Objection Handling Tips: Part 2 - Anticipating Sales Objections
No matter how urgent the needs of the buyer, no matter how quickly they want to take the sales process forward and no matter how amazing your solution is, it is certain that your prospect will raise objections during the sales process or, at least, request additional information before they sign the contract or move on to the next stage of the sale.
This is because, once committed, they know that there’s no going back on the deal and they need to be convinced that they have not missed any potential problems that might arise from the deal in the future.
To master objection handling and overcome most of the sales objections that you will encounter, it is essential that you are able to anticipate and differentiate between the positive and the negative ones. This will help you both avoid and overcome most of the objections that buyers will launch at you. While anticipating and overcoming positive objections will significantly speed up the sales process, spending too much time focusing on the negative objections will slow down the sales process and may be a huge waste of your time.
Positive Sales Objections
Most, if not all, buyers will raise underlying, professional or personal concerns about working with you. You should welcome these positive kinds of sales objections and, if you want to follow the sale through to a successful close, you must anticipate the types of objection that the buyer is likely to raise.
Positive buyer objections typically fall into the following three categories:
1. Objections that seek to test and clarify the buyer’s own understanding of the proposal.
2. Objections that seek to test and clarify the substance and commercial flexibility of your proposal, in addition to the trustworthiness and commitment of your company to delivering the solution.
3. Objections that seek to alleviate genuine concerns that the buyer has over your solution in terms of whether their organisation will benefit from the solution or whether the solution will work (this may include doubts over your company’s capabilities, or their own company’s capacity to successfully work on the project).
These are all positive reasons for objections that can be easily dealt with, or even avoided (see our previous post), if you prepare well for the meeting. By using consultative selling techniques to ease the buyer’s concerns, you can eliminate the potential for these kinds of objections being raised by your prospect. Once you overcome these objections you’ll be able to get a close from the buyer, where the buyer actually signs the contract or agrees to move on to the next stage of the deal in the journey towards getting the contract signed.
Negative Sales Objections
But be aware, sales people must also watch out for the following negative objections:
1.Smoke screening – where the buyer creates fictitious reasons to demand better terms or even to justify working with, or buying from, a competitor instead of you.
2.Controlling (or bullying) – where the buyers takes a position simply to exert their power over you. This is often simply to satisfy the ego of your prospect.
3.Stalling – a prospect may stall to buy time, either because they are too busy or they are seeking alternatives to your solution.
Telling the Difference
You can always tell whether a sales objection is raised for positive or negative reasons from the prospect’s body language, the tone of their voice or their mood. It is crucial that you are able to anticipate all of the above objections. It is also crucial that you are able to differentiate between the positive and the negative objections. By focusing on, and overcoming, the positive (genuine) objections rather than the negative objections, you will be far more successful in creating a desire and urgency in the buyer to drive the sale forward. It will enable you to be much more successful at closing sales and negotiating a deal that is both beneficial to you and your prospect.
Written by: Steve Eungblut, Managing Director of Sterling Chase
