3 Things You Need To Do at the Start of Handling An Objection

There are 6 steps to handling objections properly but even experienced salespeople often miss the first 3.


Handling objections is one of the most common topics I get asked about as a sales trainer.  There’s no quick solution on dealing with them effectively.  In fact, what happened in the selling process up to the point of getting an objection will largely determine the ability to overcome them successfully.  Objections also need to be customized for each specific company and product.  While this is obviously outside the scope of this article, I can at least provide you with some steps that are crucial yet rarely done properly, if at all.

Step One - Listen & Keep Your Cool!
Easier said than done!  You need to make sure that you know the full and true objection.  If you miss it, even by a small margin, your ability to convince your customer of your solution will be hampered.  Ironically, a problem arises in this area when sales reps have had some training on objection handling — they know the answer to a particular objection and immediately begin blurting it out at the first sign of the customer bringing it up.  It’s reminiscent of the days in school when we’d shoot our hands in the air once we had the answer the teacher was looking for.  “Ooh ooh ooh … I know!” we’d shout.  While that might have worked in school, it doesn’t work well in handling objections.  Not only might you not understand the full objection because you were too anxious to address it, you also run the risk the customer will think that their concern is being dismissed.

A good idea is to paraphrase what the customer has said back to you to ensure that you’ve got it.  It will also help the customer understand that you care about their concern.  An added benefit is that good listening controls the emotional climate.  It might go something like, “I want to make sure I understand your concern Linda.  What I think you’re saying is that …  Is that right?”

Here’s a true story from a prospective customer of a sales rep who didn’t follow this advice:

"I was in charge of buying new photocopiers for my company.  I invited vendors to come in and give a capabilities presentation. Each company had some things that I liked about it – and each had some features that I was less enthusiastic about.

In the middle of one of these conversations I noted to one sales rep that I was concerned about their service time frames. Well, apparently that was not the thing to say! He broke into a several minute long monologue about how his company was far better than the competitor’s and if any of them claimed to have faster service, they’d be lying. “

Wow! It was like I had offended his wife! After that I just let him finish and leave, never to return."

Step Two - Analyze
In this step, you need to assess whether the objection is valid or not.  Naturally, you’ll handle it very differently depending on which way it falls.  If it’s not valid, it’s easy on one hand, because with additional clarification of the facts, it can be corrected.  On the other hand, however, it can be hard because you are essentially having to tell the customer he’s wrong.  That’s what’s extra challenging about handling objections.  How do you tell someone they’re wrong without bruising their ego and getting their back up?  To use an old expression, you might win the battle but lose the war.  Here’s where you need the third step.

Step Three - Support
In this critical step, you agree with a grain of what they say without agreeing completely with them — a skill that is difficult to master.  There is a concept in psychology that states that someone is most attached to an opinion immediately after giving it.  Think about when you are in a conversation.  If you voice an opinion, you will likely be ready to defend it the most vigorously right after you say it and if the person we’re speaking to has a different opinion, we are least likely to entertain their thoughts.  In contrast, if you show some understanding of where they are coming from, you’ll find the customer more open to listening to an alternative viewpoint. 

In this step, you will be able to avoid this problem and effectively “disarm” them. For example, let’s suppose the customer says, “I’d like to deal with your company but your prices are too high” you might reply with something like, “I can appreciate that you want to get the best value.”  You are agreeing with the idea of value without necessarily agreeing that your price is “too high.”

There you have the basics of the first 3 steps out of 6 to becoming an expert in handling objections.  My experience has been that most salespeople skip these entirely and by doing so, have poor success.  To learn all 6, join us for our upcoming free webinar, “How to Handle Objections & Stay Friends” by clicking here.

Do you know your time quadrants?

Knowing where your time is being used will allow you to spend more time on the sales activities that make you money.

 
I don’t read many books but at least I try to implement good ideas from the ones I do get around to reading.  One of the oldest books on my shelf that is still in my top 10 is “7 Habits of Highly Effective People” by Stephen Covey.  The chapter on time management speaks of all activities in you life fitting into one of four quadrants.  The concept is that there are two variables that can be attached to any activity: 1) Level of urgency and 2) Level of importance.  Plotting one of these against the other produces four quadrants as in the diagram below.  Armed with this insight, you’ll be able to make better choices deciding what you’re going to spend your time on and be more effective.

