To deal with an objection……

Either:
- Pre-empt the objection – kill it off before the buyer thinks of it, or
- Answer it immediately

If you tell the buyer you will deal with the objection later, then forget about it, or worse,ignore it, you will risk the buyer thinking you are either hedging or ignorant of the answers. In either case the sale could be threatened then or later.

Unprofessional or inexperienced salespeople do not know how to recognise an objection and deal with it, and disregard what the buyer has said. They carry on regardless and hence lose the sale.

Salespeople who do a wishy-washy job when selling, by not confronting objections and dealing with them in the right manner will always come out with sob stories to defend their poor selling abilities.

Their excuse for losing the sale will be that the buyer gave them a tough time and complained about the product, service or idea. This is not so. What the buyer is telling the seller is that, based on their perceptions of the product, service or idea being offered and what the seller has told them during the sales presentation is that the buyer could not make a decision.

Objection handling to the seller therefore takes place as a prelude to closing and it is in that context that objections must be viewed rather than suspecting the buyer of throwing in a red herring in order to escape giving the seller a decision, or put him or her off course.

When multiple objections are expressed by the buyer, the seller can treat all of them as one and ask, ‘Apart from these objections is there anything else that concerns you?’ if not, the seller then says, ‘If I could provide you with a solution or a valid explanation to those objections you would be prepared to go ahead, wouldn’t you?’

The answer to this must naturally be ‘Yes’ so you deal with them by isolating each objection, writing them down on a piece of paper in the presence of the buyer, answering them to the point, getting agreement with the buyer that each one has been answered to their satisfaction and crossing them out as you proceed, until the sale is made. This technique is called the final objection closing technique.

It is very easy for a seller to confuse an Excuse with a genuine Objection. An excuse is where a buyer is deliberately trying to avoid making a decision. An objection is a concrete opportunity for you to find a way of dealing with whatever is troubling the buyer, and close the sale.

When the buyer starts to make excuses you start to manipulate them subtly, letting him or her know that you have gauged their game and are aware that they are prevaricating. Be careful, though – you risk making the buyer angry if you use intimidating behaviour and you might reach the stage where you have to withdraw from the meeting. You then allow a cooling-off period, and may then contact the buyer again, apologizing for your supposed ‘mistake’. This should pave the way for a fresh selling start.

It really is that straight forward!

You will find a number of other free articles on “Objection Handling” here

Or, you can push the boat out and invest $19.95 and enjoy “Overcoming Objections” – everything you ever wanted to know about handling objections, but were afraid to ask – here

Today’s News: Very little news today, as our friends across the “Pond” make their way back to the office after an indulgent July 4th weekend.

I do still have just a few FREE places for Harlan Goerger’s excellent Masterclass today – “Creating A Solution Mindset” (1pm Eastern – 6pm GMT) – here

Oh yes, almost made it to 170.000 views over at Ezine Articles, which is a wonderful milestone – thanks for all the traffic Chris, great job!!

Training budgets in most industry sectors have been slashed – we all understand that, and we understand why.

Now, more than ever, companies need to ensure that they are achieving the best return for their reduced investment, but how should they go about choosing the right company to match their needs?

Let me begin by saying that most sales training companies have a unique philosophy and therefore a specialised approach. Perhaps they are strong in the area of selling business value to board level members at the expense of competitive positioning. Perhaps attention on strategies for winning very complex sales situations dilutes their efforts toward working with students on the details and tactics that they need to execute in order to win—down to the actual words they need to be saying and to whom.

A training company that specialises in one or more areas of sales expertise will not necessarily perceive or look for your requirements in other areas. If the training/consulting provider is left to define your approach, there will more than likely be a gap in the methodology, and of course a resultant gap in the subsequent training.

One way to handle this is to employ two independent providers. One would assist in assessing your situation, defining your requirements, and perhaps in building your methodology. The second would provide the training and would be evaluated and selected based upon their ability to meet your specific (and complete) requirement set. That would insure that the first provider would not be defining your requirements to meet their expertise.

In my view the best alternative is to employ a firm that is completely independent of any training or sales consulting provider and can offer the proper guidance throughout these steps to achieve the best possible result.

Important to any company that makes an investment in sales team development is measurement.

Benchmarking current levels of performance, setting reasonable goals and objectives based upon a careful assessment of the situation and measuring progress against those goals is a necessary, but for the large part overlooked component of most training initiatives.

