More than one salesperson has been derailed during a sales call when the prospect brings up an objection. There’s a variety of objections, such as, “I think we can do this in-house,” “We need to put this off for a couple of months” or “Why is your company so much higher than your competitor?”
Objections often send salespeople into fight-or-flight mode, and the result isn’t pretty. Salespeople start overselling, defending and justifying, or discounting in an attempt to keep the prospect’s interest. A salesperson’s inability to handle objections costs companies thousands of dollars each year.
So what can you do?
Teach your sales team to bring up the objections!
Sales and objections are predictable. Conduct a whiteboarding session with your sales team. Ask them to write down all the objections they hear from prospects and clients. (I promise that your sales team will be able to fill a whiteboard with objections.)
Now, ask your team this powerful question: When would you like to know about these objections? Overwhelmingly, they want to know sooner rather than later. So this is where your teaching begins.
Salespeople often are reluctant to bring up the objection. They mistakenly think they will plant a seed of doubt in the prospect’s mind. Well, your prospect already has thought of several reasons not to do business with you, many of which are based on false data or a previous experience with another vendor.
Salespeople that bring up the objections create truth-telling and high-credibility sales conversations.
They don’t look like they are trying to hide anything. By bringing up the objections, the salesperson has an opportunity to figure out the real reason behind the objection.
Effective and emotionally intelligent salespeople avoid being put into a fight-or-flight position. They bring up the obvious objection, which might sound like this: “Carolyn, many times when I meet with business owners like yourself, the real question to be addressed is, ‘Can we do this ourselves? Do we really need to outsource?’ Why don’t we look at both the pros and cons of outsourcing, and at the end of our conversation, you and I should have a good idea of the best direction to take.” This becomes a partner conversation, not a desperate, I-need-to-hit-my-quota conversation.
Stop avoiding obvious and predictable objections during a sales meeting. Bring up the objection. By doing so, you will look like the professional you are.
