Handling Objections in Sales With a Win-Win Technique

One of the main questions in sales training is, how do I handle the potential buyers objections? 

A response might be – how would you like someone to handle YOUR objections when they are trying to sell you something and you’re not sure? 

 But the real answer – to anyone who wants to sell a lot and be successful in their career, is in the book HOW TO SELL, Clear and Simple.  It cuts through the mountain of rhetoric on the subject, and brings the information to the reader in a very clear and sensible way. 

Handling objections during a sale becomes simple and easy when you know some of the amazingly effective methods outlined in the book. 

• Like asking questions instead of trying to overcome the person with reasoning. 
• Like backtracking instead of trying to force matters through when it’s clear that you need to go back to one of the other steps of the sales cycle first, in order to handle the objection that’s coming up now. 
• Like learning a caring communication technique that ensures the person you are talking to is engaged and open to what you have to say. 

 Subtle stuff, but it works!  

In the end, the result will be someone able to sell and be extremely good at it.  So, we all know what that means. 

More money. 

More for the salesperson and more for the corporation.  And the buyer gets what he wants.  That’s a win-win situation for all.

Get started on a very lucrative career in sales.

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By Harry Frisch

Before a salesperson can expect his customer to “show him the money” he’s got to show that customer a product, service or idea that is worth no less to him than the amount of money being asked for it.

Selling is a process made up of a number of specific steps, which work best when they are unfolded in a very specific sequence.

The process of a sale has FIVE definable steps

PROPSECTING  Locating a potential buyer

OPENING  Getting the prospect into communication

QUALIFYING  Discovering relevant data about the prospect

PRESENTING  Enlightening the prospect about, and interesting him in acquiring the product.

CLOSING  Getting the prospect’s firm commitment to acquire the poduct or service

Why These Steps?  And Why in This Order?

 These are the steps, and this is the sequence which, when effectively applied, consistently results in a successfully completed sale in which everyone wins!  

 Each step, when executed effectively, lays the foundation upon which the next step can be securely built.  The earlier steps should form the solid base upon which a smooth close can be developed.  Closing needs ALL of the earlier steps in place to stably support it.

 The Process In Reverse

I think you’ll find that the logic of this sequence will best reveal itself to you by viewing it backwards:

 What you are ultimately striving for in the sales process is to “CLOSE” the sale.  However, before you can expect your prospect to firmly commit to your product, he would first need to somehow be introduced to it.  He would need to be “PRESENTED” it.  And he would need to be presented it in a way that he sees a value and benefit at least equal to the price you are asking him to pay.

But before you can meaningfully present how the features of your product will be of proper benefit to him, you must first learn what it is about him that this particular product might satisfy for him.  And similarly, before you can effectively strategize your campaign of exactly which of your wares to present, and how soon and how intensively to present them to him, you had better learn what his readiness and ability are to acquire what you are selling.

The discovering of his relevant needs, wants, readiness and ability is the “QUALIFYING” step.

Now, before you can hope to get your prospect to tell you anything about anything, you’ve got to first get him willing to communicate with you.  And before you can get him to truthfully tell you about himself and his needs, you’ve got to get him to have some basic trust in you.  Establishing communication with basic trust is the “OPENING” step.

And before you can even begin to get anyone into communication, you first have got to locate him! 

Locating someone to sell something to is the “PROSPECTING” step, and where the sequence of your sale begins.

 For the salesman who is wanting his customers to “show him the money”, your best bet is to start at the beginning with plenty of good PROSPECTING and build a great sales structure, step by step, upon which your successful CLOSE can be erected.  When you do it that way, you are going to find a lot of customers more than willing, if not anxious, to “show you their money”.

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By “death” of a salesperson’s career, we mean the concept of losing one’s ability to sell, just like main character, Willy Loman, in the play called “Death of a Salesman“.  In the play, Willy is a middle aged salesman who is no longer able to earn a good living and is barely making enough for his family to live on.  Rather than pull himself out of it, he descends into ‘dreaming’ of success, instead of doing something about it in his real life.

