Handling objections via consultative selling; Four simple steps
In almost all of my presentations and workshops, I get questions about handling objections. It’s a part of selling that is uncomfortable for many sales people. Since it comes up so often, I thought I’d blog my answer, which goes something like this…
- An objection is not a barrier. It’s communication from your customer.
- An objection is a sale waiting to happen.
- The more heated the objection the more important the issue is to the customer.
- The more important it is to the customer, the more customers rely on our problem solving abilities.
- Solving problems is what incredibly successful sales people do.
There are four steps to turning objections into problem solving and consultative selling actions. I call it What-Why-What-Go.
Step 1: Learn WHAT the problem is. What symptoms are you seeing? Where does it hurt? In most cases, the customer is objecting to something you’ve proposed because it doesn’t clearly address their problem. Before you can begin to address the objection, you first need to understand the problem. Most customers who articulate objections will also understand what their problems are but sometimes you have to figure it out together.
Step 2: Learn WHY the problem exists. Diagnose the symptoms. Why does it hurt? This is the most important step in consultative selling. Without you and your customer agreeing on WHY the problem exists, you are guessing at solutions. Guessing relies on luck to find the right answer, and luck isn’t reliable.
Step 3: Identify WHAT options exist to address WHY the problem exists. Getting agreement on WHY a problem exists allows you to develop remedies or proposals that address the WHY rather than guessing and reacting to WHAT is happening. Do you need Tylenol or something stronger? Addressing the WHY is reliable.
Step 4: Select the best next action and GO DO IT. During the selling process, the best next action is to adapt your proposal so that it addresses the customer’s objection in the best possible way. Rarely will your action eliminate the objection entirely, but by problem solving with your customer you’ve helped them accept the imperfect proposal as the best, and to see that you’re the best to deliver it.
In many parts of Asia, it’s hard to get customers to pay for intellectual property, especially digital products like music, movies, software, etc. What was the problem? People were not willing to pay for software, music and movies.
Why wouldn’t they pay? It was easy to assume that the problem was price because there is much poverty in Asia. With that assumption, many companies reduced prices. Sales would increase for a bit, but then would decline to previous levels. The only difference was that we got less for products that people paid for.
So what was the real reason WHY people wouldn’t pay? We learned it was two difficult issues. One cultural reason was the belief that people were stupid if they bought something they could get free. Compounding this was the newly educated youth who considered it a badge of honor to break our code. Now that we’re more educated on WHY customers don’t want to pay, we’re better able to build plans that address the WHY rather than guessing and reacting to the WHAT.
What-Why-What-Go. Handle objections in the same way you handle business problems.
©2014 Rick Wong – The Five Abilities® LLC