5: Late objections 1

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Late objections 1

The problem that most people have is when they get to the end, they will hear lots of objections at the end and we’ll go through those in a second. But the truth is you shouldn’t really be getting these late objections because at this time the close should be smooth if you’ve done every part of the sale well. So if you’re getting these objections at the end, we’ll talk about how to handle them. But another thing that you’d be thinking about is why am I getting them in the first place? So let’s go through them. I’m not interested. Talk to someone else, a partner, a senior, maybe a junior. Yours is too expensive. I want to think about it. Send me an email, which is very similar to, I want to think about it. We need to check out your competitors. I’d like to get a second quote. Budget.

These are the seven main objections and as I’ve said before, they’re very, very predictable and the reality is for the vast majority of them, they should have been handled earlier in the sale. Aside from the one that says, I want to look at your competitors. When you get to the end of the sale, there were two types of objections you need to group them. There’s either a definite no, I don’t want to do it. I’m not interested. It’s a no for me. Or the objections are only going to be a delayed no which are going to be things like think about it, speak to my partner. So the steps that you really need to follow are as follows, as before. Listen. Repeat back. Really understand the objection. You may at this stage want to emotionally audit the customer. However, this stage when it gets further down, objections could be a lot more logical than they are emotional because you should have had the emotional buy-in really at the start because the benefit of using emotion right at the beginning is the customers will start to use logic now to justify the emotion, or bias that they had at the beginning.

Next step is you really want to isolate that objection. So, what you want to find is when customers start giving objections towards the end, you really want to understand, is this the only thing that’s standing in our way to getting a deal? So, when they come up with these objections, the way to clarify that is with a kind of ‘If’ question. So if the customer then says, Oh, um, can you give me a discount? Well maybe, but if I can give you a discount, are we doing a deal? and you do this in a blue or can you get delivery next Tuesday? You may we go, let me check with, uh, the warehouse if I can get you at by next Tuesday. Do you want, go ahead?  So, in other words, you don’t really want to be tackling objections individually. You want to be tackling objections at the end in one go and making sure. So, for example, if they want to be talking about price and, and they’re not happy, it’s too expensive, you really want to park that and make sure now that every other thing they are happy with, aside from the price. And then of course you want to close.

There are objections I didn’t mind at the end and their objections. I really hate it. So, the two that I absolutely despised where think about it and I want to talk to someone else. Let’s talk about the one I want to talk to my partner, someone junior, someone senior, my marketing department, I’ve even heard, let me talk to my wife or my accountant. So, the situation is here, you shouldn’t be surprised because what should have happened is at the beginning of the sale, you should have pre handle this. So at the beginning of the sale you should have said, Mr. Customer, in order for me to bring you the right information, is it your decision that you make on your own or do you need to bring other people in for the final, uh, to make the final decision? So you should really understand who you’re talking to in the buying process.

See, the best sales strategy you can have needs to be designed according to how that person buys. So it’s like playing a chess game. You play a chess game on a professional level according to how the other person plays. And that’s way you can get the best results. So sales is the same. So, if I’m selling, say for example a diamond ring in a jewellery shop and a couple come in because their want an engagement ring, I may say different sell differently to the wife, the potential wife than the future husband for example. So I need to know at this stage and what I should know is what is their role in making that decision? So for example, if I’m talking to someone junior and then they have to take it to someone senior, I can tell you one thing with absolute certainty, every single person that has to take it to someone more senior will always love your product.

They will tell you how much they love it. They will never say no to you. So really you never ever want to get a no from someone who can’t say a yes. So at this stage, what you can do is at least you can try to isolate their opinion. So as we said before, what you really want to say is, so let me ask you, if it was your sole decision, would you go ahead? and if they don’t say yes, then there’s going to be no deal unless you can add value to your existing proposition. If you’re talking to someone senior who can make the decision and they say, Oh, let me talk to my sales team or let me talk to my accountant. Then if you’ve asked at the beginning that they’re the sole decision maker, at this stage I always felt that I had the ammunition to turn round to him and say this Mr Customer, at the beginning of the conversation you said to me that you would do this if you are a hundred percent confident in the value of this proposition, if it made good business sense.

Now obviously you’re not 100% confident. So, tell me what’s on the back of your mind. Now, I used the words a hundred percent confidence because at this stage I want to give him or her a bit of an out, in order they don’t lose face. So that’s why I use the hundred percent now. So everyone wins. And at this stage I can push for what’s really on their mind. If I want to be slightly more confrontational. Sometimes I have said, look, I need to speak to my accountant. If you want to speak to your accountant – that’s fine. But the way it usually works is you tell the account and what to do, not the other way round. So why don’t you tell me what’s on the back of your mind. The reality is if you smell a little bit of, should we say bull, then be prepared to tackle it straight on because someone’s lied and you do it in a smiley, friendly way. You can always get away with it. So that’s how to tackle the objection when someone says I want to speak to someone else. But as I said, the best way to avoid this objection is to pre-empt it right at the beginning.