As in any other pursuit, if you fail enough times at doing something, eventually you appear to lose the ability to do it well, even if prior to that you had a lot of success. 

Sales is one of those kinds of occupations where you can have a number of disappointments and losses in a row. 

This, in turn, can make a person lose faith in themselves and their ability.  When that is the case, the next time they approach a situation that is similar, they have a tendency to pull back, to have an expectation of a lack of success; thereby, often effecting that exact result on themselves!  And so, they spiral down, less able at each turn, until, like Willy, they are looking for a way out.  This is in no way makes any suggestion that salespeople who are not successful want to take Willy Loman’s route of decline; but they do often give up their occupation and go into a different but steady, often lower-paying  job, that they do not actually enjoy.

Yet, sales is one of the most lucrative jobs a person can have if it is done right.  What better occupation than to have an income that is not limited – but can be increased exponentially with personal effort?

So, in order to not let a salesperson’s career die, in any way, there is sales training. 

If someone had taken Willy Loman and helped him by supplying sales training so that he could have turned around his closing ratio, allowing him to make more and more money with each passing month; he would not have lived his life via dreams and fantasies.  He would have made his personal dreams come true and lived a long and very happy life!  Of course then there would not have been the highly successful play called Death of a Salesman, but that’s not the point.

Sales ability is like any other refined occupation, it benefits from good training.   Great sales training will not only teach a new person what to do so that they can be successful; it will also revitalize even the most depressed Willy Loman, who actually has the inherent ability… but has lost it temporarily.

Salesmanship is the ability to persuade others to buy one’s products or services.  This skill set, can be learned.  No one is born a salesperson.  Like any other trade or occupation, learning how to do it is 90% of the way to be successful.  Yes, some people seem to have more charisma for it than other people.  Yet, there are times when you meet a very successful salesperson who seems to have none of that charisma, or “gift of the gab” that you would expect.  So, how is this person successful in spite of not having the right apparent “charm”?

It’s knowing the craft of sales.  It’s training.  It’s simply knowledge  of how to do it.

Sales Training comes in two versions:  Short-term success and long-term success.

Short -term sales training is also known as “motivational training”.  It is a sales seminar which gives the sales crew a temporary lift, returning them to the sales floor in a fresh humor and with renewed hope. 

Long-term sales training comes in a variety of forms, such as training manuals, seminars, workshops, instructional tapes, etc. 

What do all forms of good  long- term sales training have in common over mere motivational training?  It is that good sales training instructs both the new trainees and the veteran sales staff in actual, workable sales tools and techniques with which the salesperson can get lasting results.

The best, and perhaps most rare form of all great sales training’s, is that which both motivates and provides the trainees with highly effective tools and techniques.

Sales training techniques that consistently work can be surprisingly difficult to come by. 

Many of even the best sales training techniques available out there, only work well some of the time.   So, what do you have to do to locate a set of sales training techniques that have excellent workability most of the time?

The effectiveness of good sales training techniques actually depends upon only a very small number of basic principles:

• One must know what the five essential steps of a sale consists of, and know exactly how the five steps relate to one another;
• One must also know what the three fundamental principles are upon which all people skills are based; thirdly,
• One must know what the three key principles are that determine how effectively a student will or will not grasp, and be able to apply, what is being taught; and finally,
• One must know and understand what the two basic components are which comprise all effective sales training techniques.

Sales training techniques will take hold best with a balance of practical drills that have been blended into the training along with the theory of the subject.

There are ultra-workable tools, and a number of other rock solid tips and techniques, that are introduced in an easy to understand and entertaining manner in the book, HOW TO SELL – Clear and Simple.   To the degree one understands the basics of training techniques as well as the basic anatomy of selling itself, one will be successful in applying winning sales techniques.

