly look for positive client feedback. If the client has been signaling their approval of your sales proposal as the call has been progressing, it is much more difficult psychologically for them to raise an objection of this type when asked to commit to an order.
At Spearhead we like to use the example of a boat passing through a series of lock gates. As each lock gate is closed, the lock fills with water, and the boat is lifted to a higher water level. It’s just the same with client feedback - every small “Yes” that’s mentioned makes the final “Yes” more of a formality, rather than a major buying decision.
Finally, we have the objection that is raised when the sales person trying to close the deal, but when the client really hasn’t been persuaded. Prevention is the key to getting around this type of objection. The salesperson must identify thoroughly what the client’s requirements really are. Do they want to lower accidents? minimise inventory? Have faster order processing? Are they genuinely under margin pressure, and looking to lower costs? Unless the real buying motivations are discovered by the salesperson, the chances of a sale being made are sorely reduced. As sales training tutors tell us: It’s pointless selling your product or service on price alone, if quality is the chief concern of the client!
