Right up there with rejection, the ability to overcome sales objections is perhaps one of the biggest sources of fear and frustration for salespeople. And the truth is, it should be the exact opposite.
You see, objections can be your biggest buying signal. When you understand the beauty, and the impetus, behind them, you can greatly increase your closing ratio, and your results.
In the section dealing with Growth in Jumping off the Hamster Wheel, we talk about the 6 Key Drivers for growing the top and bottom line of your business. One of those key drivers is conversion rate.
Let’s look at a scenario:
If your current closing ratio is 50%, and you’re able to overcome 20% of all the objections you’re currently getting, you can immediately grow your top line by 10%
The best part is, learning how to overcome sales objections costs you absolutely nothing to do. Further, it’s a really good way to grab some of that low hanging fruit that is going to make a positive impact on your earnings. So, let’s look at some ways to make that happen with these three tips:
#1: To Overcome Sales Objections, see them as a Gift
If you go into a process with a sense of fear or worry that someone is going to bring an objection up, you’re setting yourself up to be in a defensive position. Then, when those objections do come up, you’re going to freeze a little bit, or you’ll scramble to find a good way to overcome the objection, which hampers the flow and takes your focus off the product or service.
In short, you’re not setting yourself up in a position of power to make that sale.
The key to overcoming this is to change the way we think about objections.
You see, people only object to things if they’re interested in them.
If they weren’t interested, they wouldn’t object; you just wouldn’t get any kind of feedback. An objection is someone telling you what’s in the way of them buying what you’re presenting to them. The key is to listen fully to the objection, so you hear what they’re actually saying and can respond appropriately.
When we have that mindset around it, we begin to see sales objections as a gift because it points us in the right direction to help make a sale. It can almost make your job a little easier because they’re telling you exactly what you need to do to be successful. The key is already in the lock, you just need to turn it the right way.
Once you have that information, it’s your job as the salesperson to be creative in how you change that person’s perspective. Doing that helps them understand why their objection is not really valid, and the solution, service or product you’re offering is the thing they need to solve their problem.
#2: Understanding the Real Objection
Often, people will throw out any objection because it might be an easier way to deflect the sales process than to give you the real objection behind it.
There are two ways you can handle this:
a. Isolate the Objection
Classic example: The price objection.
If price is a problem, you might say “Well, if we can find a way to get around the price problem then you’d be happy to move ahead, is that right?”
Assuming they say yes to that, you’ve successfully isolated that problem and can deal with it.
If not, you might see a bit of a balk or a change in body language which tells you there’s something else behind that objection and you need to dig a little deeper. In fact, Hubspot has a guide on handling common sales objections that’s worth the read.
b. Understand the Role You Play
This might be a hard one to take on board, but sometimes the problem might be you, or your company or your product, but someone doesn’t feel confident or comfortable giving you that direct feedback.
Out of those three, the one you have the most control over is you. Think about your likability factor. Are you a person other people gravitate to? Do you build rapport easily with people, or do you struggle? What have you done to build rapport throughout the sales process you’re in?
As far as the product or company, think about how you can show proof about the success that others have experienced and consider the best way to showcase that to a potential customer.
Often, people will make decisions based on how much they like or trust someone. Your job as a salesperson, isn’t to use likability as a secret weapon to sell people products that they won’t use, but to consider the impact your personality and dealings have in guiding a potential client to a product or service that will make their life easier.
Your level of rapport with people will have a direct correlation on the ease with which you can overcome sales objections. Using that power responsibly will help build your reputation as a trustworthy source who will lead people to the services or products they need and steer them away from the things they won’t.
#3: Be Proactive with Your Objections.
In short: Know your objections and build them into your sales process.
In any sales situation, all objections can usually be boiled down to 7 major categories. Once you understand what they are, you can choose which of those categories you can proactively address to overcome sales objections that may be coming your way.
Sticking with the price objection; say your product or service delivered tremendous value but was really expensive. Find a way to position that upfront and build that in as a feature.
Or, if you have a product that comes with a long lead time, find a way to position that as a benefit to the customer. You might base that around popularity, quality or custom craftsmanship, which are all benefits that the customer will see when they receive their product and will translate into customer satisfaction and a long-lasting product.
The sales process is just that, a process. It doesn’t all come down to one or two sentences that require someone to say yes or no. There are a multitude of opportunities to change how your product (or you) are presented which will head objections off at the path and build up to the point where getting a yes is the next natural step from a prospect.
The Final Word to Help you Overcome Sales Objections
There are a lot of actionable tips in this video that complement the tools in the book, but to be successful at overcoming sales objections, you need to build your own toolkit full of practices you can play with until you get it right.
And your toolkit won’t be the same as the toolkit of another salesperson reading this blog or watching this video. The way you apply it is going to be unique to you, so get creative within the bounds of your industry while being mindful of your own likability and trust factor which will help seal the deal and set your reputation on the right track (or course correct it, if need be).
As mentioned, conversion rate was one of the 6 key drivers of success. I you’d like to know the other 5 key drivers, pick up a copy of Jumping off the Hamster Wheel: How to Build a Business So You Sleep at Night. It has lots of takeaway tools that will help you build a better business, and a better life.
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