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Close More Sales … easily

Sales Training comes in two categories; ideas that only work sometimes and ideas that work almost every time.  Obviously, learning the ideas that work almost all of the time, and are consistently successful, is the most valuable sales training.

It’s all about CLOSING THE SALE.  A salesperson can spend a lot of time in hunting; opening up the lead; and presenting the product….. to no result.  When this happens the salesperson loses confidence and interest; and the company that this person works for has just paid the salesperson to do a lot of things, but not the thing that will ultimately bring in income and keep the company growing! 

So, constant training in closing sales is not only revitalizing to the salesperson, but valuable to the company. 

There are really only a handful of ultra-workable principles that go into the broad blueprint of what makes up effective selling and closing.

A few of these principles are:

Just before starting to work with any particular prospect, make up your mind that your #1 job is to help that prospect find and buy a product, service, or idea that will enhance his/her life or, in the case of B2B sales, it will enhance the goals and production of the company you are selling to.

Maintain excellent communication with your prospect throughout the sales process.

Demonstrate yourself as helpful, caring and interested, and you will win trust.

Discover what is needed and wanted, in relation to your product or service, before asking any self-serving questions… or …beginning your presentation.

Structure your presentation so that the features and benefits of what you are presenting parallel the needs and wants you have discovered your prospect has for your product.

Handle any and every concern or objection your prospect has, either with communication alone, whenever that is possible, or with other solutions, when needed, until your prospect either buys your product or clearly is no longer a legitimate prospect for the product.

And perhaps the single most valuable sales training tip of them all:  PERSIST!  

If a salesperson did almost everything else wrong, but simply persisted in trying to interest his prospect in his product, service or idea, eventually that prospect would become sufficiently interested to buy it.

Of course, there are ways to persist that work a whole lot better than other ways. Handling Objections and Other Trouble Shooting, is an essential skill that will enable a salesperson to continue to persist despite any amount of sales resistance he may run into.  And, much more importantly, to continue to persist in a way that the prospect experiences as smooth and agreeable.  You will find this valuable information in a chapter in the book, HOW TO SELL – Clear and Simple.

Handling objections is the single most challenging part of a sale for most salespeople.  The reason for this is two-fold.  The first, and most important of these, is that most sales people have not been trained on the right tools for successfully handling any and all objections that might come their way. 

The second reason most salespeople find handling objections so difficult is that they don’t have sufficient confidence in their own ability to go in and smoothly handle the objection when the prospect manifests it.

The reason the first issue (lack of tools) is more important than lack of confidence, is because  confidence is itself built upon the successful use of the right tools.  The more a salesperson sees himself handling objections successfully with the right tools and then making the sale, the more confident he grows and the more willing he is to face the next set of objections that may come his way.

That said, what are the right tools for handling objections? 

Objections can be slight or substantial, frail or formidable, and can come at you at any time, and in every form imaginable.  The variations of techniques on how to go about handling objections which sales professionals have devised over the eons to try to overcome this seemingly infinite variety of objections, are almost too numerous to list.  Time has demonstrated which techniques and basic principles, truly have – or do not have – a place in a sales strategy which can stand up to the tests of time.

Objections themselves come in only two basic categories, and there is a four-step formula that successfully handles virtually all objections that can come the way of the salesman.

The reason this simple four-step formula is so universally and consistently successful in smoothly removing objections out of the way of completing the sale is that it is based squarely upon the powerful principles of human communication itself.

There are many guidelines about what goes into making a salesperson successful, with the ability to close a large volume of sales and maintain high customer satisfaction .  But the focus should only be on the most consistently workable sales training techniques.  You will find them all in the comprehensive, but easy to understand, sales training book:  HOW TO SELL – Clear and Simple.

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Duties of a Salesperson

The duties of a salesperson vary depending on the type of sales job.

