We still have too many trainers and managers teaching objection handling as an opportunity to persuade. Objections are an opportunity to dig deeper, not show off your persuasion skills!
It’s 2024 and I don’t really want to believe we are still talking about objection handling … but there it is! There is still too much talk about having set answers to objections, and convincing buyers their objections are unfounded. But let’s step back. “Objections” sound different at different stages of selling. And just because we at SOAR hate the word objection, let’s call it what it is, feedback and questions!
When you get feedback and questions at the Discovery stage, this is exactly what you were looking for. It’s called Discovery for a reason, and everything and anything a prospective Buyer tells you can be useful. Josh Braun (check him out here https://www.linkedin.com/in/josh-braun/) uses a parable about you selling steak and getting the response, I’m a vegan. For the love of all things Sales, do not feel-felt-found that person! Move on, you do not have something everyone wants (unless you’re selling Taylor Swift tickets apparently!)
Questions during the Demonstration / Meeting Higher Ups stages tend to be less about Qualifying and more about Understanding. Still, dangers abound, and opportunities are plenty. Early in my Sales career, I had a very large prospect (7 figure deal) who had narrowed down to the final 2, us and the gorilla in the market. They scheduled 3 days of demo's for as many of their staff as they could! We brought a whole team on site. I quarterbacked most of the sessions, but I took one small demo session to help out. Just Purchasing, right, pretty standard functionality!
Well, let me tell you, I had the most hostile participant in the room. You probably know the type. Let’s call her Doris. Doris was mad, possibly because she knew she couldn’t stop a new system coming in. Doris was muttering under her breath and scoffing at a lot of things. About 40 minutes into the session, she asks, Can I change a PO after it has been sent? Because I was young and inexperienced, I said yes, and showed her. But then I asked the important question, why would you need to? Out came the whole story about how Scheduling doesn’t pay attention to Purchasing and will move jobs whose raw materials weren’t scheduled to be here yet at their own whim. (You could tell she was passionate about this). That allowed me to show her how Schedulers could check the PO themselves before moving jobs, making it their responsibility not to change the wrong things. I’d taken something off of Doris’ plate! Her whole demeanour after that changed from negative, anti-change, to, hey, this works for me! Makes my job easier!
After we won the deal, and we are celebrating in the client CEO’s office, the CEO pulled me to one side, and said, What happened between you and Doris? Because she has been in my office twice a day bugging me making sure I was going to pick the right system, the one that “Southerner Darryll” showed us!
So, use your listening skills, remember “objections” are normally questions and always, always dig deeper to understand. It will win you more business, the right way!
When you get feedback and questions at the Discovery stage, this is exactly what you were looking for. It’s called Discovery for a reason, and everything and anything a prospective Buyer tells you can be useful. Josh Braun (check him out here https://www.linkedin.com/in/josh-braun/) uses a parable about you selling steak and getting the response, I’m a vegan. For the love of all things Sales, do not feel-felt-found that person! Move on, you do not have something everyone wants (unless you’re selling Taylor Swift tickets apparently!)
Questions during the Demonstration / Meeting Higher Ups stages tend to be less about Qualifying and more about Understanding. Still, dangers abound, and opportunities are plenty. Early in my Sales career, I had a very large prospect (7 figure deal) who had narrowed down to the final 2, us and the gorilla in the market. They scheduled 3 days of demo's for as many of their staff as they could! We brought a whole team on site. I quarterbacked most of the sessions, but I took one small demo session to help out. Just Purchasing, right, pretty standard functionality!
Well, let me tell you, I had the most hostile participant in the room. You probably know the type. Let’s call her Doris. Doris was mad, possibly because she knew she couldn’t stop a new system coming in. Doris was muttering under her breath and scoffing at a lot of things. About 40 minutes into the session, she asks, Can I change a PO after it has been sent? Because I was young and inexperienced, I said yes, and showed her. But then I asked the important question, why would you need to? Out came the whole story about how Scheduling doesn’t pay attention to Purchasing and will move jobs whose raw materials weren’t scheduled to be here yet at their own whim. (You could tell she was passionate about this). That allowed me to show her how Schedulers could check the PO themselves before moving jobs, making it their responsibility not to change the wrong things. I’d taken something off of Doris’ plate! Her whole demeanour after that changed from negative, anti-change, to, hey, this works for me! Makes my job easier!
After we won the deal, and we are celebrating in the client CEO’s office, the CEO pulled me to one side, and said, What happened between you and Doris? Because she has been in my office twice a day bugging me making sure I was going to pick the right system, the one that “Southerner Darryll” showed us!
So, use your listening skills, remember “objections” are normally questions and always, always dig deeper to understand. It will win you more business, the right way!
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