Sales people always have to overcome objections as part of the sales conversation. What if I told you there is an easy method to minimise this so you can sell more, faster.
“I think it’s too expensive”
“I need to speak with my business partner”
“I have only a short amount of time to get this right”
“You are too far away”
Objections come in many forms. They are all just forms of “Logic”, blocking the “Emotional” triggers toward making a buying decision.
Every single buying decision follows this simple 3 step process.
- Buyer has a need driven from an outcome. The outcome is always better than the current situation and is 100% emotionally fuelled.
- Buyer tries to justify the purchase through logic. Is this good value? How quick will this take to work? Etc…
- Buyer makes purchase based on the initial emotional driver.
In simple terms it looks like this…
Emotion – Logic – Emotion
Every purchase today (and in the past) goes through this same process. For expensive purchases (obviously) the process takes longer than it would if it was a small purchase. But all purchases go through this process.
Let me give you an example.
– I’m Hungry…I fancy a chocolate bar. I’ll buy a Mars bar. I Just love the taste and it will make me feel happy. (Emotion)
– You walk into your local newsagent and see a Mars bar for $3. You ask yourself…Wow $3. Could get it cheaper in another shop. (Logic)
– But its right here and I don’t have to look around or go anywhere else…and anyway it tastes so good, and it will make me feel happy if I get it now…so I’ll buy it. (Emotion)
It would be the same process if you were to buy a car. The Logic may take a bit longer (you might have a shop around for a while to justify the spend) but you will always buy the car based on the emotional reason you were initially inspired by.
Knowing this as a salesperson, is invaluable. And if you Vaccinate the conversation, you will reduce the “Logic time” in the above equation.
Here is what I mean by Vaccinations. In medical terms they are a preventative measure, where a vaccine is administered to prevent an illness. Whereas an Antibiotic, is medicine which is taken post diagnosis. Vaccine before, V’s Antibiotic after.
In sales terms…a Vaccine is a conversation outlining the benefits through success stories which overcome objections before they are brought up. The Antibiotic is when the salesperson overcomes objections after they are voiced.
A good salesperson will have plenty of success stories and will use them to prevent objections arising during the sales conversation. Vaccinate the sales objection rather than provide antibiotics for the same concerns.
Eg.
Salesperson: I have a client who is based 50km away from our office. To this day he still makes the trip to see us each month, as we help to grow his business by 30% each year.
Buyer: I had a concern about the distance between our two businesses. Not anymore…
Salesperson: One of our clients in your industry is receiving a return of over 80% in increased revenue and is only paying $X.
Buyer: I had a concern about cost. Not anymore…
Salesperson: Most of our clients receive returns inside the first month…we work with them very closely during this time to speed up results.
Buyer: I had a concern about speed of delivery / success times. Not anymore…
So, you can see here that by Vaccinating the concerns before they arise helps reduce the Logic Time in the buyer’s process and speeds up the sales result.
Your takeaway is to have Success Stories ready which you can use like this. Vaccinating common concerns you come across. Success stories addressing …
- Time
- Distance
- Cost
- Quality
- Size
- Speed
Then deliver them during the sales conversation as you anticipate the buyer’s concern. After all, Prevention is better than cure.
I’d love to hear your feedback on how you went with this and as always…I’m always happy to help.