Oh yeah, objections. Some might say they are the biggest obstacle to making a successful sale. I say objections are the biggest opportunity to sell your product even more. What the heck do I mean, you might ask. Well, come closer and listen up. What you will learn here is not taught in textbooks or anywhere on the internet or real life.
First I want you to do the following exercise before you continue reading. Call a few of your hardest prospects, especially ones that have declined you before and give them your best pitch. Do not get off the phone until they have exhausted every objection and excuse they have in their arsenal. Don’t just ask for the sale willy-nilly, really go after it to the point that the prospect is ready to hang up or scream at you. Don’t be afraid if they do hang up. Your time was well spent.
Next, write down all of the objections that you heard through out these few calls. All of them. For now leave that list as is.
Then, identify the top 3 objections that you hear time and time again, and that are the biggest obstacles to your prospects purchasing from you. write these 3 down on a separate sheet of paper and do the following. Write down a pitch that incorporates a statement and resolution of the objections all in one. For example, if you sell earthquake insurance and one of the biggest objections is “I just don’t think it will ever happen to me”, write down the following pitch “Mr Jones, my name is X and I am calling from Earthquake Insurance Co.
The policy I am offering is blah blah blah. I know you are probably thinking that an earthquake is an unlikely event and will probably never happen to you, but you might think differently if you knew that that there are over 45 earthquakes happening over the continental USA every month, with magnitude from 1-4 and about 2 with magnitude of over 6 every 5 years. These 2 earthquakes collectively destroy property of over $50,000,000 blah blah blah. It is a very real threat to anyone living in your area.” Ok, what you just did was take what I call “The Preemptive Strike”. Instead of waiting for a prospect to bring up objections, you take the top 3 objections, state them and resolve them in your pitch before they are even brought up.
Depending on the type of presentation, you can do that with a few objections or all of them if time permits. You have to answer every possible objection eventually in order for your prospect to trust you enough to buy from you. The more objections you state and resolve in your “Preemptive Strike” early on, the smoother the sale will be. You put your prospect’s mind at ease and show that you are attuned to their concerns.
Now the trick to resolving objections is simply to take it as an opportunity to promote even more benefits of your product or service. When a prospect objects, simply hear them out, be sympathetic and then answer their objection in a way that furthers the value of your offer. It is as simple as that. Use objections to sell even further.