Today I thought I’d let Jim Burlison, a sales trainer/leader on our team write the message. It’s about handling objections –
Before we dive into “handling objections” lets take a moment to discuss what an “objection” is versus what a “sales stall” is.
You see many of us (myself included) can often treat a “sales stall” as an “objection“. Basically we become the creator of an objection out of a sales stall. Ouch!
So what is a sales stall? These can be many things that our customers will say or do that disguise themselves as an objection but in all reality it’s just a momentary R.D.S. (aka Reactionary Defense Response…kinda like I’m Just Looking)
You ever hear this from your clients when you ask for their business? I am using these because these are two of the most common.
“I want to think about it”
“We gotta wait a bit”
If so, you’re hearing the dreaded STALL! This is not an objection…at least not yet, so don’t treat them as such.
How can we find out if it really is an objection or just a stall? We ask more questions.
Remember our appointment with the cutomer must be question based and not statement driven. The questions don’t stop in Step 2 with the customer interview. They continue until we “hopefully” get the answer we are looking for. An answer that might sound like this…“okay, when can you get my new roof or new gutters installed?”
You see “more” questions need to be asked after what just may be a RDS. While there are many examples of answers I can share, below are two of the most basic that are very safe, non-combative and allow the customer to think about what they just said…and provide you with a logical (hopefully logical) answer. These questions are designed to help you determine if their really is an objection living within their response. These questions work for the beginning amateur and the seasoned pro.
*When you say you want to think about it…how do you mean?
*When you say you gotta wait a bit…how do you mean?
By repeating what their statement was prior to asking your question (using the right tone of voice and body inflection), this will demonstrate you are listening and are truly interested. Customers love sales reps that listen and customers buy from people who listen to them. How often have you dealt with a sales rep and said to yourself “this guy/girl is not even listening to me” and didn’t buy? Yep, alot and me too!
Based on their answer you will find more times than not, there is no need to go deep into the closing trail. If you are treating stalls as objections then you need to get really great at going deep into the trail…and often the deeper we go, we run the risk of it getting just a tinge more uncomfortable for you and the customer. I would prefer you to be great at determining if it’s a stall until you have confirmed whether or not it is an objection. You will close more deals and they will close faster with less effort.
Stay away from being the creator of objections and learn to love being the connector of more sales.
We would love it if you could give us more direction on what to do next when customers tell us, they are getting other bids, and they’re not willing to make a decision until they receive the other estimates.