Wednesday, June 3, 2020

Objections

All objections boil down to "I'm not sold."

They have to see the value whether we're selling advertising or couches. And value is a bit different for everyone.

I'm not sold. You can see the buyer, arms crossed, considering the sales pitch he just heard and not moving forward. Why? Look at all these features! And the lights or the plush upholstery, we say, piling on. He's not leaving so we still have a chance. Though clearly these do not have enough value to him. But wait, there's more!

Our job as salespeople is to clear them up and clear them out. Make the value clear for the buyer to see.

Do they want more features? Almost never.
Maybe easier payments? Possibly.

Some do and some don't. The secret is that value to each buyer is different from the last buyer. And it's up to us to find out what this buyer values.

I have agencies who want value-added which means free ads added onto their contract. They will not argue with me about the $60 rate but they will argue with me about how many FREE ads they get. They don't see the value of the audience: they only value winning the argument. Other clients are looking to me for fresh ideas and expect me to come up with their whole campaign. Others think I'm insulting them when I offer suggestions on revising messaging to fit our audience.

The objection they put up before committing tells you a lot about who they are and what they value in this transaction.

It's easy to feel stymied when an objection comes your way in a sales presentation. Objections are really our friends. They tell us salespeople what keys will work in this lock. And they're not always logical.

"It's too expensive" --> "Too expensive compared to what?" They are telling you they did not think what you offered (in my case, audience, or in other cases, cars or consulting services) created enough value for the dollars. Break it down by smaller units or sometimes it even works to compare the return on their investment to the cost of their own products they are selling customers. One restaurant complained about $15 ads and I pointed out he has a $15 hamburger on his menu. We agreed if the 100 ads brought in 100 new customers he would buy another set of ads. He had the biggest month to date after starting and happily bought more ads the next month. Get to that underlying point of comparison and bring them over to your point of comparison.

"It's too much commitment" --> This is someone who lacks confidence in their future. Point out the ways they have flexibility in that, point out the benefits of booking now or the costs of booking on short-term agreements (those should always be more expensive, BTW). But the underlying issue here is that this client doesn't know what the future will bring. Look for ways to either help them them build that moat or steady supply of customers, or look for someone above them. I get this a lot with middle managers who really don't have as much approval power as they said they did.

Add objections you've heard in the comments below and we'll workshop them. The objection they say is rarely the objection they are feeling.