A person doing sales in a retail store has as part of their job duties to keep a check on inventory items, assist with keeping the store clean, taking payment from the customer, process returns, and so on.  Obviously, in this environment, ‘customer satisfaction’ and ‘high quality service’ is often measured by things like how fast the salesperson took the money when the customer went to the cash register; or whether the changing rooms were cleaned out or not.  

Interestingly, the actual words related to the selling part of the sales job are often found quite far down the ‘list of duties’ in the job description!  This may work in some retail-type sales positions, however, when you are talking about big ticket items; or volume selling; the job description must start and end with job duties that relate to actually being able to SELL a product or service to a prospect.

To find a salesperson that can start the sales process by opening up good communication with the prospect to find out what they actually want and need; present well; handle the variety of customer objections; and then closes the sale: is a VERY valuable person to any organization.  Salespeople are not “born that way” but they do have certain attributes that make them successful.  Being goal oriented and persistent are two of those attributes. 

Of course you can’t put that in the duties of a salesperson; but as a manager, if you mire the sales professional in non-sales related work, like taking inventory, or a lot of administrative duties, you may be mistaking “make work” for valuable work.

The real job duties of any salesperson are to ‘prospect for clients’, whether they walk into a store, or the salesperson has to go out and get find prospective buyers.  Next to get into GOOD communication with the potential customer.  The attributes you are looking for is that the salesperson is willing to communicate and can do it with ease.  As part of this communicative process, the next step is to understand what the customer is looking for. 

This can be as small a thing as finding out what color dress a woman wants to a very big issue when it comes to selling services, such as Marketing Service Contracts; Website Development; Group Insurance Sales; major Computer Hardware Installations; and so on.  To not understand your customers business needs and wants can be a fatal flaw.

It’s also important that the salesperson can ‘qualify’ their prospect.  The potential customer that enters the Rolls Royce showroom may love the cars, but in this type of situation, ‘qualifying’ is a very important step.

Job duties for a salesperson must include the ability to ‘present’ the product or service.  Knowing the product well is important – or in the case of highly technical sales – bringing the appropriate technical expert along who knows the product inside and out is extremely smart tactically.  One way or another, a great salesperson must be able to ‘present’ and if he/she has done the first steps thoroughly, then the presentation will be such that it will give the prospect everything that he wants and needs.

If the salesperson never found out this crucial information, the presentation will miss the mark and the potential client is sure to have little to say except that he’ll “think about it” for now.  However, if your client begins to ask questions and for clarification throughout the presentation, you know that you have hit their interest level.

The “art of friendly persuasion” sounds very complicated.  However, if someone presents to you what you personally (or corporately) actually need and want, then it will be a lot easier to ‘persuade’ you to be interested, won’t it?  So, one of the attributes you want in a salesperson is that they can listen actively to what the client is saying and if the client is not forthcoming, the salesperson should be able to ask enough open-ended questions in order to get the client to tell him the needed information.  This is difficult to state as a job duty of a salesperson, but it can be listed in the skills required.

But then we come to “the bottom line”; closing the sale and dealing with the possibility of the “dreaded objections”.  Here is where a professional salesperson shines and knows what they are doing.  Here is where the attributes of being goal oriented; and particularly that of being persistent, play a big role.  This is not to say we are talking about the pushy, irritating sales-bore, who won’t take no for an answer, but really has nothing else to offer.  No, we’re talking about a skill.  Courteous, tactful, and skilled handling of objections and customer concerns is an essential part of good salesmanship.  Handling objections is always part of a salespersons job duties.  This cannot be up to the manager, although certainly others can assist the salesperson, in specialized situations.  

Keep the environment at work such, that a salesperson actually has time to do the selling.  Their job duties are to increase business; maintain existing clients; and source out new clients.  If they do that, then everyone wins.  The company increases business; the clients are happy because they have what they need; and the salesperson has job satisfaction and continues to produce good sales.  To learn how to become such an excellent salesperson…

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