Handling Objections in Sales

Top Secrets of Marketing & Sales

Each time we're handling objections in sales, we should get better at it. Every sales call you have, every objection you ever receive, if you're able to document the primary questions and objections and concerns that you get, and you can properly document your best responses to that -- the ones that have gotten you the best results -- now you build up an arsenal of material that allows you to stage those responses up front, make them part of the presentation, part of the reason to buy from you rather than your competitor. David: Hi, and welcome back. In today's episode, co host Jay McFarland and I will discuss why salespeople struggle handling objections in sales. Welcome back, Jay. Jay: Hey, thank you, David. Another great discussion. I feel like we get into just kind of the same old responses, or we feel like at the first rejection, "Oh, that's a no. So I move on to the next person." David: Yeah, I give up when in fact, most objections indicate interest. And sometimes salespeople forget this. A lot of them know it and they forget it, but some don't even realize it. They think, okay, if they object, they don't like it. They don't want it. They reject me. They hate me. All these types of things. Most of which are not true. And maybe none of them are true. But when somebody objects or raises some sort of objection to what you say, it means, "okay, you have me interested enough to ask the question. Otherwise I would say, no, not interested at all. Thanks." So that's one important aspect of it, is that if you struggle handling objections in sales, part of it might just be your mindset. If you believe that an objection means non-interest, then you kind of shoot yourself in the foot to start out with. Jay: Yeah, such a great point. I think you have to convert your thinking a little bit and look at rejection or questions as an opportunity. This is kind of side thing, but you know, in the restaurant business where I started out, people were always afraid of customer complaints. And I always felt like these are an opportunity. They create an opportunity to build loyalty because none of us expect anybody to be perfect. Well, some people do, and some people you can't please, right? But they do expect you to resolve it. And so, I always felt like if I can really resolve this situation well, I build loyalty. Because they know that if they come here, they will be treated well. And I think rejections are the same depending on how you handle them. David: Yeah, no question. And what you talk about, rejections, especially if it's after they've received the service, right? If you come to a restaurant and you had a bad experience, that's an after the fact, then it's remedial. You have to fix that. In a sales situation, they haven't tried the food yet, right? So this is up front, this would be like, well, why should I even come into your restaurant in the first place? And that's where you've got to be able to have your messaging dialed in to the point where it makes such perfect sense for them to choose the right option, as far as you're concerned. To come into the restaurant or to take advantage of whatever it is that you offer, that they will give you a shot. So when people struggle handling objections in sales, in some cases, it's that they haven't documented the objections they've gotten in the past. And if you don't come up with answers, to the things that come up again, and again, and again, that is really a bad sign. I've seen this recently on TV. I try never to talk politics on this podcast, but sometimes people ask the same question over and over and they never come up with a good answer to it. Jay: Yeah. David: And that doesn't make sense. What you need to be able to do when you sell yourself, when you sell your business, when you sell an idea, is you need to be able to identify what are the most common questions I get? What are the most common complaints or objections that I get ab...