Sales and Sales Management Blog

The February monthly winner at Top 10 Sales Articles was Josiane Feigon’s “Sales Objections 2.0,” originally published at Salesopedia.  Josiane’s article is one of 12 monthly winners vying for Sales Article of the Year.

Top 10 Sales Articles selected the 10 best out of the thousands of articles published each week.  The weekly winners then went to head to head competition with each other, the best being named the Article of the Month.  Now, out of the over 500 articles nominated, the 12 monthly winners are now competing for Article of the Year honors.

Each day I’ll be posting one of the monthly winners.  Read them, then head over to Top 10 Sales Articles and vote for your favorite.  Better yet-go there now, read all 12 and cast your vote (for my article, of course).

Sales Objections 2.0
by Josiane Feigon

It all started a few years ago with Web 2.0, and now Sales 2.0 is the hot topic. What does this mean? Essentially, it means a complete transformation is taking place in our sales efforts, processes, tools, customers and markets, which all impact our sales cycle. As the customer’s buying cycle continues to evolve, their research of facts, pricing, and general understanding becomes more sophisticated. This means your selling process must start sooner and therefore, you can anticipate an increase in objections.

Introducing Sales Objections 2.0.

Expect more and more objections to arise in the following 5 categories:

• Need: We all know multiple initiatives are sitting on everyone’s agenda the remainder of this year and the urgency and need for your solution may easily take a back seat.

• Relationship: Although customers are more open to change than ever before, they also want to strengthen existing relationships with current vendors and partner with them in new ways. It may be tougher to displace the competition now.

• Authority: With more decision-makers involved in the process, more No-Po’s pop up each day. These are the people who have no power and no authority to make a purchasing decision.

• Product/Service: Although customers know more than ever before, they have less patience with anything too complicated and that lacks scalability and integration.

• Price: Next year is going to be a lean year so prepare for this objection.

How do you rebound? Here are some rebuttal strategies based on the category objection you may receive:

Need Category

• Qualify your prospects to uncover the impact of their organization to determine potential for a need

• Create a strong phone introduction that creates urgency

• Determine if the prospect really knows what you are calling about

• Call wide at different levels

Relationship Category:

• Establish trust and rapport

• Learn how to sell against your competition

• Determine if the prospect needs to be sold or educated first

• Call wide at different levels

Ability Category:

• Understand the various authority levels and learn the chain of command to include more decision-makers

• Present your product and align it to their “hot buttons”

• Early in the sale, set expectations that you plan to align at the highest level

Product/Service Category:

• Provide opportunities to educate on your product/service

• Provide a cost-effective solution for easy entry

• Ask precision questions

• Neutralize their fears by providing added value for what you can deliver

Price Category:

• Qualify price versus ownership

• Determine if this is really a strong prospect who has potential

• Spend more time creating value and less time talking about budget

• Call at the highest level and learn the purchasing criteria