Turning Objections into Sales

Salespeople cringe at the thought of objections, viewing them as just another way for the prospect to say “No!” Many salespeople even interpret prospect objections as personal rejections. This is ironic because of salespeople really understand the true nature of objections, they would welcome them with open arms.

What is an objection? From a buyer’s perspective, objections are concerns which make it inappropriate to make a purchase at this time. From a salesperson’s perspective, it’s anything that presents an obstacle to the smooth completion of the sale. Salespeople are most concerned about objections in the early part of the sale when they are trying to initiate the relationship and toward the end of the sales process when it comes time to close the sale.

Most salespeople react to objections by tensing up. Salespeople tend to misinterpret and overreact to objections. They need to understand that an objection is not a roadblock, but simply a crossroad.

If you view the sales process as a journey, an objection becomes a critical point in that journey – a time to take stock, look around, make a decision. From that point, your response as a salesperson determines the sales relationships future. If you respond inappropriately, then you end the sales process. If you respond in an appropriate manner, you can continue along to the smooth completion of the sale.

Objections are opportunities. Through objections, the prospect is participating in the sale and has told you something, either through his or her thoughts or actions. This presents you with an opportunity for increased understanding and the more effective tailoring of your sales presentation to his or her needs. Objections are a road map. The prospect is saying to you, “Don’t go that way. Go this way.”

HOW TO YOU REACT TO OBJECTIONS?

You recognize objections by listening and observing. If you are preoccupied with what you are saying, then you’ll miss many of the clues that the client gives you. Listen carefully and watch for indications that tell you something is amiss. This could be likened to a stoplight. A person’s behavior that says, “No, absolutely not” would be projecting a red light that says, “Stop. Do not proceed until you resolve my concern.” Likewise, the person who sends you a “mixed message” – verbal and nonverbal messages not saying the same thing – is also projecting a red light because he or she is evidently not totally comfortable with what you are saying or doing. The person who gives you positive feedback is projecting a green light that says, “Go ahead, everything is fine.”

ARE THERE DIFFERENT TYPES OF OBJECTIONS?

Yes, there are. There are stated, implied and unstated objections. Sometimes people will directly state what is bothering them. They will say, “No, that is much too expensive for our budget.” At other times they only imply through their actions or words that something is not right. Sometimes there are unstated objections and you don’t know that the client is objecting until it is almost too late. So it is important at all times to draw out the client and learn how he is responding to the ideas you are presenting.

Some of the common categories of objections are:

1. No need for your product or service at this time.

2. No ability to purchase (not decision-maker or no money).

3. No trust in you as a person.

4. No hurry or urgency to act.

5. No interest because you haven’t sufficiently captured their attention.

Going beyond these common objections often leads to the discovery of the true objection. Examples are:

No need – “I’d like to use a product/service to enhance our situation, but what you are suggesting is not consistent with our specific needs.”

No ability – “I want to go with you but I don’t have the authority to OK this purchase” or “It extends my budget.”

No trust – “The product/service seems OK but I’m concerned about _________ (you, your company, the quality of the product, the likelihood of good service).

No hurry – “Your ideas are good but not exciting enough or valuable enough to get me to act now,” or “Other items are more important to me right now.”

No interest – “What I’m interested in and what you are proposing are not the same. So show me why I should listen to you.”

HOW DO YOU KNOW AN OBJECTIONS IS REAL?

In any sales relationship, it is important to build trust with the client. If the early part of the relationship is focused on this trust building – getting to know the prospect and his/her situation – establishing your own credibility and showing that you truly care about him or her as an individual – then you’ll be able to judge the genuineness of the objection more clearly.

However, if you quickly jump into your sales “pitch” and focus mostly on what you have to say rather than on what customers have told you about their needs, then you’ll miss many of the genuine messages and your clients will withhold a lot of information from you.

The first task in any sales relationship is to lower the tension between you so that you can build trust. The second thing is to gather information, ask as many questions as you can and gather information about the particular circumstances the client is in, the individual needs and the feelings that she or he has at the moment. Then, third, ask for feedback during the entire process. In developing trust and gathering information, there may be implied or unstated concerns. When this happens, it is critically important for you as a professional to ask for feedback.

The prospect may say, “The price is too high.” Your most appropriate response would be a questioning response rather than a quick justification of why your price isn’t too high. Ask for feedback. Learn as much as you can about the intent of an objection before you ever start answering it.

FORMULA FOR TURNING OBJECTIONS INTO SALES:

1. Relax (Don’t tense up.)

2. Listen and intently observe both the verbal and nonverbal message of the prospect. (What is really being said?)

3. Question and clarify the objection so there is no misunderstanding about what issue (concern) you are addressing.

4. Respond to the objection using one of the seven techniques that seems to be most appropriate. (Be tactful and honest.)

5. Confirm the prospect’s acceptance of your answer to assure that your response was on target before you proceed further into the sales process.

HOW DO YOU KNOW YOUR RESPONSE WAS ON TARGET?

The way to know your response was on target is by observing the verbal and nonverbal clues that the customer sends you. This goes back to the analogy of the traffic light. Watch for “buying signals” which would be indications that the person is in favor of the idea. Also watch for unstated or implied concerns. At this point you must be very sensitive to the needs and thoughts of the client. Become an effective listener and observer.

HOW CAN YOU AVOID FEELING UNCOMFORTABLE WHEN YOU OVERCOME OBJECTIONS?

The important consideration here is the word “overcome.” If you overcome a person’s objections, then you have simply beaten the objection down and he or she is the loser in the interplay between the two of you. Rather than “overcoming” an objection, it might be much more appropriate to simply “handle” the objection. Handling it means acknowledging the objection as genuine, showing the person that you are concerned and taking the time to answer it appropriately rather than intimidating and making him or her feel silly through some smooth technique in which you “overcome” the objection through logic, psychology and verbal prowess.

