Overcoming Objections
DISCLAIMER: I wrote this at 4 this morning, probably not my best work but thought I would leave as is, it could be humorous.
As I prepare for our sales meeting today I was thinking about the one piece of the agenda that seems to be on every sales meeting agenda I have ever attended and it will be part of ours as well. That section is overcoming objections, or Challenge/Response.
No matter where I have been one of the ways I can tell the people who are going to have the fastest path to success are the ones that do not start every conversation with their sales management team with "But the customer asked INSERT OBJECTION HERE.." The people that never have to ask how to get around those questions have the easiest path in the sales world. They just naturally have a knack to know what to say ahead of time.
For the past 10 years I have noticed this same thing, it just is.
For those that do start with that question and focus on the challenges they will always have a harder time, typically this means they need more training on the sales process from those that have been through it successfully. It means they need to make sure they answer the questions before they get asked and need to be told what to expect.
Now, I will say, if you are at a company that just has poor products or solutions then overcoming objections may be tough. But if you are at a company where you believe in the solution then usually it is just a matter of training to get the person to never have to hear the objection again.
The way I have always approached sales, and I try to help anyone that is on my team approach sales, is to think ahead of time to what the potential objections may be. Depending on the type of company you are at it could be any one of a million things, but the trick is to recognize and morph your presentation to answer the questions before they even get asked.
This is very important, if there is a valid objection then maybe you cannot hit that one, but the way most successful sales people never get asked the tough questions is because they answer them before they even come up. If you can establish your product and your company and focus on talking about the key points that many customers have asked that you know you have a positive answer too then there is never a negative perception.
That is one thing that many people miss, once the customer asks a question there is always a chance that there will be a slight negative perception even if the answer is solid. But if you lead with the answers and establish yourself then that negative vibe never comes into play.
Many people just naturally approach sales this way, they focus on the positive and come in with a passion for their company or product that tells the customer that there is something good here, I should be interested. And that right there is what it is all about, passion. Whether it be a domain name, a dog house, a cellphone. It does not matter, if you can be passionate about it and they recognize that it is real, then most objections have been overcome automatically.
I guess I disagree. When in the throes of this some years back, every day I met with the entire sales team. They told me the objections, and I worked with them on the response. This was very valuable. First, some objections were quite valid. We used this to either tune our product, or tune the target universe we tried to sell to. Not all products are appropriate for all buyers. And you need to improve the product incrementally along the way.
This meeting was very valuable for me. I was very in touch with the objections.
It was also valuable for the sales team. Product knowledge is key to sales success. Yes, they had the general story. But all too often, the objection had been around for a long time, we had a solid answer for it, and I was constantly amazed that we had sales people that didn’t know it.
Finally, my experience is that in any sales presentation the client is going to offer SOME objection. It’s kind of his job. If he doesn’t, it’s not a sign that you have a great product. It’s a sign he was disinterested and not paying attention to the presentation.
If he truly had no objections, I never had a case where we made a sale. In fact, our greatest fans and ardent advertisers kind of saw it as their job to suggest ways to make it better – usually bent more their direction. Everyone fancies themselves an expert. We would generally respond with “great idea. But how do we deal with THIS side effect.” Often they’d respond with “Yeah, I guess that IS a problem.”
But at that point, we’re “collaborating” and it just doesn’t get any better….
So I’m kind of focused on objection/response. In fact, the entire design process is all about being able to realistically put yourself in the customers place and raise the objections yourself….
Jack Rickard
Don’t get me wrong, training is necessary, hence the reason for sales training and meetings. But I will say, and I see it virtually everyday, that in many cases you can overcome many questions by knowing what the key points are.
There is a reason this is our 3rd sales meeting this year, training is key, it helps those that do not have the knowledge to proactively answer the objections get to the point where they can. I think we are probably more in agreement than the post comes off.
The only part of your comment I would disagree with is your comment that it is their job to make an objection, if you have proven yourself/product and all their questions are answered and they decided to throw a wrench in it simply because it is their job then they are doing themselves no favors. When people do that it is typically just to try to show that they are the customer and you must “bow to them”. Witnessed it many times.
We are probably more in agreement than not.
But if you’ve witnessed it also many times, isn’t it part of the process? It is what it is…
Do you take whiskey???
Jack Rickard
Ummmm, not sure of your argument here, I said it was part of the process but also there are people that are just naturally better at being able to do it than not.
I think I made it clear that part of the training process is helping people get around it.
Nope, not a whiskey drinker:)
Hi Bruce!
I liked this post – maybe 4 am is your finest hour?
One of the smartest things you can do is keep track of all the objections you hear – especially ones that correlate to lost sales.
Like you’ve said, it is best to address the most common ones in your presentation – before they become stumbling blocks.
Once a buyer states an objection as fact his ego may get in the way of seeing it in a different way. No one likes to lose an argument – and if you’re not careful “overcoming an objection” can be perceived as trying to tell the buyer he’s wrong. Good luck with that!
Thanks Brian. I do tend to think best late at night:)
One of the best things I think people can do at any sales training session is to spend a good portion on the time having interaction between the sales team and managers around challenges he individuals have faced. Having people share their experiences can help you craft your story so the next time someone else will not have to deal with the possibility of having to explain to someone they were wrong as you said in your comment.
Thanks for visiting my blog!
Hi Bruce,
I agree that salespeople should learn how to handle the objections that come up for them most often.
Where I differ from most on this is that I don’t believe in a scripted type of approach to objections.
My ideal is to have a method for generating reframes to objections then practice them on a wide range of objections. That trains the sales persons mind to be able to think on the fly and generate responses in the moment. It’s like a basketball player practicing sinking a basket from all part of the court rather than just practicing from the free throw line. It’s about generating responses unconsciously rather than trying to rote learn a response to a sales objection
.
Greg