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Objections

How to Overcome Objections

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This is the third in a series on Handling Objections—often the most challenging step in the sales process. Once you can recognize and respond to objections, the next step is learning how to move through them and actually overcome them.

How do you overcome an objection?

In the last installment, we focused on how to respond—acknowledging the concern and asking for specifics. Those actions are necessary because they help you fully understand what’s behind the objection and set the stage for how t…

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The Objection Isn't the Problem. Your Response Is.

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This is the second in a series on Handling Objections—often the most challenging step in the sales process. Once you can recognize an objection, the next step is knowing how to respond to it effectively.

How should you respond?

The best way to respond to an objection is counterintuitive.

Most immediate reactions don’t work. There’s a tendency to try to make the objection go away, to over-explain, or to convince the prospect they are wrong or misinformed. Sometimes objections are ignored or di…

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What is an objection...really?

This is the first in a series on Handling Objections—often the most challenging step in the sales process. Most people don’t struggle because objections are inherently difficult; they struggle because they don’t recognize them clearly in the moment.

Let’s start there.

What is an objection?

Recognizing an objection is the first step to overcoming it.

Prospects raise objections for a variety of reasons—because they are afraid or unsure of something, because something doesn’t align with wha…

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Goals Again

Yes. Goals again!

In most showrooms, December is rather quiet, with customers, clients and designers preparing for and celebrating the holidays. Prior to setting goals for the new year, December is a good month for evaluation and analysis if you didn’t do so in November. If not, see my November blogs for assistance.

Are you noticing any resistance to writing goals for next year? Do you have any sense that you don’t really need to do write goals? Perhaps you feel that you have figured out a p…

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Guardrails #1

In the very simplest of terms, as a sales professional, our job is to make it easy for our customers/clients to say yes… and to buy from us. 
To do that, we need to truly be responsible for the entire sales interaction and how it goes, and where it ends up.
Guardrails help that. 

By guardrails, I mean guiding the conversation so that it doesn’t veer off course and stays in the lane for the intended outcome. Guardrails include asking questions that will direct the discussion and get the answer…

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Practice – the rewards

I need to bring the topic back around to selling.

Ah, the practice of selling. It is a practice. There are so many elements: the practice of setting goals, the practice of connecting with strangers, the practice of asking discovery questions, the practice of presenting solutions to customer priorities, the practice of handling objections, the practice of asking for a commitment, the practice of being silent and still, the practice of follow up and outreach, the practice of organizing your bus…

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Asking for the Commitment…are you asking enough?

Here’s a question…when you KNOW that the solution you presented is spot on, and the customer agrees…and yet they have a question or a concern – which you overcome, do you then ask for the sale?
And if they hesitate or say: ‘I want to think about it,’ do you manage it and ask for the sale again?
And if the sale is not forthcoming, do you ask for and get an appointment – to ask for the sale again?

Okay, this might seem like waaaayyyyy too much for you. You may call it too aggressive. Too inse…

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Handling Objections…what is enough?

Let’s extend developing our questioning skills to include handling objections.
As we evaluate our relationship to objections, it’s important to look at the reaction to objections and the response to the objection. They are separate yet related actions.

Ask yourself: Do I really know what they are concerned about…or am I assuming I know? Do I accept their concern as valid – and maybe even agree with them? Do I understand their concern, and do I have a response to address it and move beyond i…

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Asking…enough… Questions

How do you know if you have asked enough questions?
What is it you want to know? And are you asking the questions that will find that out?
As salespeople, we can all expect to learn more and ask better questions as we continue to develop our skills.
One of the clues that you are not asking enough questions is that objections arise when you try to close. What are the objections that consistently come up for you?

Or equally important, do you know where your buyer is in their buying process…

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Objections to Appointments

When we are committed to the process and the outcomes of making appointments, we need to prepare for the objections that come with them…so that when they happen – and they will!.. we are ready with a response that will turn that objection around to make the appointment.

A few of the most common objections and responses are:

“I am busy and will just pop back in.”
“I can understand that…and what many of my clients/customers/designers have found is that by scheduling a time to meet again, …

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