HOW MANY TIMES

Over the years that I have been in sales and have been a sales trainer, I have listened to or have been part of thousands of sales scenarios. From all of these experiences one thing has become very apparent to me, they all boil down to a small handful of different circumstances.

This is an important fact for every sales rep to know. It is what helps sales reps get past objections and barriers and allows us to make sales.

If reps had to come up with a new answer for every objection they encounter the closing averages would plummet. Being able to group objections together let’s reps have a much smaller list of answers to remember and lets us become better and better at delivering these answers.

Today I was riding with a rep that told me about a customer we were going to be stopping at next. He told me about how the customer was his customer at another company and how he had sold them so well on a product that even though he now carries a product that is virtually the same, the customer won’t change. He was a little frustrated about it but because the customer was becoming one of his top accounts he didn’t mind too much.

I talked to him about how bad it sounds to a customer when a rep changes companies and all of a sudden everything the customer was purchasing from the old company that the rep said was so great becomes average at best and the new product the rep carried is now the greatest product on earth.

The rep laughed and said he understood what I was saying but he still wished he could get the business. I absolutely agreed with him that I wanted him to have the business also, but he was just going to need to wait until the old company stumbled.

I gave him a great line that I was taught a long time ago. Tell the customer this, “Joe, I can’t tell you how impressed I am at your loyalty to XYZ company (old company name) I only hope that you will become as loyal to me and all the products I am selling you. But Joe, we both know that having depth is the key to winning. I would love to supply you with this product, and maybe by keeping it in the back of your mind that I carry it, you will look to me if XYZ Company ever stumbles. All I am asking is to be your backup. FAIR ENOUGH?”

This is only one example of having an answer to an objection. The same answer can be used when a customer tells you they have been buying from a company for a long time, or buying from the same rep for a long time. Three different scenarios and one answer covers them all perfectly.

If reps will group other objections together like this one example, getting past objections will be a breeze.

Lorin