Objection handling means responding to the buyer in a way that changes their thoughts or alleviates their concerns. However, when a lead presents a concern about the product or service a salesperson is selling, the lead converter responds in a way that soothes those concerns, allowing the deal to close. Objections are related to product fit, price, or competitors. Sometimes, the objections are an excellent old-fashioned brush-off.
Some bump head with their prospects or try to constrain them into backing down, but that kind of strong-arming isn’t true objection handling. Sometimes in those cases, prospects typically end up more convinced than ever of their position.
Rather than proving your leads they’re not right anymore, need to help out them come to a different conclusion at their own convenience. And if you can’t convince them, that’s a good sign they’re a poor fit.
How to handle Objections?
Handling objections is a natural and frustrating fact for salespersons. The process has certain actions and skills that every salesperson should have. Those include: –
Having Situational Awareness
You must have a solid feel for where you’re at in your sales process, the kind of deal you’re pursuing, and your lead’s needs and interests.
Understanding the situation that is converting a prospect’s objections is primary to address them productively. That’s why you need to maintain attention as your conversations with a prospect progress.
Accruing Extensive Background Information
Extensive background information informs effective, actionable situational awareness. Moreover, research your lead’s company and, to a certain extent, the prospect themself.
Kind of challenges is the company currently facing? What is their decision-making authority? What particulars of the company’s operations do on a day-to-day basis? If you get all of that and more, you’ll be in a solid position to tactfully handle objections.
Leading With Empathy
Objections are a primary part of sales. That’s why you need to avoid getting frustrated and impatient with your leads when they push back.
Empathy is the median for every successful sales effort. You shouldn’t sell to a lead for the sake of making money. You are able to sell your products or service to them because your product or service is best equipped. So you need to know their needs and interests in mind.
If you stay on top of their circumstances and problems and approach them with patience and empathy, you can set yourself up to count on the objections they might raise and address them effectively.
Asking Thoughtful, Open-Ended Questions
The ability to ask open-ended and be thoughtful can underscore every other point. All you need is to get to the root of your lead’s pain points.
Initiate the conversation by asking them relevant, tactful questions and giving them the space to discuss them. Avoid questions that have one word like, “yes or no” answers.
Let your buyers speak their thoughts. Feel out their concerns and put yourself in a position to pre-empt the objections they might raise.
LAER: The Bonding Process
A proven and effective method for objection handling is Carew International’s LEAR:- The Bonding Process. LAER involves four steps:-
- Listen
- Acknowledge
- Explore
- Respond.
When facing an objection, the first step is to “Listen” to it. By this, your customer comes to know that you are interested in their concern and care about them. The second step is to “acknowledge” your customer’s concern. This is where you illustrate you have been actively listening and feel the problem they are facing. A sincere acknowledgment can circumvent an argument. Sometimes, your customers just want feedback to know, if are they being listened to.
Explore is the third step that concerns underlying your customer’s objection. It’s essential that you understand exactly what your customer meant by what they said.
The final step is “Respond”. Once you have a complete understanding of your customer’s objection, you can offer your response in the form of a recommendation, an alternative solution, or a next step designed to point to the customer’s concern and windup the transaction.
For sales professionals, objection handling doesn’t have to be a painful activity. Instead, objections should be viewed as opportunities to help your customer and grow your relationship with them.
Why is objection handling important?
Nothing is more harmful to a deal than letting sales objections go unaddressed until the final stages. With this in mind, welcome objections rather than avoid them. You can identify them as well by periodically asking questions like:-
- “How much sure do you feel you’d see success from the product? Why?”
- “You seem a little worried about the product. What are your thoughts and queries?”