When progress is at or above plan, everyone is encouraged, motivated and continue to perform and excel.

If expectations are not being met, the opportunity exists for immediate problem diagnosis and adjustment, assuring that the initiative will get back on track and provide the return on investment expected.

It would be negligent of me not to highlight two important services offered by the JF Consultancy – first, we do offer independent and impartial advice, when it comes to diagnosing traing needs – here

We also offer organizations the opportunity to conduct their own sales team audits – here

Today’s News: Over at Top 10 Sales Articles, Diane Helbig has taken a commanding lead, but it’s still early days – have you voted yet?

If you missed yesterday’s post, I have some free places for tomorrow’s excellent TSE Masterclass, presented by Harlan Goerger – simply scroll down.

Creating the Solution Mindset
Tuesday July 7th 2009 1:00 PM EASTERN

What is the determining factor in who wins a sale? Is it price? No! Is it the product knowledge of the sales person? No! Prospects can learn product information easily enough on the Web. They don’t need a salesperson for that.

Buyers expect salespeople to formulate solutions to their problems, not push their wares. Yet, many salespeople say they are solution salespeople,but can only say the words. They still push product. Does this sound like you? If it does, you are probably not happy with your sales or your income. How do you change your approach, develop strong relationships with your clientele, and exponentially grow your income?

Harlan Goerger, international sales expert and author of “The Sales Gap,” will teach you how do those three things. He teaches sales people how to make the change from the product pusher to the consultative, solution sales person. People buy from those they like and trust; that’s not the product pusher. Harlan helps you become the salesperson from whom prospects love to buy. You will leave this session being able to:

■Differentiate yourself from your competition using reverse engineering strategies
■Create value with prospects so they only want to buy from you
■Build relationship based on trust, not price
■Compose questions for a powerful needs analysis discussion with your prospects

Limited Number Of FREE Places – Register Here

Today’s post is prompted by my ever increasing frustration with organisations who make it almost impossible for customers to complain. How do they improve their service, products or solutions, when they appear so disinterested in what we have to say? As I always do, I will vote with my feet.

Here is the reality:

Customers may well want to tell you they’re unhappy about something but they either:
•  Feel uncomfortable about doing so
•  Don’t know how to
•  Don’t have time; it’s easier to let it go

So, give them a choice of mechanisms. For example:
•  Simple questionnaires with pre-paid postage
•  Telephone help line
•  Customer service points
•  Exit surveys – face to face questions
•  Comment cards

Let them know it’s not a waste of time!

What are you going to do with the information? File it away? Shred it for next year’s Christmas decorations?

One company I know maintains a whiteboard in the reception listing the key comments/complaints made by customers, with a note of the action taken, or to be taken and by whom.

Customers really feel they are part of the product and service improvement team.

Customers need to know what’s in it for them if they do complain.

Respond quickly to complaints. If you give a number to ring, make sure someone is always there to answer the phone. Reply within two days if that’s what you promised to do.

Have an “escalation procedure” which allows for the more serious complaints to be dealt with by a senior member of staff.

Directors need to be accessible, hiding away simply creates suspicion.

Summary:
Unfortunately, when compared over time, the customers’ interest levels increase, whilst the vendors’ interest levels tend to decrease. This creates a “relationship gap” and is due entirely to complacency.

Fact:
It now costs fifteen times as much to locate and sell to a new customer as it does to an existing one.

That reason alone, should act as sufficient incentive for us to attempt to build brick walls around the relationship in order to deter predatory competitors – and there are plenty of them out there.

We must continually strive to earn the right to receive our customer’s business and one significant stride in that direction, is to implement an effective customer care programme.

Today’s News: You know that I always work with the formula: Attitude + Skills + Process + Knowledge = Success, so it was pleasing to discover a relatively new site that focuses on the “P”.

It’s called Smart Selling Tools and you can check them out here

I have mentioned Invesp Consulting before – they rank the Top 50 Sales Blogs and I think they are by far the most accurate, although I have asked them to amend my Technorati rating and also think about including Google links rather than Yahoo – so much more valuable. Do have a look here

If you are in the United States, you will no doubt be preparing for your 4th of July celebrations – you must be so pleased that you won! Have a great time.

