Think about a time when you lost an argument and were proven wrong. Remember the time your teenager found a text that she really did send to you; perhaps there was a time when a friend had the right answer to a random trivia question, leaving you scratching your head; or maybe that time the car rental company showed that on your reservation you agreed to refill the tank on your own?
How did you feel? Were you relieved that the right answer was revealed to the Universe? Did you give your friend a high five for proving your ignorance about action movies from the 1980s? Of course not. If you’re like me and the other seven billion of us, your immediate reaction wasn’t pleasant. You were proven wrong. No one likes to be proven wrong, and we don’t like the people who prove us wrong. If they’re friends or family, we eventually get past it … maybe. However, if they’re strangers, we don’t try to befriend them. And you know what else? We definitely won’t buy from them!
So, as a salesperson, why do you want to overcome a customer’s objection? Of course, there are the rose-colored methods taught by sales classes since Plato was asking his way to genius status. But those techniques rarely work for both salesperson and customer. Sure, you’ll win some of those debates with “feel-felt-found” or “if I can will you” rebuttals, but most of the time there is a winner and a loser of these conversations. When you lose or your customer loses … you lose. (Read that last line again.)
The best way a salesperson can overcome an objection is to eliminate it before it arises. Below is a very high-level overview of a two-step process to eliminating objections before they arise.
- Anticipate the objections. As you’re driving to your appointment or getting prepared for a customer call, anticipate the objections that your customer may have. If you enter a facility that looks like 1978, then price will likely be an objection. If your contact is frantic and always in a rush, then your lead time may get some push back. For major meetings, research the company and the people, brainstorm with your boss and your team, and think of every possible objection that they’ll throw at you.
- State the objection before they do. If you feel pretty certain that an objection will arise, then bring it up early in the conversation. Your goal is to spark an open dialogue in which the two of you discuss the issue they may have with you. The key to this step is that you don’t shift into selling gear. This step is all about dialogue about their issue. If you take this approach, your customer will talk more openly with you and the two of you will reach a conclusion together – usually in your favor.
If you don’t feel certain of an objection (let’s say less than a 75% chance), then don’t bring it up. If they do bring it up, it won’t be a surprise and you’ll be able to shift into open dialogue mode much easier than if you were responding in reactive survival mode.
No objections, no objection handling techniques, no losers. Not a bad day.