The Fine Line Between Persistence and Stalking

There’s a difference between being persistent and being a pest!

“What’s a reasonable amount of follow-up?”  “If I’m not getting a response, when should I give up?”  “Am I jeopardizing the sale if I’m too persistent?”  These are all questions that often come up in our Power Prospecting workshop.  How often to contact a prospect is a complex subject and one that I hope to clear up for you.  Let’s take a deeper look at this issue.

The effort required to connect with someone, especially by phone, is dramatically greater today than it was even a few years ago.  In the mid-90’s, just when voicemail was becoming commonplace, a business person could expect to connect to another business person 22% of the time or just shy of 1 in 5 times.  Today, that number has jumped to 1 in 7.  With the daily tsunami of email, getting people to respond by phone is more difficult than ever.  This adds up to salespeople getting pushed to the bottom of the priority list in the business world.

To get someone’s attention and raise the level of urgency requires more frequent contact attempts than most salespeople are initially comfortable with.  I think you’ll agree that proper business etiquette is to return voicemails within a day.  For this reason, if you don’t connect live and instead, have to leave a voicemail, I recommend you give your prospective customer a day or so to return it.  It’s helpful to set the expectation in your voicemail by saying something like, “If you don’t have a chance to get back to me in the next couple of days, I’ll try you again at your desk on Thursday morning.”  When you call them on Thursday, this does a couple of things for you.  First, it separates you from some salespeople in that you kept your promise.  Second, your prospect will quickly understand that you’re going to be persistent in a polite, professional way.

A popular mistake by some salespeople is the mind reading they do of their prospect. “Gee, they haven’t called me back so I guess that means they aren’t interested.  I don’t want to annoy them.”  This assumption is very wrong.  In the vast majority of cases, your prospects are busy people, just like you are, and unfortunately, returning sales calls falls to the bottom of their to-do list.  When you eventually do connect, you will find that your polite persistence will most often generate a response something like, “I got your voicemails.  I’m really sorry I haven’t called you back.  We’ve just been crazy busy around here.”  Frankly, I’ve made over 3000 prospecting calls since founding Northbound Learning and I’ve only had one person ever say, “If I were interested, I would have called you back.”  That’s right … ONE!  Just last week, I finally got through to two prospective customers who I had left several voicemails and emails with.  Did they say, “Michael, you are annoying me.  I’m obviously not interested.” Not at all.  In fact, both of them apologized profusely for not getting back to me and I booked meetings with each of them.

Polite, professional persistence is what often separates low performers from the great ones.

Your actions this week:

1. Mix up your contact methods with prospects you’re trying to connect with this week.  Use a   combination of voicemail, email, hand written notes, personal visits, even fax!  You’ll see that it increases your response.
2. Keep careful track of your contact attempts along with dates.  Try to get at least 2 contact attempts in per week and don’t give up until you’ve tried at least 7 times.


If you’d like more information on Northbound Learning’s Power Prospecting workshop, contact me at mcaron@northboundlearning.com or 416.456.1440.

Happy prospecting!


Don’t try to close without opening first

Don’t try to close without opening first

You can’t close effectively if you don’t have closing ammunition

Have you ever noticed how salespeople just seem to connect to each other regardless of age, industry or even nationality?  I experienced this first hand on a vacation in Florida a few weeks ago where I had the pleasure of meeting a gracious American retired sales professional named Jim Mandy.  Jim was kind enough to share some of his best sales strategies from over the years and I’d like to share one of them with you.

How to Turn Problems Into More Sales

How to Turn Problems Into More Sales

Become a problem solver and watch your sales grow!

Being an optimist by choice, I don’t usually recommend that people spend much time focusing on problems.  In the case of making additional sales to our customers however, it’s a great idea.  I’m sure you’re scratching your head right now trying to figure out my point.  Let me explain.

Your first New Years resolution should be not to make any!

Your first New Years resolution should be not to make any!

Achieving important goals takes much more than making a few resolutions every January

Call them what you want but technically they’re the same thing – resolutions or goals.  Typically, however, resolutions are goals that most people start the year with and are usually accompanied by short lived passion.  The sad fact is that while almost one out of two of us make new years resolutions, by the end of the year, only 12% of them are achieved.  That’s an 88% failure rate, not much better than those who don’t even bother to set some.  A recent study showed that 1 out of 4 people can’t even stick to their resolutions through the first week!