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Wendy Weiss

Far too many sales professionals hear prospect objects as personal rejection. Because of this, many sales professionals are terrified of prospect objections. Rather than being something scary, however, the truth is that an objection from your prospect is important information. You are learning about your prospect, how that prospect thinks and feels and what is important to them. Listen carefully.

That said, however, you do not necessarily have to hear every prospect objection. There are some that you can and should eliminate at the very start of your sales process. This is called “preempting objections.”

The way that you preempt an objection is to mention that objection first, before your prospect can even bring it up. This is best used with the types of objections that you hear all the time. Addressing objections first and up front is an incredibly powerful way to minimize the number of objections you actually do hear.

With these seven ways of naming your prospect, finding the decision-maker should never again be an issue.

For example: A very frequent objection prospectors’ hear is: “It’s too expensive” as in “I’ve heard about your product/service and it’s too expensive.” If this is something you hear frequently you can eliminate this objection’s power by addressing it first. If indeed your product/service is more expensive than the competition, there is probably a reason for that additional expense. What is the reason? Does your company uses superio r quality products in manufacturing? Does your company offer a special level of service above and beyond what the competition offers? Identify the reason that your product/service is more expensive than your competitors’. Then bring it up yourself. An example:

“Our product/service is certainly not the cheapest. That’s because we use superior quality materials and 24/7 service. None of our competitors can say that.”

By addressing the objection first, you’ve turned a negative into a positive.

Another example: Let’s say that your company has been having service issues and that these problems are widely known.  You’re certain that your prospect knows about the issues and will see them as a negative. If the issues have been corrected or are in the process of being corrected you should bring those issues up first:

“While we were having some c hallenges with (fill in the blank) that caused the company to (fill in the blank with the actions taken by the company) and institute new procedures to (fill in the blank with new procedures) which will actually cause (fill in the blank with a benefit that the prospect will reap from these changes).”

As in the previous example you are turning a negative into a positive.

When you bring up an objection first and address it, you not only eliminate the objection, you are able to position the objection the way that you want it to be perceived. This usually enables you to turn that objection from a negative into a positive.

Your homework, then, is to thoroughly review all the prospect objections that you frequently hear and brain storm ways to preempt them. You will not be able to preempt all prospect objections; however you will be able to preempt many of them. If you do this well you will be in a much stronger place to be able to move your sales process forward.

Wendy Weiss, “The Queen of Cold Calling,” is a sales trainer, author and sales coach. She is recognized as one of the leading authorities on lead generation, cold calling and new business development and she helps clients speed up their sales cycle, reach more prospects directly and generate more sales revenue. Contact her at wendy@wendyweiss.com.

Get Wendy’s free Special Report, Getting in the Door: How to Write an Effective Cold Calling Script, at http://www.wendyweiss.com.

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