Objections Handling
Objections Handling happens when a prospect raises questions about a product or solution a salesperson is trying to sell and it’s her duty to mitigate these concerns in order to advance the sales process.
Objections Handling is not aimed at changing the prospect ideas and this behavior is a strong signal of weak qualification skills.
Objections are raised for 3 main reasons:
- A lack of clarity by the salesperson;
- Doubts and uncertainties regarding the salesperson solutions;
- Doubts and uncertainties regarding the terms of the agreement in order to re-negotiate them.
During these years I noticed some things which shaped my way of teaching.
First, I noticed that objections come up throughout the entire sales cycle so it will be counterproductive categorizing them in “Objections raised during Negotiation” or “Objections raised during the closing stages” and so on.
Second, I noticed that during the first attempts of prospecting the objections raised were similar.
Third, that we should distinguish among true and fake objections which are the excuses a prospect tells you if you are interrupting him.
According to these 3 reasons I decided to split the objections in 3 main categories:
- Fake Objections;
- Prospecting Objections;
- General Objections;
while creating some methodologies in order to handle them.
All this helped me in understanding that a solid objections handling training should teach the salesperson to:
- Recognize if the objections come from a lack of clarity by the salesperson or from uncertainties raised during the sales process;
- Distinguish between excuses and objections;
- Identify the roots of the objections with a Questioning strategy;
- Advance to the next step of the sales process or disqualify it;
- If there are no other possibilities, renegotiate the terms of the deal with a Negotiation strategy.
Due to the importance of this skill, Objections Handling is part of:
> Feel free to contact me if you need help or write a comment in the box below if you have any question.
