“Ask a clarifying question, gather some additional context, and then respond.” – Mike Simmons in today’s Tip 513
How do you handle objections?
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Transcript
Scott Ingram: You’re listening to the Daily Sales Tips podcast and I’m your host, Scott Ingram. Today’s tip comes from Mike Simmons. Mike is the Founder of Catalyst Sale a full-service Sales Operations and Enablement Consultancy and he also hosts a podcast with the same name. The Catalyst Sale. Here’s Mike:
Mike Simmons: How do you handle objections? This is one of the most common questions that’s out there. And there are so many fricking opinions about how to handle objections. My approach, the one that I recommend and it can be frustrating for a number of folks. So I think the tone is really important and intent is really important.
But anytime someone has an objection, if I’m on point, sometimes I screw up and sometimes I miss this, but anytime somebody has an objection, what I try to do is respond to the question and all I’m doing is I’m trying to clarify it. And you know, Chris Voss talks about it in his masterclass around negotiation and I know a couple of you are fans of his stuff, and I think he’s absolutely awesome. And if you’ve not watched the masterclass, you should, if you’ve not read, never split the difference you should. If you’ve not listened to some of his stuff that he shares on his podcast and in places where he’s been a guest, you should.
So let’s say that the objection is pricing. That’s insane your price is too high. We’re never going to pay that well. Okay. What do you mean too high, how? What we’re trying to do is we’re trying to gather some information rather than come through and the most common one on prices. Well, if you compare us to others in the marketplace, this is how we’ve gone for pricing. They don’t care about that right now. Let’s get demonstrate to them that we’re actually listening, that we’ve heard the challenge that they’re bringing up and that we’re not actually guessing on what it is that they’re looking for. Maybe the objection is, the content is just too remedial. I’m looking for something that’s a little bit more interactive from any learning perspective.
Well, why is that interactive from what perspective, how do you see your end-users, the people inside the organization, actually using the product. Once we get a little bit more information, then we can actually respond again in context. But the other thing that I’m trying to do is try to kind of like what we talk about with the territory plan stuff. I’m trying to get the customer to make a decision, share information with us so that I’m reacting to that piece of information, not reacting or guessing to the broader thing that they just asked for.
So take away from this is when handling objections, don’t handle them. Don’t respond. Don’t turn that into, I’m going to go ahead and I’m going to share information about why, what you’re thinking is not correct. Ask a clarifying question. Don’t be a jerk about it, but ask a clarifying question, gather some additional context and then respond to that one. Unless when they clarify another thing pops up in there and it makes sense to ask another question. I wouldn’t ask more than two questions after the objection, but certainly, ask at least one and don’t just respond to it.
Scott Ingram: For more about Mike Simmons and the Catalyst Sale, just click over to DailySales.Tips/513 and we’ll have everything for you there.
Once you’ve done that, be sure to come back tomorrow for another great sales tip. Thanks for listening!