How To Handle Objections Without Being Pushy
The ability to handle
objections stops a lot of salespeople dead in their tracks … yet it
should not. Salespeople mistake an objection as meaning NO! The
reality is it more often means …
‘I don’t KNOW enough to make a yes decision!’
How many sales
presentations have ended with ‘Let me think it over’?
Far to many I suspect. At
the time they are saying this the prospect very well may intend to
think it over. As soon as you leave their office however they go back
to their issues, challenges and other concerns, and you your product
or service slip further and further from their mind.
The key is to understand
why prospects provide objections and to expect them to come.
Objections are the stepping-stones that you need to close sales.
Learn to handle them correctly and you will excel in sales. If you
don’t handle them correctly you will miss many sales that you could
have made.
The first thing to know
about objections is that we are trained to give them when someone is
trying to sell us something. It is an automatic unconscious response
to being sold to. Because we have a fear of being sold to we learn
from an early age how to put up barriers and hurdles as a protection
mechanism. The question is … who is the better sales person in this
situation? Is it you as the professional salesperson handling their
objections … or is it them and their ability to sell us their
objections?
The second thing about
objections that you need to know is that objections are a positive
sign that they are considering your product or service. If someone
was just plain not interested they would just say so. There would be
no need to create objections if they were not mentally considering
saying yes.
The third thing you need
to know about objections is that most people have what is known as a
…
Three time convincer strategy
Approximately 80% of the
population have what is known as a three-time convincer strategy. In
other words, before making a yes decision about something they need
to be convinced how many times? That’s right ... three times!
Most people need to be
convinced three times in three different ways to make a yes decision
about your product or service.
Knowing this means that
you need to be prepared to answer three lots of objections and make
three closing attempts. When you do so skilfully, as long as you have
unearthed their go ahead reasons, and used them in your presentation,
you will close a far higher percentage of sales.
So think about the fact
that you will need to handle three sets of objections before you can
close most sales. Now these objections could come all at once in a
row, or spread throughout your presentation.
The key to successfully
handling objections is to never argue with them or attempt to make
them wrong in anyway. If you do you will loose them completely.
Objections
need to be handled carefully acknowledging the fact that their
objection is a valid concern to them.
Handling objections is an
energy flow … almost like a dance that flows back and forth. You
need to feel and sense the energy and work with it. Never push back
against the energy … let it flow and then redirect it like an
Aikido master.
To do this use the …
Five Step Objection Handler
Handling objections is
actually quite easy when you have the right system for it. The steps
in our five step objection handling system are:
1/ Release pressure
– When they give you an objection it is usually because they are
feeling pressure to make a yes decision, and their emotional state
can slip back into fear if you are not careful. The best thing you
can do at this point is to release the pressure by simply agreeing
with them.
‘Yes I understand’ or ‘Yes I see your point
of view’
2/ Question their
objection – After releasing the pressure by
agreeing with them you want to question it. By questioning the
objection you get them talking more about the objection. As they
think about and articulate their objection they often talk them
selves into a yes decision.
Always soften it by saying
…
‘Yes
I see your point of view … just for my own clarity … do you mind
if I ask you …’
And then ask 2 or 3
questions such as …
‘Could you explain in more detail what you mean
specifically by that?’
You want to get them to
talk about specific details of their objection rather than broad
abstract concepts. The more they respond by answering your questions
the greater the chance they will reveal to you the deeper reason for
their objection.
3/ Feed it back
– Once you feel you have their real objection feed it back to them
for clarity. You need to be certain you have the specific objection
before proceeding.
‘So
let me see if I understand this correctly … what you are saying is
that you know you need our sales training program for your team …
but you are concerned about investing the money without getting a
return on your investment … have I got that right?’
Make sure they agree to
your understanding of the objection in the form of a yes.
4/ Reframe
– Now we take the objection and reframe it. We shift its meaning to
a new meaning that confirms they are going ahead, So in our example …
‘So
what you are really saying is that if you know the results of the
sales training is certain, if it is guaranteed … your sales team
will definitely improve their sales, you would go ahead right now …
right?’
5/ Satisfy and close
again – At this point they have given you a
green light to satisfy their objection and then move straight to the
close. So all that you need to do is satisfy their concern and then
assume the close.
‘Well
great … as we talked about earlier we provide a six month guarantee
on our training programs … yet we have never had anyone take us up
on it because the program is so unique it gets results almost
immediately when implemented … and that’s what you want right, an
instant improvement in your sales teams results?
So
the only thing we need to think about right now is how soon can we
schedule in your training program?’
If you approach there
objections using these five easy steps then you will find that more and
more of your prospective clients will begin to say yes to you and doing
business with you. Try it and see.
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With
the end of the financial year upon us in Australia now is the right
time to be developing your marketing plan for the coming year.
I
am a great believer in conditioning your mind for success. There is no
place where this is more essential than in Small Business. We have to
constantly gaurd our minds against negative media reports, complaining
employees and more. 