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- Mastering objection handling
In sales, objections are normal. Whether it's about the price, trust or needing to speak with someone else, objections are chances to show how good you are and keep the deal moving forward.
Unfortunately, too many people use canned objection-handling scripts (like feel, felt, found) which make you come across as salesy and annoy buyers. Especially, sophisticated ones.
The key to success is addressing objections in a way that lets you talk sensibly with the prospect without making them defensive.
Today, I'll share a framework I use to manage objections effectively, using the "I want to speak with some of your clients first" objection as an example.
Introducing the 5-step framework
1. Acknowledge the issue:
When someone raises a concern, the first thing is to say that you understand.
For example:
"Yeah, I hear you."
Acknowledging their concern shows that you value their perspective and should reduce any sales resistance, out the gate.
2. Clarify your understanding:
Ask a question(s) to make sure you understand the problem better. Too often salespeople hear one thing and assume they know what the problem is when they’ve completely misread what the prospect is thinking.
For instance:
"Out of interest, what makes you say that?"
3. Isolate their concern
Make sure you’re dealing with the only reservation. Otherwise, what happens is you address one concern only to be faced with another, and then probably another after that.
Here’s a simple way to ensure all the objections are on the table:
"Aside from wanting to speak with our clients, is there anything else that's stopping you from going ahead with this?"
4. Respond with your answer:
Now that you know the problem(s), give a sensible answer. Chances are you hear the same reservations time and time again so prep responses for each one.
With the “I want to talk with your clients” objection, here’s the sort of thing I say:
“While I get why you'd want to speak with some of our clients, as we get 25+ inquiries a week, it wouldn’t be appropriate or realistic to ask our clients to speak with a bunch of people who are “thinking about” coming onboard with us.
It's just not something can do for you, unfortunately. I hope you can understand.
What I can do for you, however, is point you to our Trustpilot page. They have a team of dedicated people and clever technology to protect their platform from fake reviews (here's the link).
As you can see, we have a ton of reviews from people sharing their experiences and verifying what a good job we've done and how we're helping them grow their businesses."
I think this is sensible, and most of the people I speak with who have this concern do as well.
5. Ask for the next step:
Next, ask the person if your answer helps. If it does, ask for the next step. In a lot of cases that is asking them if they want to move forward. But not always.
Here’s what I say:
"Does that help alleviate your concern? Great. With that in mind, would you like to go ahead with this?"
By using these five steps, you can handle objections effectively and increase your chances of closing the sale, without making anyone cringe.
Remember, objection handling is part of the sales process, it isn’t magic. The prospect needs to be 90% sure for them to be effective.
Now that you have this plan, go and practice so you can start handling the objections you face like a boss. ✌️