In the previous blog I outlined the importance of drilling down until you understand what the real objection is.  Only then can you work with the prospect to move the sale forward.

Even when you have understood the objection you will find yourself from time to time in a position where you feel as though you are arguing with the prospect about the relative merits of your solution.  Those of you who have experienced this know that debating with a prospect leads to only one place – nowhere!

Disconnection between you and prospect is often due to differences in world view and experiences.  Or simply put, you have not explained the value of your solution in a language the prospect understands.  Like most communication challenges, the people involved need to talk the same language if progress is to be made.  So the key here is to link the known with the unknown.  Using stories, metaphor and questions are your key tools.  Never tell a prospect something that you can put in the form of a question!  And here is how you do it.

Let’s say you sell and install insulation solutions to homeowners and builders.  You are talking with a homeowner and you ask them if they are ready to go ahead with the sale and pay your deposit.  The prospect says “hang on a minute, I don’t want to pay a deposit because you might do a poor job and leave me high and dry.”  Rather than debate the topic here’s another approach.   During the conversation you establish that the prospect owns an automotive repair shop.  You ask the prospect the following questions.  “Let me ask you this Mr Prospect.  You are the owner of an automotive repair shop?  If you had a customer come in and say please fix my car you would ask the customer to pay in full when they picked the care up, yes?  Ok, if the customer said, “look I don’t want to pay now because I want to be sure that your repairs will last and you have done a good job” what would your thinking be?”

You then let the prospect answer their own objection by using the example that they can relate you.  The prospect is likely to say something like, “well of course we would make them pay and I would tell them that we have lots of experience and a proven track record over many years.”  Finally you say to the prospect “well I’m the same as you.”

Questions are incredibly powerful for objection handling so start using them today.  And you can handle pretty much any objection by using examples that the prospect can relate too.

Good Objection Handling!

Successfully

Tony

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