When companies look to upgrade their B2B sales training, they must always empower their sales force on the intricacies of turning objections into opportunities. To be successful means a sales professional must be cognizant of what these customer objections are and how they are phrased by customers. What are customer objections? Are they clearly stated and immediate, or are some subtle and less obvious? Well, some are immediately obvious and to the point, while others are much more hidden and obscure. It’s these hidden customer objections that often hide a tremendous amount of information. Learning to listen for these subtle customer objections will point the way to identifying additional opportunities, and increasing sales.
Understand the Customer’s Stress
Sales professionals are counted on to grow business. The pressures sales professionals face often forces them to have tunnel vision. They become so committed to their cause, so focused on getting the sale, that they end up forgetting to listen to those subtle statements made by customers that point the way to more sales.
Instead, most sales professionals immediately ignore these customer objections. In fact, most never take the time to ask themselves what the customer’s real concerns are, or consequently, what they may be hiding. So, what are the most common customer objections?
1. The “I'm too busy to talk” Customer Objection
In order to have an idea of how these objections are stated, consider the following scenario. A sales person calls his/her customer to discuss a recent quotation. Immediately, the customer declares that now is not the time. The customer is extremely busy and not able to talk. Now, most sales people would simply assume that it’s best to call back at another time and will therefore proceed to schedule another call.
However, there is a simple and straightforward question that sales people can ask to deal with this well known customer objection. Sometimes it’s a customer delay tactic, but other times the customer is truly busy. However, the question then becomes, what does “too busy to talk” mean exactly? Well, here are a couple of explanations of what “too busy to talk” might mean.
The customer could be “too busy to talk” because:
- Of a newly awarded project that needs competitive proposals from vendors.
- A sudden increase in business.
- Quality issues that must be urgently addressed.
- Redundant work processes that make his/her job frustrating.
- Late vendor shipments.
- Personal issues.
There are a myriad of reasons why a customer might declare themselves to be “too busy to talk”. Some are geared towards the customer’s work load, some are personal reasons and still others pertain to being busy because of additional business. However, knowing what this customer objection truly means is essential to gaining insight into the customer’s stress. A common question to ask in such a case might be: “Good busy as in new business, or bad busy as in problems?”
Granted, sometimes you can immediately sense the customer’s stress. It’s up to you as a B2B sales professional to understand when and how to ask the above question. If your relationship with the customer is strong, and you can sense that they can answer this question without getting upset, then go ahead and ask it. There’s nothing at all wrong with asking what “too busy to talk” means. The customer’s answer might provide insight into how to alleviate their stress. If handled properly, it can provide insight into possible avenues you can use to help the customer.
One of the best ways to handle customer scare tactics and threats is to confront them head-on. To read more, please see: Five Sales Competencies Every B2B Salesperson Must Master
2. The “your price is too high” Customer Objection
If there was ever a customer objection in B2B sales that immediately put sales professionals on the defensive, this one would be it. What does a customer mean when they use the customer objection “your price is too high”? More importantly, what are sales people suppose to do when confronted with this type of customer objection? First, understand that what the customer is really saying is that saving money is a priority. Your product’s price may be higher priced than the competition, but can it save this customer money through cost-per-use?
When sales professionals are confronted with this customer objection, they must be aware of its true meaning. Every customer wants to save money. Once you realize that their main concern is saving money, you then open the door to a number of different approaches to helping them accomplish this goal. To read more about how to handle this customer objection, you can read the following two posts:
Sales Negotiation Training: Other Ways to Save Customers Money
Sales Negotiation Training: Cost-Per-Use Product Sales Strategies
3. The “we’ve tried you guys before” Customer Objection
Every company makes mistakes. If every company was judged solely on its errors, and never on its success, then repeat business would rarely happen. For some customers these mistakes are easy to forget. This is especially true when your company has a longstanding relationship with a given customer. However, when mistakes are made with new customers, ones who don’t have the same history with your company, this can sometimes be difficult to overcome.
When confronted with the customer objection of “we’ve tried you guys before”, take the time to ask about what went wrong from the customer’s perspective and why. Next, make it clear to this customer that while you can’t change the past, you can ensure this particular mistake will be dealt with more professionally in the future.
It’s important to note that you can not guarantee mistakes won’t happen. As mentioned, mistakes happen all the time in business, for all kinds of reasons. Guaranteeing that mistakes will never happen again simply isn’t reasonable. Instead, your approach should be to ensure your customer that these issues will be better handled in the future.
When it comes to improving B2B sales training, it’s important to understand that these subtle, and not so subtle, customer objections can be handled in such a way as to open up opportunities. There are opportunities in almost every customer discussion. There may be opportunities to alleviate the customer’s stress, opportunities at increased sales, or even opportunities to right a wrong.
Take the time to identify these customer objections and develop approaches to deal with them head-on. The best sales professionals identify these objections and subtly take control of the sales process by developing specific strategies to reduce these customer fears and concerns.
If you are looking for some simple strategies that can help you defend your position as the incumbent supplier, then please read: Stop Losing Business to Overseas Competitors: Define Your Customer’s True Purchasing Costs
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