The important thing is to lower the tension between the two of you and maintain the trust bond. Selling today revolves around dealing with the prospect as a person, as someone who has a need or a problem for which you can offer help. If you can do that, the sales process needn’t be a battle. It doesn’t have to be a situation with high levels of tension and stress. It can be a situation with a great deal of trust; and as trust goes up, so does your credibility and productivity. The prospect is more willing to cooperate with you and the bottom line is that you will increase your probability of making more and bigger sales.

HOW CAN YOU PERSIST WITHOUT BEING OBNOXIOUS?

First, you have to know how to deal with objections. That means that you must focus your primary attention on gaining the knowledge of the techniques available to you, the types of objections you are likely to encounter and the appropriate ways to respond to them so that you keep the trust level high. Second, you must be able to take that knowledge and turn it into skills. This comes only through repeated application of your knowledge. Through actual experience you gain the skills of being an effective objection handler.

Third, you must examine your own intentions. If your intention in a sales situation is to manipulate the prospect into making a purchase, then you will almost guarantee your own (as well as the prospect’s) dissatisfaction. But if your intention is to truly be of service and genuinely try to improve the situation of the prospect, then good results are bound to follow.

You must learn to resist, assist and persist:

1. Resist – Resist the temptation to back off too early when faced with an objection. Hang in there. Also resist the temptation to take the easy sale and not press on to fully solve the problem of the prospect.

2. Assist – Assist the customer in defining his or her real needs. Help him or her understand the basic problem that stimulated the objection. Don’t just relate to the objection itself, but rather to the issue that really prompted the objection. Also, assist the person after the sale in gaining the maximum benefits from the product or service you have delivered. Follow up and follow through.

3. Persist: Persist in a way that shows that you genuinely are and you do want to be of service. When you use the techniques in the process we have described, you can persist without the intention of manipulating. You persist in a way that nonverbally conveys your concern and your sincerity. This strengthens that trust bond even further.

As you go down that road of communication in the sales success and encounter those (objections) crossroads, your knowledge, skills and intentions will allow you to choose the right path – the path to increased sales and increased personal satisfaction.

SEVEN TECHNIQUES FOR HANDLING OBJECTIONS

1. Feel/Felt/Found. Example: “I understand how you feel” (I’m empathizing with you). “Many people have felt the same way” (That give you the feeling that you are not alone in all this). “However, they have found that . . .” (and you then present your solution). This could be offered in this way; “I understand your thinking. I thought the same thing when I first saw this product. However, I have found that . . .”

2. Convert to a question. When the customer makes a statement, many times it is difficult to answer the statement. However, you can convert the statement into a question that allows you to answer it more easily. Example: “I don’t think I could use that product.” Your response could be: “There is an important question I perceive in your statement and that is ‘How can you gain maximum use from a product like this?'” Then you proceed to answer the question, not rebut the statement.

3. Echo technique. Sometimes you are faced with a response that really doesn’t give you enough information. In this case you can reflect or echo it back to the prospect. The customer might say that the price is too high. Here, you can respond by saying, “Too high?” She or he will generally respond at that point by giving you more feedback and information. From there, you can address the concern about price from his or her perspective.

4. Lowest common denominator. In this case you take an objection which has a big image in the prospect’s mind and reduce it to a figure much easier to comprehend and handle. Example: “$300.00 is too much.” Response: “$300.00 does seem like a large price tag until you consider that you will probably be using this 3,000 times a year, which means that your cost per usage is only 10 cents; a small price to pay for the increased convenience and profitability that comes from this product.”

5. Boomerang technique. Think of a boomerang and what it does. Once thrown, it makes a wide arc and then comes immediately back to the individual who threw it. You do this same thing with a prospect’s concern. He says to you, “I’m too busy right now to implement this new procedure.” In this case you let his objection go past you and right back to him as the very reason he should buy now. For example: “The very fact that you are too busy to implement this feature right now is probably the main reason you should purchase it today.” His response: “What?!” Your response: “The fact that you are too busy today means that you need more-than-ever the time-savings that will come to you as a result of using our product. So implementing this today will alleviate your problem of not having enough time. It will actually give you more time to be more productive.”

6. Change the base. In this case you take the basis upon which the customer is founding his or her response and change it so that he or she can see things in a different light. Example: The person says, “This won’t accomplish the ABC process.” Your response: “The main reason that you had inquired about this product was increased convenience. An added benefit, naturally, would be that it would accomplish the ABC process, but the point to bear in mind is that it does bring you the convenience that you require and, therefore, the ABC process should be secondary to any other considerations.”

7. Compensation technique. Sometimes an objection is based on a very real product shortcoming that must be acknowledged. For example, a person might say, “This unit is too large for the space available.” You could reply by saying, “I agree that it is larger than the space currently available, but the benefits of this product are so great that it would be unfair to deny yourself the benefits simply for the inconvenience of having to find a new space in which to put it.” In this case, what you have done is say: “I agree that it is too big for that space, but the benefits of the product overpower that shortcoming, so let’s go ahead with the purchase.”

Sometimes you can use the classic “Ben Franklin Balance Sheet.” That is where you take a sheet of paper, divide it down the center and put “reasons for” on the left side and “reasons against” on the right side. Then you go down the sheet listing reasons for going ahead with the purchase. You add as much as you can to the reasons for going ahead with the purchase and then you acknowledge those things that have been stated as ideas opposed. It quickly becomes obvious to people whether they should go ahead or not. In many cases where they initially thought it wasn’t a good idea to pursue the purchase of your product, this written “balance sheet” persuades them to go ahead.