When you’re selling, it’s not enough to simply answer an objection. If you don’t want to see the objection pop up later, you need to kill it for good. Here’s a typical selling conversation:
- Prospect: We don’t have the money in this year’s budget.
- You: That’s O.K. We can finance it so part falls into next year’s budget. Does that work for you?
- Prospect: I guess so.
Many sales reps would happily (but wrongly) believe they’d killed the objection. However, that objection will very likely to pop up later, because the commitment is weak. An objection is not truly dead until until you’ve help the prospect bury it for good. Here’s how:
- Prospect: We don’t have the money in this year’s budget.
- You: That’s O.K. We can finance it so part falls into next year’s budget. Does that work for you?
- Prospect: I guess so.
- You: …and so that’s all taken care of, right?
- Prospect: Right.
- You: Great! Did you notice that our reference accounts…
Getting prospects to publicly agree that the objection is dead puts them in the position of seeming inconsistent or wishy-washy if they bring it up again. Most people will not do this because it conflicts with their image of themselves as decision-makers.
Please do not pretend that this is NOT manipulative. It’s not.
If your prospects don’t believe you’ve answered the objection, they’ll say so. What this prevents is the emotional off-again/on-again waffling that wastes your time, and keeps the prospect from making a decision quickly and effectively.
Important! Once you’ve gotten the customer to agree, change the subject by asking a question on an unrelated matter. Why? If you continue to focus on the objection past the point of commitment, the prospect may start waffling about the commitment, in which case you’re back to square one.
The above is a classic sales technique as taught by the ever-informative Tom Hopkins.
