One of the biggest mistakes salespeople make is that we over answer objections at the beginning of a sales encounter. Think about it, if we try to change the view of our customers or go into a ten-minute dissertation on company credibility, or a fifteen-minute product demonstration, we’re wasting precious time that we could be using to get the customer emotionally involved.
Often times, once the customer is involved emotionally, they justify their decision themselves. Remember this:
So what do we do when we hear customer objections at the front-end? Such as, “we’d never buy today”, “we like a competitor’s product better” or “we can purchase your product cheaper online”?
Follow these three rules:
1) Never answer any objections until after the discovery: Acknowledge the objection and write it down. It may or may not surface again. Often when we ignore objections they simply go away.
2) Answer it quickly or move on.
3) Have a manager meet with your customer, answer it quickly, and move on.
When you do finally answer and overcome your customer’s concerns, hopefully you’ve already built enough value that they’re open to hearing what you have to say. Value is created when a salesperson:
· Resonates
· Differentiates
· AND Substantiates
And we can only substantiate once we’ve created curiosity, built trust, and have emotionally involved our customer. So next time you hear a negative early on, have patience in your process.