Sales Tips

Countering Objections Positively

How many times in your sales career have you said, "Wow, that was an easy sale? My customer bought without raising any objections." Probably not to often. Your success as a sales person is directly related to your ability to handle and overcome buyers objections. Or to perceive their objections before they are a credible concern for the buyer.

Objections pop up regularly during seller-buyer interactions. Handled effectively, and answered adroitly, objections can actually help you clinch a sale. If you respond to an objection appropriately, you will change the way your prospect thinks and feels about you, your product or service.

Now, how do you do that? Not by disagreeing with the prospect. Doing that will only antagonize him or her. Not by agreeing with the prospect. Saying that will only convince him or her of the rightness of the expressed position. So what do you do? Your job is neither to agree nor disagree: IT IS TO UNDERSTAND!

A NO may mean, "Tell Me More!"

Prospects raise objections when they are unconvinced of their need for your product or service, or when they want to state an opinion different from yours. Their objections expose them to the true concerns about your product or service. Your job is to listen to the clues they provide and to expose those "hot buttons" by satisfying their concerns. When prospects raise objections or throw sales blocks straight at you, your primary goal is to let them know you understand how they feel, that if you were in their position you might well feel the same way. However...it is at this point where your selling skills start. By voicing their opinions, they are also telling you they are interested and listening. You need to explain to your buyers what buying your service will mean for them and their company. Encourage them to think about themselves and how our service will benefit them. Learn to uncover what is important to the buyer. Once you have that information you have reached the buyers, "Hot Button" which more often than not leads to the sale.

Buyers are most often than not when approached by sales persons in a "self-protection mode" in an effort to ensure they are not making a purchasing mistake. They do not want to overpay. They do not want to take risks. They do not want to change a product or service that is currently working for them. They do not want to experiment. So, how do you bypass the "self-protection mode" and make the sale. Simply this: self-interest. Your ability to arouse and maintain buyer self-interest seriously impedes the buyer's ability to block a sale. Turn your prospects interests on, and you turn your prospects on to your service. Without turning on their interest, without activating their hot buttons, you will run head first into buyer sales block, detour after detour and eventually run out of steam. If you arouse and sustain buyer interest, you'll have the fuel you need to weaken or eliminate them. Either design your presentation with your prospects interests in mind, or don't expect your prospects to be interested in your presentation.

Prospects must understand the advantages of your service. They must be able to visualize themselves using your service, and they must desire to enjoy the end result that your service will deliver to them. Sharing this bundle of benefits builds buying pressure in prospects and prevents them from building sales blocks for you.

So always hear out a prospect's objection. Always let the prospect tell you the whole story. Never interrupt. Never disagree. Only understand. Then and only then can you show prospect how you will help and what you will be able to do for them. Doing that takes patience. Doing that requires persistence. Doing that produces results. Doing that results in SALES. And isn't that what this is all about, SALES.