Negotiation is a process of bargaining by which agreement is reached between two or more parties. It is rare in negotiation for agreement to be reached immediately or for each side to have identical objectives. More often than not, agreements have to be worked out where concessions are given and received and this is the area where the profitability of the final outcome will be decided.

When preparing for negotiation, it is advisable to write down a realistic assessment of how you perceive the final outcome. Find out the limits of your authority within the negotiation and decide what you are willing and able to concede in order to arrive at an agreement, which satisfies all parties.

Concessions have two elements; cost and value. It is possible during negotiations to concede issues that have little cost to you but have great value to the other side. This is the best type of concession to make.

Avoid, however, conceding on issues that have a high cost to you irrespective of their value to the other side.

When preparing for negotiations, ask yourself the following questions:

• What is the best deal I could realistically achieve in this negotiation?
• What is the likely outcome of the negotiation?
• What is the limit of my authority?
• At which point should I walk away?
• What concessions are available to me?
• What is the cost of each concession and what value does each have to either side?

Strategy:

Planning your strategy is important in negotiation. Once you know your objectives, you need to work out how you are going to achieve them. It is also useful to try and see the negotiation from the other side and try and work out what their strategy will be.

During the negotiation there will be opportunities to use various tactics and you need to decide which of these you feel comfortable with and at the same time recognise the tactics being used by the other side.

Ask yourself the following questions:
• How am I going to achieve my objectives in this negotiation?
• What is the strategy of the other side likely to be?
• What tactics should I use within the negotiation?
• What tactics are the other side likely to use?

And Finally – Tasks:

If you go into negotiation with a colleague or colleagues, you need to decide during the preparation phase:
• What role will each team member take in the negotiation?
• How can we work together in the most effective way?

Some teams of negotiators appoint team leaders, note takers, observers and specialists, each with their own clearly defined authority and roles to perform.

Having a clear understanding of roles within the negotiation will make the team approach much more effective.

If you really want to hone your negotiation techniques, you will enjoy my ebook – “Negotiating To Win – From Open To Close” - just $9.95 here

Today’s News: Thursday is always Salesopedia interview day and this Thursday is no different.

This week, Clayton Shold is in conversation with fellow Top Sales Expert, Barry Siskind…..

Trade Show Survival Tips

“Barry Siskind discusses trade shows survival tips you might consider in this tough economy. Find out how you can scale down without impacting your image.  If you find it difficult to measure R.O.I. then you should be tracking R.O.O. (yes he explains what that is).  He offers get advice on balancing the strategic and tactic considerations of exhibiting and gives some compelling arguments why maintaining your presence is the right thing to do.”      Simply click on the banner below.

Successful selling is definitely not about the “hit and run” sale.

Top sales achievers regard their relationships with key customers as a partnership and cultivate it as such.

When customers face tough business challenges and complex technological choice, they rely on sales people who can assist them in making the right decisions.

The primary objective of a sales partnership has to be, to create and sustain a mutually productive relationship, which serves the needs of both parties, now and in the future.

The key word here is symbiotic.

Partnership does not mean eliminating the tension between buyer and seller; it means that top-performing salespeople know how to strike a balance between achieving immediate results and developing the relationship fully.

So Why Do We Need A Fresh Approach To Selling?

Most organisations have developed without objective analysis of their purpose and structure.

The buying power in many industries is no longer evenly distributed – in a large number of markets a few big firms control the majority of purchases.

The development of new marketing techniques and the arrival of Sales 2.0, has meant that many tasks traditionally performed by the sales team, can be more effectively handled by other methods.

The prime objective of all sales staff is to gain business. From an organisational point of view, however, how they all achieve their goals must be defined in order to identify what kind and the quality of skills that are required.

Successful selling today is all about “bridge building”

Today’s News:

Message just in from Mr Sales 2.0, Nigel Edelshain.

Dear Jonathan,

I’ve got some new resources for you to check out:

1. I just launched a Free 26-week e-course Don’t Cold Call. Social Call. It’s a deeper dive than my ebook into the “how to’s” of prospecting the Sales 2.0 way. Check it out here

2. There’s a recording of my webinar from this month by the same name here

3. I also participated in a webinar with Gerhard Gschwandtner, Prospecting 2.0: The Cold Call is Dead, Part 2. You can check out the recording of that one here.

4. Meanwhile if you haven’t noticed we launched a completely new website. The same 350 hand-picked articles are on there but now there are also videos.

Nigel Sales 2.0