Think Ahead to Reduce Sales Resistance
By Kent Howell
The one sure thing that you are going to encounter during any sales opportunity is some form of sales resistance. How you deal with sales resistance is one of the most critical factors to your sales success.
When do you encounter sales resistance? Well, in most cases the first time is when you first approach a suspect for an appointment. From that point on you can be faced with sales resistance at any step of the sales process. You will generally meet some resistance during your discovery stage and even in your proposal stage; however the time when you can almost always expect it is when you close.
Sales resistance comes in many forms, from subtle to very direct. The more subtle forms are statements such as “I’m too busy right now” or “call me back next week”. The more direct variety would be something like “we don’t have a need right now” or “your competitor’s product is better because…”.
It’s important to be able to get a feel for the strength of the resistance. Very often it’s only mild – just for the decision maker to test you or to increase his comfort level with a buying decision. Other times the resistance is stronger. These are the situations when the buyer has serious concerns about some aspect of your proposed solution or product. Gauging the strength of the resistance can be best ascertained by watching the prospect’s body language, listening carefully to the words he speaks, and by paying close attention to the tone and volume of his voice. If the prospect is resisting with a precise issue, leaning forward, using an intense tone, or speaking in a normal to slightly loud volume then you know the objection is stronger and your response must be equally as strong but not more so.
The biggest key to dealing with sales resistance is anticipating the types of and specific objections you are most likely to encounter. You know the strengths and weakness about your product or service and those of your competition’s as well; and you know from previous sales opportunities, both successful and unsuccessful ones, what sales resistances you’ve encountered in the past. With that knowledge you can easily anticipate over 90% of the likely objections you’ll run in to so now you can effectively plan your responses to those objections. This is simply nothing more than being prepared. If you know that your product doesn’t have a feature that your primary competitor’s product does then you can have a planned response that minimizes any advantage that feature may offer and at the same time emphasize the benefit of a feature of your product that’s superior to your competitor’s product.
Now that you’ve anticipated and planned for the most likely sales resistances you will face, what do you do when get one of those objections? Deal with it in three steps.
- Restate the objection for understanding: by mirroring the objection back to the prospect you are confirming that you have both heard and understood what was said.
- Ask questions to clarify the objection: it’s vital that you gain an insight as to why the prospect is giving you the particular objection that he is. Often times you will find out that the stated objection is only masking an underlying issue that he hasn’t stated. Even when the stated objection is the true objection clarifying questions are crucial to move beyond the “what” to get to the “why” of the resistance. It’s only when you both understand what the objection is and why the prospect has that objection that you can effectively respond to it. An example of a good clarifying question is “Can you tell me why you feel that …?”.
- Finally, answer with your planned response to that specific objection.
Perhaps the biggest key to dealing with sales resistance is to reduce it. How do you do that? The single most effective way is to ask lots of good questions and listen attentively to the answers. You want to ask the questions that will give you insight into the prospect’s hot button issues (both positive and negative). You also want to ask questions that address some of the specific objections you encounter most frequently; and you want to ask questions that will draw out information about the issues you know are your product’s or service’s weak points to know if those are important to the prospect.
Don’t dread sales resistance. First try to minimize the resistance by uncovering it during your discovery phase, understand where it comes from, anticipate what it will be, prepare for it, and respond appropriately. If you do these simple and highly effective things you’ll be more confident and have more success in effectively dealing with sales resistance.
This article was originally published in the July 28, 2006 edition of Business Lexington.