Small Business Blog

Overcoming Objections - How Often Do You Lose Sales Because Of An Objection?

Reach Agreement By Resolving Objections Before They Come Up

Everyone in business loses plenty of sales, even if it is unconsciously. I mean, let's think about an enquiry that just turned out to be ‘a tyre kicker', you know... come on we've all said it, and often it's true. However, just as often they are not. Perhaps when you've asked for the sale these perceived ‘tyre kickers' raise an objection like; "I can't afford that", or "It's just too much", or "Let me think about it", or "yes, but not now, call me back in 3 weeks", or "no time for that", or "not interested sorry".

Learn the only 3 reasons people raise an objection. Understand these then relate them to your business increasing your sales by reaching agreement more often ...

What Is An Objection?

If you've been living under a rock all your life you might not have heard this, but if you've braved the world and read or listened to anything related to the topic of sales it's likely you've heard that "objections are a good thing" or "objections are nothing more than an opportunity to clarify an issue, or concern, or doubt, or area of uncertainty, or to understand the prospect more". Blah, blah, blah, yes this is very true... and how you deal with an objection once it is raised is really important for sure, but I'm not going to talk about the techniques or processes for doing dealing with an objection in this article.

Why? Because the real answer to the question ‘what is an objection?' is ... A SURE SIGN THAT I STUFFED UP!!!! If I'm getting the same objection over and over, wouldn't it be best to understand why that is and work towards never getting that objection ever again! To do this we must understand the reason people give objections and why they come up. Then we can address the communication (verbal, visual, & written) and the process we offer a prospect information. Let's begin...

The 3 Reasons For Objections

By anticipating them in your discussions with prospects, you can answer objections before they come up. By doing this you will be seem knowledgeable, helpful, frank and truthful... giving the prospect a much more favourable experience. Objections that are raised are usually for one of the following reasons;

• 1) The prospect doesn't believe something.
• 2) The prospect doesn't understand something.
• 3) The prospect is attempting to hide something.

The prospect doesn't believe something.

If the prospect doesn't believe something then you have failed to back it up with proof or information. The idea here is to ensure you back up claims with specific evidence, this will confirm what has been said or written or presented.

The prospect doesn't understand something.

When a prospect doesn't understand something, this is largely due to explanations... either they never got one or the one they did get just wasn't good enough. The lack of understanding could be about anything; your product or service, how it works, why it is so cheap, why it is so expense, how to proceed from here, what happens if such and such happens, why it takes so long to get an answer to my questions, or why I can't get the product delivered today. Furthermore, the lack of understanding can relate to simply why you can't do what they want.

You won't be able to remove all these situations overnight, heck the possibilities for lack of understanding are huge, so the best method is constantly check to see that the prospect understands what you are talking about. Do this by asking things like "Does that make sense?", or "Did I make that point clearly? Avoid "do you understand?" it infers that they are stupid if they say they don't, so what happens?.... they'll say yes, even if they don't understand. Make it about you and your communication skills, so if they don't understand it's your fault and you'll explain it again or in a different way. PS. If they don't understand ... it is your fault, that's my whole point! Improve your communication so we remove or at least limit objections.

The prospect is attempting to hide something.

Well, good luck with this one. Objections are either real or fake. If they are fake, the prospect is hiding the real reason, often because of embarrassment or to avoid conflict. An example of two common scenarios that happen here are;

• a)The prospect puts forward a fake price objection "I can't afford that" or "that's too much", but the real reason is they don't believe this product or service is for them but it's just easier to say that they can't afford it and move on.

Again, if you get this common objection you have failed to deliver desire and need for your product or service. You've failed to prove to solves there problem in the best way.

• b)The prospect puts forward a fake value objection "I don't need this" or "I can get better elsewhere", but the real reason is the price is more that they can afford and they don't want to admit that.

Embarrassment based fake objections, are hard to stop coming up. They relate to relationship and it being ‘ok', no matter what the situation is. The prospect will need to feel you really are there to help them and that you have their best interests at heart and that you won't judge them or make them feel like an idiot by sharing the real reason.... And that they can trust you to be private if required.

This week's Action Points...

The key to answering objections before they come up is to become a better communicator. Directly after your next sales call, discussion, meeting, quote, proposal or presentation write down any objections that came up. Do this for a week, then come up with ways to answer all these during your verbal and/or written communications with prospects. Now Implement and continually fine tune then watch your converse rate and bottom line improve.