How you handle customer sales objections can be the major influence on your success or failure in making a sale.

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To read the first part, click here: Sales Training in Sydney: How to Overcome Common Objections Part 1

Anyone can sell to a customer who is on a mission to make a purchase. Selling to someone who is determined only to buy when they are convinced of a good deal is a far bigger test.

Basic Strategies for Overcoming Sales Objections

Before you can respond to a suggestion, you need to understand the real reasons behind it. You might discover the following;

• The customer can’t afford your product.
• The customer doesn’t like your product.
• The customer has strong personal ties to another vendor.

In these situations, it is probably not worth responding to a customer’s objections. Nothing you say will change the customer’s mind. If they cannot afford the product, then they cannot afford it. Short of you giving them the money, you cannot influence that and if you cannot extend the payment terms then there is nothing more to say.

If they don’t like the product, you can offer alternatives but these may not have much relevance. If their objection is related to having strong personal ties to another vendor in Sydney, then they may well already have made their mind up – but it is worth considering an approach based on the idea that a change is often a good idea.

If the sales objections are less “firm” then they do have the potential to be turned to your advantage. If the objection is based on cost, then look at creative ways around that. It may be that they do not want to spend so much in one go.

A payment plan may be the quickest way around this. A certain amount each month might be something they are prepared to do. You can also look at how much money the deal might save them over time. Saying “Yes, $300 sounds like a lot, but when you consider how much use you will get from the product and how much it will save you, it works out quite reasonably” can help.

If the customer is reluctant to purchase because they feel that the product does not meet their needs, get their needs ironed out and explain how the product does just that. It may be a good idea to call on your experience and mention that another customer had the same objections, but the purchase worked out for them in the end and now they swear by it.

You can always embellish on a story if you can base that embellishment in something which holds up to analysis. The key point is to emphasise that the product has many more benefits than negative aspects, and to chip away at the negative aspects by presenting ways around them.

Advanced Strategies for Overcoming Sales Objections

Here are some possible questions you might ask in response to customer objections:

• That’s more than I wanted to spend.
  How much were you thinking of spending?
  Do you know about the trade-off between price and reliability?
• I’m not ready to make a decision.
  What additional information would be helpful to you?
• I’m not sure this product is right for us.
  What features are you looking for?
• I’d like to shop around some more.
  What other brands are you considering?
• I’m too busy to make a decision right now.
  When can we get together when you have more time?

These questions might not help you close a sale, but they will at least keep the discussion going. It’s important not to push too hard with questions like these.

You want to come across more as a consultant than a salesperson. Even though the customer is a customer and you are a salesperson, if they feel like they are being “sold to” rather than dealt with like a human being, they will be far more likely to walk away from the sale. You need to remove the dollar signs in your eyes. This is where it is essential to maintain a balance between being a professional sales person in Sydney and acting as a friend.

Some salespeople make the mistake of trying to be too “friendly” and chatting to every customer as though they were at the pub. While this may work for some customers, it will usually backfire in most situations.

You are in the position of a specialist. If you were about to go in for surgery, you would not want the consultant to look down the list of symptoms and “jokingly” quip “Do you know any good undertakers?” While sales and surgery are clearly different, it is worth bearing in mind that the customer is not parting with money lightly.

A trained salesperson turns reluctant customers into happy customers.

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