Many people who are new to the sales profession are under the impression that if they can get their “Pitch” right, they will make more sales. The speech can be a flipchart, a quiz, a power point presentation, or just an impromptu conversation. Regardless of the type of sales pitch, a little practice goes a long way in helping the salesperson sound polished and professional.
If we could have a perfect sales pitch to make the sale, there would be a much larger number of wealthy sellers! The actual pitch is just one component of the sales process, and it’s usually not where the sale is lost. Too often, lost sales seem to happen during the “question and answer” phase of the sales process, or what sales professionals call “objections.”
There are entire books, courses, websites, and a host of other resources devoted to the art of “overcoming” objections. A great salesperson needs as much information as possible on how to overcome objections, but the truly great salesperson will become quite adept at “avoiding” objections.
My son was a pretty talented running back on his high school football team (proud dad alert!). He preferred to run AROUND his opponents, rather than ON them. His best friend was the POWER runner who enjoyed running people over. They both had the same goal of scoring a touchdown, just different methods. That team was better (yes, state championship!) because they had both a “power” and a “touchy” running back.
The same is true for the featured seller. They should become as proficient as possible at overwhelming objections (the power back), but by avoiding objections altogether (the finesse back), more sales will be closed!
The big secret to avoiding objections is to CROSS THEM YOURSELF during your presentation! While some worry about presenting an objection that the prospect wouldn’t think of on their own, in practice, this method actually dispels the objection because you can present it on your own terms. Also, the fact that you are not “hiding” from the objection reduces its potential negative impact on your prospect.
Understand, your prospect thinks it’s their JOB to find things wrong with whatever it is you’re trying to sell. Many consider the sales process a battle and objections their only ammunition. If you can take away their ammunition and get them to agree with you, more sales will follow.
Consider this example. I once sold a service to businesses that they could use if their customers had three things, ID, a checking account, and a job or some kind of income. That’s what my tone sounded like before I started raising the objection myself.
“You have to ask your client only three questions. First, do you have identification? Next, do they have a checking account? Finally, do they have a job or some kind of income? If your client has these three things, we will be able to approve more than 80% of them!”
Most of the time, at the end of my presentation, the prospect would say something like “Not many of my clients have checking accounts.” Once this statement was made, he was in a defensive position. I have answers, and they were good answers, but at this point I had to “power” through the objection. Often, if he “won” this battle, the prospect had another wait.
Now look at the subtle difference in my tone after I decided to avoid this objection, rather than keep trying to get over it over and over again.
“You have to ask your client just three questions. First, does he have identification? Then, does he have a checking account? Finally, does he have a job or any kind of income? Now, we know that not everyone will be able to answer yes to these three questions, but most will.. If your client can say yes three times, we can pass more than 80% of them!”
Many times, the prospect would say, “Yeah, you’re right,” right after you said, “But most will.” At that moment, I knew that the objection had been completely avoided! After adding this little sentence, raising the objection myself, rarely did anyone raise the objection about checking accounts again.
Your next step is to write down all the objections you hear over and over again. Next, review your presentation and find a place where you can subtly mention and respond to the objection. Add that to your release and watch your close ratio increase!