6 Terrifying and yet Common Objections
le-300×198.jpg” alt=”" width=”300″ height=”198″ />
It is impossible to be in sales and to not have to handle objections at some point within your working day. Objections are a scary but necessary evil although most sales people hate having to deal with clients objections especially if they are new to a sales environment. Wouldn’t it be so much nicer if the clients would just sign on the dotted line and complete without any hassle? Sadly, this doesn’t happen that often. When someone voices their concerns though, you have to think on your feet and to skilfully overcome these concerns in a sometimes diplomatic way.
Those who rise to the challenge tend to see objections as the perfect gift to nail the point home about how good the purchase might be for them. They forget about their fears and instead embrace those objections. An objection only occurs when the client wants to be convinced after all, otherwise you get an out and out no. As a result of your client raising their concerns, it can be all systems go to try to make them view their concerns from a different perspective and this can be the fun part, yes really.
Finding out the real cause of the objection is crucial; your client may say one thing and actually mean another. This takes
interpretation and intuition on your part but once you get to the crux of the objection, you will be able to deal with the actual issue.
There are often 6 general objections and you need to consider and absorb
potential responses to these in advance as this will make you respond with greater confidence.
Value – sometimes the client will have questions over their perceived value. Is it really worth the money?
Lack of Action – they may feel it’s safer to sit on the fence and to take no action.
Finances – money may be tight and it’s easier to stall or to try to walk away from the deal.
Personal Issues – conflict with others involved.
Internal Issues – Inferiority perceptions
Lack of Urgency – Sometimes there seems little rush in going to the next stage.
There are lots of different ways of tackling and managing objections and you need to be confident with the techniques and to be intuitive as to what you think will work for your client.
The Boomerang technique is quite a popular one and with this technique you tend to bounce back what the client has said to you and therefore make them question their own concerns. There is a technique called Objection Chunking which means taking a lower or higher point of view and then opening up discussion. By interacting with the client, they can often reveal more information that gives you something stronger to work with. Sometimes responding with humour can be a real benefit and it’s certainly far better than responding with a sense of frustration, but be careful with this one. If you judge the situation incorrectly, you could just alienate the client.
Justification is an excellent technique where you get the client onside by agreeing with them. This simply means that you understand their viewpoint and can work with them to a common goal. You can also use the technique LAARC which stands for Listen, Acknowledge, Assess, Respond and Confirm. This technique provides you with a set of actions to follow and are self explanatory.
You can also write down potential objections on paper and then try to think of solutions so that you can handle them as and when they occur.
Handling objections is just another set of skills to learn and whilst it might be daunting, once learned will enable you to cope with all aspects of your sales role. People are naturally complex and complicated in their thought processes and very few sales go through from start to finish without any sort of complication.
Don’t dread objections coming your way instead embrace them so that you can tackle any problems head on but do so in a consummate and professional manner.